Re: [tied] Re: searching for common words for all today's languages

>> * absurdly generous criteria for phonological matches;

> Applying the above objections to the idea is a categorial mistake,
> they must apply to the individual members

Only partly. If in one pair you suggest /t/ is related to /d/, and in
another you suggest /t/ is related to /T/ and in another you suggest /t/ is
related to /d/, and in another....., then you get the "absurdly generous
criteria". You can't tackle a single pair on its own, if you want to reveal
that almost any dental phoneme is supposed to be related to almost any
other, and so on.

Peter