Cover not available
Article published In:
Understanding language genealogy: Alternatives to the tree model
Edited by Siva Kalyan, Alexandre François and Harald Hammarström
[Journal of Historical Linguistics 9:1] 2019
► pp. 128–167

Save the trees

Why we need tree models in linguistic reconstruction (and when we should apply them)

| Centre des Recherches Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale
| Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

Skepticism regarding the tree model has a long tradition in historical linguistics. Although scholars have emphasized that the tree model and its long-standing counterpart, the wave theory, are not necessarily incompatible, the opinion that family trees are unrealistic and should be completely abandoned in the field of historical linguistics has always enjoyed a certain popularity. This skepticism has further increased with the advent of recently proposed techniques for data visualization which seem to confirm that we can study language history without trees. In this article, we show that the concrete arguments that have been brought up in favor of achronistic wave models do not hold. By comparing the phenomenon of incomplete lineage sorting in biology with processes in linguistics, we show that data which do not seem as though they can be explained using trees can indeed be explained without turning to diffusion as an explanation. At the same time, methodological limits in historical reconstruction might easily lead to an overestimation of regularity, which may in turn appear as conflicting patterns when the researcher is trying to reconstruct a coherent phylogeny. We illustrate how, in several instances, trees can benefit language comparison, although we also discuss their shortcomings in modeling mixed languages. While acknowledging that not all aspects of language history are tree-like, and that integrated models which capture both vertical and lateral language relations may depict language history more realistically than trees do, we conclude that all models claiming that vertical language relations can be completely ignored are essentially wrong: either they still tacitly draw upon family trees or they only provide a static display of data and thus fail to model temporal aspects of language history.

Keywords: tree model, Historical Glottometry, phylogenetic networks, incomplete lineage sorting
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Dendrophobia and dendrophilia in linguistics
    • 2.1Tree thinking in Schleicher’s work
    • 2.2Tree skepticism in the work of Schmidt and Schuchardt
    • 2.3Early arguments against the Stammbaumtheorie
  • 3.The new debate on trees and waves
    • 3.1Phylogenetic tree reconstruction after the quantitative turn
    • 3.2Linguistic data and data-display networks
    • 3.3Shared innovations and Historical Glottometry
  • 4.Saving the trees from the critics
    • 4.1Inherited variation and incomplete lineage sorting
      • 4.1.1Alternations
      • 4.1.2Proto-variation
      • 4.1.3Concluding remarks
    • 4.2The problem of identifying lexical innovations
      • 4.2.1Undetectable borrowings
      • 4.2.2Nativization of loanwords
  • 5.The benefit of trees in language comparison
    • 5.1Parallel innovations
    • 5.2Reconstruction of the Ursprache
    • 5.3Directionality of change
    • 5.4Common tendencies of language change
    • 5.5Language change and migration history
  • 6.The limits of the tree model
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 2 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.17008.mat
References

References

Aikio, Ante
2006 Etymological Nativization of Loanwords: A Case Study of Saami and Finnish. Saami Linguistics ed. by Ida Toivonen & Diane Nelson, 17–52. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Antonov, Anton
2015 The Obviative as a Differential Object Marker in Michif. Paper presented at 11th Biennial Conference of the Association for Linguistic Typology, Albuquerque, USA, August 1–3, 2015.
Anttila, Raimo
1972 An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Atkinson, Quentin D. & Russell D. Gray
2006 How Old is the Indo-European Language Family? Illumination or More Moths to the Flame? Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages ed. by Peter Forster & Colin Renfrew, 91–109. Cambridge/Oxford/Oakville: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Bakker, Peter
1997 A Language of Our Own: The Genesis of Michif, the Mixed Cree-French Language of the Canadian Metis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Baxter, William H.
