Cladistic language concepts

[Ghiselin, Michael]

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          Dear Dr. DeLancey:
               Thank you very much for casting your vote.  It would be
          nice if more linguists would do the same because the sample
          as it exists is small and perhaps not representative.
               In spite of that the preliminary results are very
          interesting.  Not only has a cladistic language concept been
          generally presupposed but, as you say, linguists do not even
          consider the topic particularly interesting.  Why should
          this be?  One possibility is that where linguists have a
          written record it lacks the fragmentary nature of the fossil
          record that results from accidents of preservation and the
          like.  Another is that what the linguists do perceive as
          important is trying to find older and older common
          ancestries and the genealogical relationships are all that
          they need.  Linguists do not have the elaborate system of
          categories, such as phylum, class, order etc., that we
          zoologists do.  And unless I am mistaken (please correct me
          if I am) they do not believe that there are important
          differences that need to be expressed by giving a taxon a
          higher rank, as when our own species has been put in a
          separate order or even kingdom.
               Linguists must have methodological problems with
          respect to paraphyly, parallelism and convergence.  But so
          far as I can tell, they treat these as problems to be
          overcome in reaching a strictly genealogical arrangement.
          MG