The UPenn IE Tree

[Sean Crist]

On Sat, 21 Aug 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

> I was not after deeper truths in my message. Just trying to figure out what
> assumptions were behind this tree model.  Sean Crist revealed a lot of that
> in his post in response.  I don't think the model would yield any direct
> conclusions on relative intelligibility - but you might ask Sean.

That's correct; as far as I'm aware, Ringe et. al. don't make any
statements regarding mutual intelligibility.  It's a matter of innovations
being shared or not shared.

Presumably, two dialects which had recently branched (i.e., undergone
innovations which are not shared) would remain mutually intelligible for a
while, much as the dialects of modern English are mutually intelligible,
despite there having been innovations not shared by all dialects.

  \/ __ __    _\_     --Sean Crist  (kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu)
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