2006 Mandarin Dialect Phylogeny. Cahiers de Linguistique – Asie Orientale 35:1.71–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ben Hamed, Mahé
2005 Neighbour-Nets Portray the Chinese Dialect Continuum and the Linguistic Legacy of China’s Demic History. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 272:1567.1015–1022. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ben Hamed, Mahé & Feng Wang
2006 Stuck in the Forest: Trees, Networks, and Chinese Dialects. Diachronica 23:1.29–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bloomfield, Leonard
1973 Language. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Blust, Robert
1999 Subgrouping, Circularity, and Extinction: Some Issues in Austronesian Comparative Linguistics. Selected Papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics ed. by Elizabeth Zeitoun & Paul Jen-kuei Li, 31–94. Taipei: Academia Sinica.Google Scholar
Bonfante, Giuliano
1931 I dialetti indoeuropei. Annali del R. Istituto Orientale di Napoli 41.69–185.Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire
2010 Historical Linguistics in Australia: Trees, Networks and Their Implications. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 365:1559.3845–3854.Google Scholar
Brugmann, Karl
1884 Zur Frage nach den Verwandtschaftsverhältnissen der indogermanischen Sprachen. Internationale Zeischrift für allgemeine Sprachewissenschaft 11.228–256.Google Scholar
1890 Grundriß der vergleichenden grammatik der indogermanischen sprachen, Vol. 21. Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner.Google Scholar
1967[1886] Einleitung und Lautlehre: vergleichende Laut-, Stammbildungs- und Flexionslehre der indogermanischen Sprachen. Berlin, Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bryant, David, Flavia Filimon & Russell D. Gray
2005 Untangling Our Past: Languages, Trees, Splits and Networks. The Evolution of Cultural Diversity: A Phylogenetic Approach ed. by Ruth Mace, Clare J. Holden & Stephen Shennan, 67–84. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Bryant, David & Vincent Moulton
2004 Neighbor-Net: An Agglomerative Method for the Construction of Phylogenetic Networks. Molecular Biology and Evolution 21:2.255–265. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bugge, Sophus
1855 Die formen der geschlechtslosen persönlichen pronomina in den germanischen sprachen. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete des Deutschen, Griechischen und Lateinischen 4:4.241–256.Google Scholar
Burlak, Svetlana Anatol’evna & Sergej Anatol’evič Starostin
2005 Sravnitel’no-istoričeskoe jazykoznanie. Moscow: Akademia.Google Scholar
Campbell, Lyle
1999 Historical Linguistics: An Introduction (Second Edition). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, Lyle & Mauricio Mixco
2007 A Glossary of Historical Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Chacon, Thiago Costa & Johann-Mattis List
2015 Improved Computational Models of Sound Change Shed Light on the History of the Tukanoan Languages. Journal of Language Relationship 13:3.177–204.Google Scholar
Chrétien, C. Douglas
1963 Shared Innovations and Subgrouping. International Journal of American Linguistics 29:1.66–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Costa, David J.
2013 Borrowing in Southern Great Lakes Algonquian and the History of Potawatomi. Anthropological Linguistics 55:3.195–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dagan, Tal & William Martin
2006 The Tree of One Percent. Genome Biology 7:10.118. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Darwin, Charles
1859 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
De Laet, Jan E.
2005 Parsimony and the Problem of Inapplicables in Sequence Data. Parsimony, Phylogeny, and Genomics ed. by Victor A. Albert, 81–116. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dyen, Isidore
1953 Review of the book Malgache et maanjan: Une comparaison linguistique by Otto Chr. Dahl. Language 29:4.577–590. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fleischhauer, Jens
2009 A Phylogenetic Interpretation of the Comparative Method. Journal of Language Relationship 21.115–138.Google Scholar
François, Alexandre
2008 Semantic Maps and the Typology of Colexification: Intertwining Polysemous Networks Across Languages. From Polysemy to Semantic Change ed. by Martine Vanhove, 163–215. (= Studies in Language Companion Series, 106.) Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 Trees, Waves and Linkages: Models of Language Diversification. The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics ed. by Claire Bowern & Bethwyn Evans, 161–189. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2016 The Historical Morphology of Personal Pronouns in Northern Vanuatu. Faits de Langues 471.25–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gabelentz, Hans Georg C.
