19.148 Perfect phylogenetic networks?

               Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 19, No. 148.
       Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
                   www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
                        www.princeton.edu/humanist/
                     Submit to: humanist_at_princeton.edu

         Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2005 06:44:09 +0100
         From: "Yuri Tambovtsev" <yutamb_at_mail.cis.ru>
         Subject: Perfect phylogenetic networks

Dear Humanist colleagues, I wonder if you did buy into the article
published in Language, about which Jim Marchand wrote. He did not buy
into it. But why, if he stated that it was "well done and well
documented". I could not understand Jim. If he liked it then he
bought into it. Am I right? If he didn't, then it is not "well done
and well documented". I wish I could hear more comments on this
article. Looking forward to hearing from you to
<mailto:yutamb_at_hotmail.com>yutamb_at_hotmail.com I am interested in the
phylogenetics of language, on cladistics, language classification and
the use of a more rigorous `mathematical' approach to reconstruction
and taxonomy in linguistscs. Remain your sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev,
Novosibirsk Ped. University (KF), Russia
Subject : 19.111 phylogenetics of language
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2005 10:18:29 +0100
   "Jim Marchand" <<mailto:marchand_at_uiuc.edu>marchand_at_uiuc.edu>
We have had discussions off and on on cladistics and
the use of a more rigorous `mathematical' approach
to reconstruction and the phylogenetics of languages. The last issue of
_Language_, Vol. 81, no. 2 (June, 2005) has a
well-argued and documented article,
"Perfect phylogenetic networks: A new methodology for
   reconstructing the evolutionary history of natural languages,"
   by Lucy Nakhleh, Don Ringe, and Tandy Warnow, pp. 382-420.
I do not buy into it, since most of our concepts, such
as language, dialect, idiolect, reconstructed language,
etc. are ideal types rather than Aristotelian (yes/no)
concepts, but it is, as I said, well done and
well documented.
Received on Sat Jul 16 2005 - 01:53:58 EDT