[tied] Re: Automatic clustering of languages

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>
> At 11:35:14 PM on Tuesday, April 3, 2007, mkelkar2003 wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> > <richard@> wrote:
>
> >> Note that in the schemes presented, regular
> >> correspondences get no discount - each word pays the full
> >> cost of the sound change!
>
> > That *is* the correct way to classify with complete
> > objectivity.
>
> No, it's a counsel of ignorance.
>
> > If regular corrospondences are assumed to indicate genetic
> > relation, then these same genetic relations cannot be used
> > to decide what is regular and what is not regular.
>
> You can rest easy: they aren't. Regularities are
> independently observable.
>
> Brian

Not all regularities are a result of genetic descent. See p. 89

http://books.google.com/books?
id=QBFPiT4dUQQC&pg=PR11&lpg=PR11&dq=kruskal+dyen+black&sig=yOpWhN34c71
kXn1jusmvSqxmt3k#PPA89,M1

English street and German strasse exhibit "regular" corrospodence but
they are both loans from Latin. This kind of loaning is possbile to
detect only when written histories of langauges are available. If
PIE is assumed to be spoken 6000 years ago "regular" corrspondences
could come from 100% genetic decent or 0% genetic descent.

M. kelkar