----- Original Message -----
From: "H.M. Hubey" <hubeyh@...>
To: <Nostratica@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 12:09 AM
Subject: Re: [Nostratica] Proto-Celtic
>
> Proto-AB --+--A
> |
> `--B
>
> What if A is still identical to AB and that it was only B that innovated and branched off? It seems we should
> correct the model.
This (no change at all in one of the branches) is unlikely to happen in practice, but even if it did happen, a split is a split even if one of the descendent languages is identical with the parent (or, more realistically, very similar to it). A, like B, is _later_ than Proto-AB, no matter how similar they are. The diagram shows phylogenetic relations between taxa and is not intended to reflect their overall similarity.
Actually this hits upon something very concrete. It is the reconstruction methodology. Even today, it is fog upon fog (to paraphrase Weyl).
What is done implicitly is to "optimize" something. In physics, economics, the problem has been cast into the form of
a "minimization". In any case, the methodology seems to be some kind of an averaging, or majority vote.
The fact is that there is no reason why if speakers of a language split physically, one of them can change rapidly while the
other continues without change for some time. Over long periods, it is likely that all will suffer change. But over shorter
periods, the relationship of mother-daughter and aunt-niece will also develoop. Over long periods, it will extend to
grand-aunt, etc.
A language may differ from "itself", i.e. from any of its different chronological "stages". If X is a language evolving anagenetically (i.e. changing but not splitting), we normally use a single label for all its stages, just adding prefixes or adjectives like "Pre-X", "Old X", "Middle X" or "Modern X" for the sake of practical convenience (of course in reality such stages grade into one another and there are no natural boundaries between them).
That is because you do not find those that branched off. What I am writing about is theory, and facts have to fit into theoretical
pigeonholes.
Piotr
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