Edited by Mauro Tosco
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 339] 2018
► pp. 41–57
Wordlists as short as 100 words fail to provide the fullest lexicostatistical evidence for subclassification of a compact and numerous language group such as Ethiopian-Eritrean Semitic (ES). Analysis of a 250-word comparative wordlist of ES languages (Hudson 2013) provides new evidence on the subclassification of the family and the extent of ES borrowing from Agaw and East Cushitic. Prior studies on the subclassification of ES are only partly supported by the 250-word comparisons, where numbers of lexemes unique to subgroups provide new evidence for ES itself and its generally recognized subgroups but no evidence for traditional South ES, Hetzron’s ‘Outer South’, and ‘Transversal South’ groups. Nor is there evidence for the long-supposed extensive ES borrowing from Agaw.