From: CeiSerith@...
Message: 18411
Date: 2003-02-04
Any language conservative in some crucial respects will appear to be a "favourite daughter" in an analysis that merely counts shared traits (this is why PIE appears to be closer to Latin and Italian _within_ Romance than they all are to French). In the experiment described by the McMahons and Lohr some rather conservative languages (e.g. Lithuanian, Sanskrit, Avestan) are missing (not to mention the act that Hittite, Tocharian and Armenian are not included either), so the _selection_ is seriously skewed in the first place.
I'm wondering if there would be an answer that would be acceptable. Is reconstructed PIE supposed to be exactly as related to one branch as it is to any other? That expectation seems a bit silly to me.
David Fickett-Wilbar