1891 Die Sprachwissenschaft. Leipzig: T. O. Weigel.Google Scholar
Galtier, Nicolas & Vincent Daubin
2008 Dealing With Incongruence in Phylogenomic Analyses. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 363:1512.4023–4029. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geisler, Hans & Johann-Mattis List
2010 Beautiful Trees on Unstable Ground: Notes on the Data Problem in Lexicostatistics. Die Ausbreitung des Indogermanischen. Thesen aus Sprachwissenschaft, Archäologie und Genetik ed. by Heinrich Hettrich. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar
2013 Do Languages Grow on Trees? The Tree Metaphor in the History of Linguistics. Classification and Evolution in Biology, Linguistics and the History of Science: Concepts – Methods – Visualization ed. by Heiner Fangerau, Hans Geisler, Thorsten Halling & William Martin, 111–124. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Genetti, Carol
2007 A Grammar of Dolakha Newar. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goddard, Ives
1974 Dutch Loanwords in Delaware. A Delaware Indian Symposium ed. by Herbert C. Kraft, 153–160. Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.Google Scholar
Goebl, Hans
1983 Stammbaum und Welle. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 2:1.3–44.Google Scholar
Gong, Xun
2016 A Phonological History of Amdo Tibetan Rhymes. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 79:2.347–374. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gray, Russell D., David Bryant & Simon J. Greenhill
2010 On The Shape and Fabric of Human History. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365:1559.3923–3933. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gray, Russell D. & Quentin D. Atkinson
2003 Language-tree Divergence Times Support the Anatolian Theory of Indo-European Origin. Nature 426:6965.435–439. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenhill, Simon J. & Russell D. Gray
2012 Basic Vocabulary and Bayesian Phylolinguistics. Diachronica 29:4.523–537. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hale, Mark
2007 Historical Linguistics: Theory and Method. Malden/Oxford/Victoria: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Heggarty, Paul, Warren Maguire & April McMahon
2010 Splits or Waves? Trees or Webs? How Divergence Measures and Network Analysis Can Unravel Language Histories. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 365:1559.3829–3843. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hennig, Willi
1950 Grundzüge einer Theorie der phylogenetischen Systematik. Berlin: Deutscher Zentralverlag.Google Scholar
Hetzron, Robert
1976 Two Principles of Genetic Reconstruction. Lingua 38:2.89–108. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hirt, Herman
1905 Die Indogermanen, Vol. 11. Strassburg: Trübner. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hock, Hans Henrich
1986 Principles of Historical Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hockett, Charles F.
1957 Central Algonquian Vocabulary: Stems in k-. International Journal of American Linguistics 23:4.247–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hoenigswald, Henry M.
1963 On the History of the Comparative Method. Anthropological Linguistics 5:1.1–11.Google Scholar
Holzer, Georg
1996 Das Erschließen unbelegter Sprachen. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.Google Scholar
Huehnergard, John
1997 A Grammar of Akkadian. Atlanta: Scholars Press.Google Scholar
2006 Proto-Semitic and Proto-Akkadian. The Akkadian Language in its Semitic Context: Studies in the Akkadian of the Third and Second Millennium BC ed. by G. Deutscher & N. J. C. Kouwenberg, 1–18. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten.Google Scholar
2012 An Introduction to Ugaritic. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers.Google Scholar
Hurles, Matthew E., Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, Russell D. Gray & David Penny
2003 Untangling Oceanic Settlement: The Edge of the Knowable. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 10:10.531–540. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huson, Daniel H.
1998 SplitsTree: Analyzing and Visualizing Evolutionary Data. Bioinformatics 14:1.68–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hübschmann, Heinrich
1897 Armenische Grammatik, 1 Theil: Armenische Etymologie Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel.Google Scholar
Jacques, Guillaume
2014 Cone. Phonological Profiles of Little-studied Tibetic Varieties ed. by Jackson T.-S. Sun, 265–371. Taipei: Academia Sinica.Google Scholar
2016 Tangut, Gyalrongic, Kiranti and the Nature of Person Indexation in Sino-Tibetan/Trans-Himalayan. Linguistics Vanguard 2:1.1–13. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 Japhug. The Sino-Tibetan Languages (Second Edition) ed. by Graham Thurgood & Randy LaPolla, 614–634. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kalyan, Siva & Alexandre François
2018 Freeing the Comparative Method from the tree model: A framework for Historical Glottometry. In Ritsuko Kikusawa & Lawrence Reid (eds), Let’s talk about trees: Genetic Relationships of Languages and Their Phylogenic Representation (Senri Ethnological Studies, 98). Ōsaka: National Museum of Ethnology. 59–89.Google Scholar
Kluge, F.
