Linguistic classification

[manaster at umich.edu]

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Here is an example of a methodological point we
could discuss.  I argue, as did Gatschet, Swanton,
and Sapir, that the Pakawan languages (Coahuilteco,
Cotoname, Comecrudo, Garza, and Mamulique, all
extinct and poorly documented) are (closely)
related.  Many authors have denied this, with
Goddard arguing that only the last three are
related.  Now, Troike and Campbell (and perhaps
Goddard, whose statement is however not clearly
formulated) argue inter alia that Cotoname and
Comecrudo (with its alllies) are not related
because most of the known words in each are
nothing at all like their translations in
the other.  Although there are infact
a number of cognates they have missed, that
is not the issue I am after.  Rather, I
accept Eric Hamp's well-known (at least I HOPE
it is well-known) position that NO list of
differences between two languages can be an
argument against their relatedness.  The
only thing that has any meaning to a comparative
linguist is points of agreement (correspondence)
sufficient to demonstrate a relationship.  So
long as these exist, we cannot take any points
of disagreement no matter how numerous as
contradicting the hypothesis of a relationship.
Again, I am not going to go into whether the
points of agreemnt I have identified are
sufficient (that is ANOTHER topic); I only
would like to know what people think about the
question of whether diffrences or disagreements
can ever in principle be used to argue against
a relationship.
 
Note I: The same issue arises in ALtaic studies,
where in fact Hamp criticized Doerfer on this
very point.
 
Note II: Hamp's and my position assumes that the
burden of proof is always on the advocates of
a relationship, and that therefore its opponents
can do no better than to cast doubt on the evidence
cited by the proponents--but cannot go further to
provide evidence against the relationship.
 
Note III: It seems to me that it follows from this
that the only way to argue against a relationship
at all would be to demonstrate a DIFFERENT relationship.
E.g., contrary to what many Hungarian scholars have
often asserted, Hungarian is not (closely) related
to Turkic because it is more closely related to
Finnish and the rest of Uralic.  But of course this
only allows us to argue about relative degrees of
relatedness.  We cannot in principle argue against
the relatedness of Hungarian to Turkic, becuse
Uralic as a whole might be related to Turkic.