Northwest IE attributes

[Stanley Friesen]

At 03:53 AM 1/25/00 -0500, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:
>Georg at home.ivm.de writes:

>>Not *so* unlikely, after all. Palatalizations are, so to speak, the
>>garden-variety of sound-changes.

>-- yes, but the same one in two adjacent groups for different reasons?  This
>violates explicatory parsimony.

Only if no other features contradict the grouping.  The way parsimony works
in cladism in biology is that one uses multiple shared features, allowing
for convergent development in some, if that leads to fewer *total* steps
across all features.

Besides, there is a *third* alternative - Sprachbund, that is
cross-language phonetic influence in a cultural area.  Looked at this way
the change is not purely independent, even though it may happen between
quite separate languages.

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May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com