Re: [tied] Re: Automatic clustering of languages

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 48251
Date: 2007-04-04

At 11:14:28 on Wednesday, 4 April 2007, mkelkar2003 wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 11:35:14 PM on Tuesday, April 3, 2007, mkelkar2003 wrote:

>>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
>>> <richard@> wrote:

>>>> Note that in the schemes presented, regular
>>>> correspondences get no discount - each word pays the full
>>>> cost of the sound change!

>>> That *is* the correct way to classify with complete
>>> objectivity.

>> No, it's a counsel of ignorance.

>>> If regular corrospondences are assumed to indicate genetic
>>> relation, then these same genetic relations cannot be used
>>> to decide what is regular and what is not regular.

>> You can rest easy: they aren't. Regularities are
>> independently observable.

> Not all regularities are a result of genetic descent.

True. So? This has no bearing on your idiotic claim of
circularity.

Brian