Re: [tied] Reconstructing a future language

----- Original Message -----
From: <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Reconstructing a future language



> Explain.
>
> Torsten

It's shared innovations and their order that count, not overall similarity. To give an example from zoology, elephants and tenrecs are more closely related to each other than either group is to shrews, moles or hedgehogs, but morphologically tenrecs "cluster" with shrews, moles, hedgehogs and other "insectivores", and were until recently classified among them. Crocodiles are more closely related to birds than to lizards.

Piotr