1884 Die germanische Consonantendehnung. Beitrage der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 91.149–186.Google Scholar
Koch, Harold
2004 A Methodological History of Australian Linguistic Classification. Australian Languages: Classification and the Comparative Method ed. by Claire Bowern & Harold Koch, 17–60. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kogan, Leonid
2015 Genealogical Classification of Semitic: The Lexical Isoglosses. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kroonen, Guus
2011 The Proto-Germanic n-stems: A Study in Diachronic Morphophonology. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
2013 Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Kümmel, Martin J.
2007 Konsonantenwandel: Bausteine zu einer Typologie des Lautwandels und ihre Konsequenzen für die vergleichende Rekonstruktion. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.Google Scholar
Labov, William
2007 Transmission and Diffusion. Language 83:2.344–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lass, Roger
1997 Historical Linguistics and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, Winfred Philipp
1969[1962] Einführung in die historische Linguistik. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
1992 Historical Linguistics (Third Edition). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
List, Johann-Mattis
2014 Sequence Comparison in Historical Linguistics. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf University Press.Google Scholar
2016 Beyond Cognacy: Historical Relations Between Words and Their Implication for Phylogenetic Reconstruction. Journal of Language Evolution 1:2.119–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
List, Johann-Mattis, Shijulal Nelson-Sathi, Hans Geisler & William Martin
2014 Networks Of Lexical Borrowing and Lateral Gene Transfer in Language and Genome Evolution. BioEssays 36:2.141–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
List, Johann-Mattis, Jananan Sylvestre Pathmanathan, Philippe Lopez & Eric Bapteste
2016 Unity and Disunity In Evolutionary Sciences: Process-Based Analogies Open Common Research Avenues for Biology And Linguistics. Biology Direct 11:39.1–17.Google Scholar
List, Johann-Mattis, Anselm Terhalle & Matthias Urban
2013 Using Network Approaches to Enhance the Analysis of Cross-Linguistic Polysemies. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computational Semantics – Short Papers, 347–353. Stroudsburg: Association for Computational Linguistics.Google Scholar
Martirosyan, Hrach K.
2010 Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon. (= Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series, 8.) Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martzloff, Vincent
2016 Arménien geri ‘captif’ : étymologie et phraséologie à la lumière d’un parallèle en albanien du Caucase. Wékwos 21.109–179.Google Scholar
McMahon, April & Robert McMahon
2005 Language Classification by Numbers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Meillet, Antoine
1908 Les dialectes indo-européens. Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honoré Champion.Google Scholar
Morrison, David A.
2010 Review of the book Sequence Alignment: Methods, Models, Concepts, and Strategies , ed. by Michael S. Rosenberg. Systematic Biology 359:3.363–365. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 An Introduction to Phylogenetic Networks. Uppsala: RJR Productions.Google Scholar
2014 Phylogenetic Networks: A New Form of Multivariate Data Summary for Data Mining and Exploratory Data Analysis. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery 4:4.296–312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 Genealogies: Pedigrees and Phylogenies Are Reticulating Networks Not Just Divergent Trees. Evolutionary Biology 43:4.456–473. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Newman, M. E. J.
2010 Networks: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nicholls, Geoff K. & Robin J. Ryder
2011 Phylogenetic Models for Semitic Vocabulary. Proceedings of the 26th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling ed. by David Conesa, Anabel Forte, Antoni López-Quílez & Facundo Muñoz, 431–436.Google Scholar
Nichols, Johanna
1996 The Comparative Method as Heuristic. The Comparative Method Reviewed: Regularity and Irregularity in Language Change ed. by Mark Durie & Malcolm Ross, 39–71. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pagel, Mark
2009 Human Language as a Culturally Transmitted Replicator. Nature Reviews Genetics 101.405–415. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pernicka, Ernst, Thilo Rehren & Sigrid Schmitt-Strecker
1998 Late Uruk Silver Production by Cupellation at Habuba Kabira, Syria. Metallurgica Antiqua: In Honour of Hans-Gert Bachmann and Robert Maddin ed. by Thilo Rehren, Andreas Hauptmann & James D. Muhly 123–134. Bochum: Deutsches Bergbau Museum.Google Scholar
Ringe, Donald, Tandy Warnow & Ann Taylor
2002 Indo-European and Computational Cladistics. Transactions of the Philological Society 100:1.59–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rogers, Jeffrey & Richard A. Gibbs
2014 Comparative Primate Genomics: Emerging Patterns of Genome Content and Dynamics. Nature Reviews Genetics 15:5.347–359. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, Malcolm
1988 Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia. (= Pacific Linguistics C, 98.) Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Rubin, Aaron D.
