--- In Nostratica@yahoogroups.com,
"H.M. Hubey" <hubeyh@...> wrote:
>
>
> Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
>
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "H.M. Hubey"
<hubeyh@...>
> > To:
<Nostratica@yahoogroups.com>
> > Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003
11:24 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Nostratica]
Proto-Celtic
> >
> >
> >
> > > If languages change at
different rates, then some of the
present-day
> > languages could actually be
aunts, or grand-aunts of others
instead of
> > being sisters. Is that not
logical?
> >
> > Sort of, to the extent that
human-family-based metaphors are
> > applicable to cladistic models.
Technically, we speak of
"sisterhood"
> > between taxa A and B if A and B
have the same _immediate_ ancestor,
> > that is when the last common
ancestor of A and B split into A
and B
> > and nothing else:
> >
> > Proto-AB --+--A
> > |
> > `--B
>
> What if A is still identical to
AB and that it was only B that
innovated
> and branched off? It seems we
should
> correct the model.
I think this is a question for
palaeontologists rather than
linguists. While it does happen in
biology, I think the only instances
in language occur when a language
becomes a 'classical' language,
such as French and Latin. Even
then, Mediaeval Latin did have its
own innovations.
Richard.
End--of--Message---
> >
> > A and B may be atomic taxa
("languages") or
clades("branches").
> >
> > Piotr
> >
> >
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