Re: [tied] Reconstructing a future language

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:

>
> >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.
>
> And rightly so. But depending how you count, there are 6 - 12 main
> branches, and it would be equally silly to reconstruct PIE without

including

> all of them, and also silly in a purely statistical computer

algorithm to

> include 20 examples from one branch and only one from another. Real
> linguists can take into account the fact that evidence from Italian

and

> Spanish cannot count as heavily as evidence from Italian and

Russian, but a

> simple statistical computer program can't. Whe we learn that the

entire I-I

> branch was omitted, we have some questions to ask about the

validity of any

> result.
>
> Peter

Perhaps I should clarify about the article (Piotr was right about its
identity): the PIE mentioned is not one constructed by the algorithm,
but us everybody's, standard reconstructed PIE.

Torsten