2005 Studies in Semitic Grammaticalization. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sagart, Laurent
2015 “East Formosan” and the PAN Palatals. Talk presented at the 13th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Taipei, Taiwan, July 18–22, 2015. Available at [URL]
Scally, Aylwyn, Julien Y. Dutheil, LaDeana W. Hillier, Gregory E. Jordan, Ian Goodhead, Javier Herrero, Asger Hobolth, Tuuli Lappalainen, Thomas Mailund, Tomas Marques-Bonet, Shane McCarthy, Stephen H. Montgomery, Petra C. Schwalie, Y. Amy Tang, Michelle C. Ward, Yali Xue, Bryndis Yngvadottir, Can Alkan, Lars N. Andersen, Qasim Ayub, Edward V. Ball, Kathryn Beal, Brenda J. Bradley, Yuan Chen, Chris M. Clee, Stephen Fitzgerald, Tina A. Graves, Yong Gu, Paul Heath, Andreas Heger, Emre Karakoc, Anja Kolb-Kokocinski, Gavin K. Laird, Gerton Lunter, Stephen Meader, Matthew Mort, James C. Mullikin, Kasper Munch, Timothy D. O’Connor, Andrew D. Phillips, Javier Prado-Martinez, Anthony S. Rogers, Saba Sajjadian, Dominic Schmidt, Katy Shaw, Jared T. Simpson, Peter D. Stenson, Daniel J. Turner, Linda Vigilant, Albert J. Vilella, Weldon Whitener, Baoli Zhu, David N. Cooper, Pieter de Jong, Emmanouil T. Dermitzakis, Evan E. Eichler, Paul Flicek, Nick Goldman, Nicholas I. Mundy, Zemin Ning, Duncan T. Odom, Chris P. Ponting, Michael A. Quail, Oliver A. Ryder, Stephen M. Searle, Wesley C. Warren, Richard K. Wilson, Mikkel H. Schierup, Jane Rogers, Chris Tyler-Smith & Richard Durbin
2012 Insights into Hominid Evolution from the Gorilla Genome Sequence. Nature 483:7388.169–175. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schleicher, August
1848 Zur vergleichenden Sprachengeschichte. Bonn: König.Google Scholar
1853a Die ersten Spaltungen des indogermanischen Urvolkes. Allgemeine Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft und Literatur 31.786–787.Google Scholar
1853b O jazyku litevském, zvlástě ohledem na slovanský června. Časopis Českého Museum 271.320–334.Google Scholar
1861 Kurzer Abriss einer Lautlehre der indogermanischen Ursprache. Weimar: Böhlau.Google Scholar
1863 Die Darwinsche Theorie und die Sprachwissenschaft. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Johannes
1872 Die Verwantschaftsverhältnisse der indogermanischen Sprachen. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau.Google Scholar
1875 Zur Geschichte des indogermanischen Vocalismus. Zweite Abteilung. Weimar: Hermann Böhlau.Google Scholar
Schuchardt, Hugo
1900 Über die Klassifikation der romanischen Mundarten: Probe-Vorlesung, gehalten zu Leipzig am 30 April 1870. Graz.Google Scholar
Streitberg, Wilhelm
1900 Urgermanische grammatik. Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung.Google Scholar
Sutrop, Urmas
2012 Estonian Traces in the Tree of Life Concept and in the Language Family Tree Theory. Journal of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics 31.297–326.Google Scholar
Swadesh, Morris
1955 Towards Greater Accuracy in Lexicostatistic Dating. International Journal of American Linguistics 21:2.121–137. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1959 The Mesh Principle in Comparative Linguistics. Anthropological Linguistics 1:2.7–14.Google Scholar
Taylor, Allan R.
