From: ehlsmith
Message: 46710
Date: 2006-12-22
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@...> wrote:
.............
> "Thus a language family can be the product of divergence, convergence
> or a combination of the two (with emphasis on either).
There are historically attested cases of language families which are
products of divergence. Can you provide any attested case of a family
resulting from convergence?
There are
> virtually no criteria that would indicate unambiguously to which of
> the two modes of development a family owes its existence. When we are
> dealing with languages so closely related that almost all the elements
> of vocabulary and morphology of each are present in all or most of the
> other members (allowing for sound correspondences), it is more natural
> to assume convergence than divergence (Trubetskoy 2001, p. 89)."
Why???
Ned Smith