Arabic and IE

[H. Mark Hubey]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Alice Faber wrote:
>
> I have no doubt that Afro-Asiatic is related to other language stocks of
> comparable depth. Indo-European may be one of them. However, any attempt to
> relate *Semitic* to Indo-European that doesn't take Afro-Asiatic into account
> simply isn't worth considering seriously. If there are Semitic forms or
> structures that aren't widely attested in Afro-Asiatic but that show up in
> Indo-European, insisting that these bespeak a genetic link between Semitic and
> Indo-European also requires explaining away the evidence supporting an
> Afro-Asiatic language family. My understanding of most larger affiliations for
> Semitic is that are in fact filiations for Afro-Asiatic and not merely
> Semitic, but it's worth making that explicit.

It seems to me that the only thing necesary for this possible paradox
to go away, would be to change the model of language change. Mammals
have two parents each. All we have to do is allow the possibility of
language families to have two parents (or even more) and then create
a branching graph instead of a simple tree. It would be more accurate
and we would not have to accept the simple model of reality for reality.
Instead we would fit the model to the more complex reality.


--
Best Regards,
Mark
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