1990 A European Loanword of Early Date in Eastern North America. Anthropological Linguistics 32:3/4.187–210.Google Scholar
Trask, Larry
2000 Some Issues in Relative Chronology. Time Depth in Historical Linguistics, Vol. 1 ed. by Colin Renfrew, April McMahon & Larry Trask, 45–58. Cambridge: The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.Google Scholar
Urban, Matthias
2011 Asymmetries in Overt Marking and Directionality in Semantic Change. Journal of Historical Linguistics 1:1.3–47. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wichmann, Søren
2017 Genealogical Classification in Historical Linguistics. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, 1–19. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yahalom-Mack, Naama & Adi Eliyahu-Behar
2015 The Transition from Bronze to Iron in Canaan: Chronology, Technology, and Context. Radiocarbon 57:2.285–305. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 16 other publications

Bromham, Lindell
2023. Meaning and Purpose: Using Phylogenies to Investigate Human History and Cultural Evolution. Biological Theory 18:4 ► pp. 284 ff. DOI logo
Camino, Iñaki
2021. On continental Basque dialects and some aspects of their chronology. Dialectologia et Geolinguistica 29:1 ► pp. 107 ff. DOI logo
DeLancey, Scott
2023. The antiquity of verb agreement in Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 86:1 ► pp. 101 ff. DOI logo
Hübler, Nataliia & Simon J Greenhill
2022. Modelling admixture across language levels to evaluate deep history claims. Journal of Language Evolution 7:2 ► pp. 166 ff. DOI logo
Kalyan, Siva & Alexandre François
2019. When the waves meet the trees. Journal of Historical Linguistics 9:1 ► pp. 168 ff. DOI logo
List, Johann-Mattis
2019. Beyond edit distances: Comparing linguistic reconstruction systems. Theoretical Linguistics 45:3-4 ► pp. 247 ff. DOI logo
List, Johann-Mattis
2023. Evolutionary Aspects of Language Change. In Evolutionary Thinking Across Disciplines [Synthese Library, 478], ► pp. 103 ff. DOI logo
List, Johann‐Mattis
2019. Automated methods for the investigation of language contact, with a focus on lexical borrowing. Language and Linguistics Compass 13:10 DOI logo
Luck, Jean-Marc & Anita Mehta
2023. Evolution of grammatical forms: some quantitative approaches. The European Physical Journal B 96:2 DOI logo
Neureiter, Nico, Peter Ranacher, Nour Efrat-Kowalsky, Gereon A. Kaiping, Robert Weibel, Paul Widmer & Remco R. Bouckaert
2022. Detecting contact in language trees: a Bayesian phylogenetic model with horizontal transfer. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 9:1 DOI logo
Ould-Braham, Ouahmi & Lameen Souag
2022. Pour une histoire de la langue berbère dans sa diversité et sa complexité. Études et Documents Berbères N° 45-46:1 ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo
Pache, Matthias
2023. Pech and the Basic Internal Classification of Chibchan. International Journal of American Linguistics 89:1 ► pp. 81 ff. DOI logo
Ricquier, Birgit
2020. Language and Archeology. In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Syrjänen, Kaj, Luke Maurits, Unni Leino, Terhi Honkola, Jadranka Rota & Outi Vesakoski
2021. Crouching TIGER, hidden structure: Exploring the nature of linguistic data using TIGER values. Journal of Language Evolution 6:2 ► pp. 99 ff. DOI logo
Teixidor-Toneu, Irene, Anneleen Kool, Simon J. Greenhill, Karoline Kjesrud, Jade J. Sandstedt, Vincent Manzanilla & Fiona M. Jordan
2021. Historical, archaeological and linguistic evidence test the phylogenetic inference of Viking-Age plant use. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376:1828 DOI logo
Verkerk, Annemarie
2019. Detecting non-tree-like signal using multiple tree topologies. Journal of Historical Linguistics 9:1 ► pp. 9 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 may 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.