LINGUIST List 5.1288

Sun 13 Nov 1994

Disc: Comparative Method

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1. William Poser, comparative method

The recent discussion of limitations on the comparative method
contained several assertions that such limitations had been and
were being used to justify resistance to proposals of remote
relationships, including Amerind and Nostratic. To my knowledge
this is absolutely false. In every instance that I am aware of
in which perceived temporal limitations on the comparative method
have been mentioned, it is by way of explaining why it is there are
no relationships beyond a certain degree of remoteness on which
there is consensus, or by way of making predictions as to what
historical linguistics will ultimately be able to achieve. I do not
know of a single instance in which someone has argued:

 Such and such a proposed relationship is associated
 with a time-depth of X years. This exceeds the
 temporal limits of the comparative method. Therefore
 the proposal must be wrong.

If anyone can provide evidence of such an argument being made I would
be most interested.

In the particular case of Amerind, the objections have been two-fold:

(a) the data is riddled with errors;
(b) the argument is not of a sort that most historical linguists
 consider probative.

Since Greenberg and Ruhlen do not apply the comparative method
disbelief in their claims could not rationally be based on perceived
limitations of the comparative method, nor has it been. Ironically,
even if Greenberg and Ruhlen did attempt to apply the comparative
method, Amerind would not provide a very good instance of the above
hypothetical argument. Since even conservative estimates of the
time-depth possible with the comparative method range from 6-10KY,
cand since Greenberg and Ruhlen adhere to the low chronology for the
peopling of the Americas that places it at roughly 12KY BP, their
date for Amerind does not radically exceed the perceived limits of
the comparative method.

In sum, whatever the validity of proposed temporal limits on the
comparative method, and I agree that such limits are far from exact,
the view that this has anything to do with reactions to Greenberg's
work on Amerind and similar work is a red-herring. To evaluate
such proposals, look at the data and look at the methodology,
not at the alleged (and generally unknowable) motivations of the
critics. You'd think that the irrelevance of ad hominem arguments
except in matters of credibility of witnesses would not need to be
repeated constantly.

Bill Poser

Bill Poser, First Nations Studies, University of Northern British Columbia,
3333 University Way, Prince George, British Columbia, V2N 4Z9, Canada
604-960-6692