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uclink.berkeley.edu>Alexis Manaster-Ramer, writing on Aug. 31 about upper limits on the comparative method, says: >In her book, Nichols (1992) gives 8000 as the limit in one place >(p. 6) but 10,000 in another (p. 184). In neither of these places >does she give any argument or reference. In a third place, she >gives no number, but does cite two references (one of which I have >yet to check, the other being unpublished): > > The notion of a cut-off point beyond [read: up to] which the > standard comparative method applies, and up to (but not > beyond) which we have regular systematic sound correspondences > and a substantial etymological base, is articulated in similar > terms in a number of works (e.g., Austerlitz 1980; Jacobsen > 1989....), but available language surveys rarely identify this > cutoff point.... [See his posting for his references.] There seem to be three criticisms here: inconsistency about ceiling cited, no argument, no references. I actually gave what I thought was an adequate characterization of the evidence and argument early on: "But the comparative method does not apply at time depths much greater than about 8000 years (this is the conventional age of Afroasiatic, which seems to represent the upper limit of detectability by traditional historical method) ..." (pp. 2-3) The limit of 10,000 is mentioned this way: "Since the comparative method is valid only for time depths up to about 10,000 years..." (184) "Not much greater than about 8000" and "up to about 10,000" aren't really different quantities, given that both are rounded and qualified as approximate. The passage quoted by Manaster Ramer (from my p. 265), and the others he mentions, deal with sample design and typological research method, and weren't intended to describe comparative-historical method in detail. The two references I cited in don't purport to compute the limits of the comparative method and weren't offered as references on that question. Both are surveys of genetic groupings in North America (+ elsewhere) that require a controlled time depth and use the deepest groupings uncontroversially identified by the standard comparative method as that time depth. To my knowledge, everyone who has cited an upper limit on the comparative method has arrived at it in the same way. The oldest uncontroversial genetic groupings are ones like Indo-European, Uralic, Austronesian, etc., all of which are in the ballpark of 6000 years old. Afroasiatic is said to be ca. 8000 years old, and seems to be generally uncontroversial as a genetic grouping although there has been debate over whether and to what extent it admits identification of regular sound correspondences and reconstruction. Groupings appreciably older than these have been proposed -- traditional Nostratic, Hokan, etc. -- but their status as genetic groupings is not uncontroversial (though there seems to be little doubt about their basic plausibility). The age beyond which the standard comparative method ceases to yield usable results is the age beyond which one ceases to get uncontroversial genetic groupings. (An uncontroversial genetic grouping is one for which comparativists can assemble or have assembled evidence that unambiguously identifies a unique individual protolanguage and thereby establishes a particular line of genetic descent. Controversial groupings are ones for which that evidence has not been or cannot be assembled. This doesn't mean that one can't find lexical resemblances and even correspondences in a controversial grouping; it merely means that, in seeking them, one is applying to an unproven grouping the method developed for reconstruction in known families.) Whether linguists cite 7000, 8000, or 10,000 years as the upper limit on the comparative method depends on such things as what families they have in mind, what ages they assume for them, and how round a number they are aiming for. It's all the same technique. Glottochronology has about the same limit and for the same reason: gradual loss of the shared elements that define genetic relatedness. If the comparative method worked well and reliably up to (say) 12,000 years, then there would be language families which we could easily see were twice as old as Indo-European and which were as widely accepted by historical linguists as Indo-European is. There aren't such groupings; at that time depth all we have is candidates, hypotheses, and debated groupings. Ergo, the comparative method fades out somewhere after the age of Indo-European. It fades out gradually: after about 6000 years we lose (uncontroversial) reconstructibility but can still demonstrate relatedness (as with Afroasiatic); after about 8000 years we can't demonstrate relatedness but can still get general consensus on likely candidates (e.g. some or all of traditional Nostratic as the most likely sisters for Indo-European). If dating techniques or the received ages of uncontroversial families change, then estimates of the upper limit of the comparative method's efficacy will also change, since the estimates are just upward roundings of the received ages.Mail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue