Urheimat in Lithuania? (was Re: the Wheel and Dating PIE or NW-IE)

Brian M. Scott BMScott at stratos.net
Fri Mar 24 04:30:20 UTC 2000


petegray wrote:

> [Bob Whiting] said:

>> Now someone is going to say that it's against the law of averages
>> for Lithuanian to have always been on the non-innovating branch.
>> And of course it is.  But the point is that *something* has to
>> be; if not Lithuanian, then something else.

> At each node, on that model, there will be a non-innovating branch, but it
> is not necessary that it is always one and the same branch which does not
> innovate.   Hence the significance of the surprising fact that Lithuanian
> has at each node been the non-innovator.  [...]

I fell into the same trap at first, but Bob's right, assuming
that one can always classify one branch as innovating and the
other as non-innovating.  Start at the root, and at each node
follow the non-innovating branch; you *must* end up at some
leaf of the tree.  It is equally true that if you always follow
the innovating branch you will arrive at some leaf.  Which leaves
these are is of interest; that there are such leaves is not.

At each node you start afresh, so it's not really meaningful
to speak of 'one and the same branch'.

Brian M. Scott



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