The UPenn IE Tree (a test)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/30/99 11:03:55 PM, kurisuto at unagi.cis.upenn.edu wrote:

<<You're starting with a premise which contradicts all of our experience; it
just doesn't ever happen that a language is static.  All living languages,
it seems, are in prepetual change.>>

I'd like to address this measure of plausibilty -  and whether it matters
here - in a separate post.  But I think I need to say the following:

The hypothetical was valid as a matter of method.  As I wrote, but you did
not quote in your reply, this was explained as my way of finding out what was
assumed in the Stammbaum.

In fact, I based the hypothetical on a computer model I saw used at  a
bio-tech firm a while ago.  The object was to measure the genetic variations
in various demes in a population of plants.  The plants were
cross-pollinators and heterozygotes.  The process focused on one trait or
allele at a time.  But the program for a baseline assumed a self-pollinating,
homozygote (autozygote) in the P and F generations.  In other words, it
hypothesized a zygote and a resulting individual(s) that had no 'conflicting'
dissimilar traits because they only bred with themselves (or rather itself)
every generation.  The degree of variation was measured against this
hypothetical "pure-bred" zygote.  No such zygote actually existed.

This is not an uncommon methodology.  Baselines or approach-points are often
off the map of experience.  Their value is in that they give an absolute
reference for measurement of variation.  (The probabilities of the
bell-shaped curve, e.g., only approach 100% certainty but cannot actually
reach it.)

You might check whether all this makes sense with Mr. Tandy.  It should.

Now, about the substance of what you've written.

Let me say there is nothing personal here.  You've have already mentioned
that you don't know all the nuances of this Stammbaum and the theory behind
it.

But do understand that this Tree and its approach seems to have a lot of
weight behind it (Ringe, UPenn, 'an algorithm developed to produce optimal
phylogenies of biological species' and page 369 of Larry Trask's textbook -
although he does not seem to necessarily endorse the approach.)

This Stammbaum put in such a light might actually mislead people into
thinking that there is a degree of certainty in this that the authors might
not endorse.  I think that happened to me at one point.

In any case, whether or not this approach actually adds anything to our
knowledge is not a given.  There's the question of the kind of data that it
is based on, for example.  The relative weight put on the specific
similarities and differences among the languages in calculating relatedness.
I never did ask if reconstructed forms were included in the data.  The tree
appears to be rooted chronologically, since PIE caps it, and that raises the
question of how dates of attestation were handled.  And so forth.

Here are two basic problems:

You wrote:
<<Yes, I agree that if the situation you describe were true, then the
character-based approach could not arrive at the tree that you drew.>>

I don't believe that's true.  You may have misunderstood.  What I wrote was
that "the Stammbaum with its given assumptions, would not be able to reflect
these events accurately."

In fact, I believe that the hypothetical tree would LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME.
(remember that the hypothesis is that you do not know that "Celtic1" was the
actual parent.)  This is simply because you would have no way of knowing that
what you are calling innovations are actually inherited and vice versa.  The
attributes of filial "Celtic 6" - the first attested appearance - justifiably
look like late innovations.  You would be totally justified in looking
elsewhere for earlier indications of the parent.  The Stammbaum would be
perhaps your best guess - given your ignorance.

(Please read this with some care.)  This is not a specific fault in the
Stammbaum or the approach.  This is the necesssary degree of uncertainty we
have about these past relationships.  The time of first attestation is all we
have to go by.  So, in the extreme case of a parent that is understandably
mistaken for a filial, we would have all the paths of descent wrong.

This would be just as true if you were handed a bunch of those heterozygous
plants and given mistaken dates for the different varieties.  You would
likely mistake how traits were passed and who was parent to whom.

If, on the other hand, we actually knew [Celtic1] (P) was PIE in the diagram,
then the Stammbaum should also look roughly the same.  That is because moving
a hypothetical 'Celtic1' to the top ADDS NO NEW INNOVATIONS TO THE OVERALL
SYSTEM.  The total number of innovations stays the same.  The innovations
however attributed to particular branchings would have to change.

The basic data you use would be unchanged.  The attested phonemes, etc., you
assign to a particular time and place would remain the same.

What would have to change would ONLY be your chronology and whether a
particular feature represented an innovation rather than an inherited
feature, or vice versa.

I hope you see this.  As in genetics, the individual expression of a gene
does not tell you by itself where it belongs in the line of descent.  That's
because basically the parent gene looks exactly like the filial gene.  And
"shared innovations" are just more localized genes, shared by fewer
individuals, and they will tell you nothing about parentage until you have
some way to assign a place in time to them. If you assign the wrong place in
time, you will quite simply mistake the parent for the F generation and vice
versa, through no fault of your own.

You wrote:
<<Naturally, it _can't_ have been the case that PIE looked like Celtic,
because the other branches would have to undergo some impossible unmergings.>>

I'd really, really ask that you give one example of that. I don't think it is
true.  Of course, you should not use Grimm's law or similar prehistoric event
as a dating mechanism, for the simple reason that is circular.  If, e.g.,
Proto-Celtic were assumed to be PIE, it would not need to change the fact of
Grimm's Law, but it might change its dating (which is in controversy in any
case.)

There should really be no unmerging problems, only a rearrangement of dates
and directions of inheritance and a reassessment of what constitutes
innovations.  YOUR RAW DATA STAYS THE SAME.  It's just the interpretation
that changes.

Of course, you may argue that Hittite and Greek historically appears before
Celtic and so must be assumed to be older.  That is fine.  But it is not
linguistic evidence.  And to the extent that the Stammbaum and the approach
is making any such assumptions, it is extra-linguistic.  And should be
understood to be so.

A completely different issue is this business of the stem.  You've describe
it many ways, but you still haven't accounted for something.  And that is the
speakers - perhaps a majority - who are not part of the branch-offs through
all the branchings.  If the branchings don't happen all at once, then there
is a core still extant that these branches are coming from.  RIGHT DOWN TO
THE LAST BRANCH-OFF.  This a is a logical necessity.  (EXCEPT of course for
the last branch-off!)  There must still be speakers who are NOT Tocharin or
Italo-Celtic or Greek-Armenian after those languages are represented as
branching off.

And that means those speakers should be speaking a language between the
branch-offs that had an identity of its own.   It is not equatable to earlier
branch-offs and it cannot be equated with later branch-offs.  That core has
to have a real existence, separate from the branches.  Otherwise your
branches are all chronological daughters of each other, one after another.

That is why representing that core in the Stammbaum is also a logical
necessity.
It represents speakers who are speaking a distinct LANGUAGE that isn't any of
the branches until at least the final branch.

And this is why the Cambridge approach described by Larry Trask seems so much
more upfront in what it represents.  If I understand correctly, it does not
purport to do more than compare relative differences.  I would still ask if
it assumes that phonological differences are more important than
morphological or syntactical differences, etc.  But it has the advantage of
really being the stemless "mobile" you keep describing.

My favorite though is Miguel Carrasquer Vidal's IE tree, which he once put on
this list.  Another member sent me a more complete version.  This 'tree' has
the courage to be historical and give dates and that is really the only way
that floating, relative relationships can be given any kind of corespondence
in time.

Regards,
Steve Long

[ Moderator's comment:
  The dates assigned by MCV to his tree are his own provisional guesses, though
  they may be similar to the provisional guesses of any number of other Indo-
  Europeanists.  If you rely on it, please remember that your conclusions have
  no more weight than those based on the non-dated trees of Ringe or the group
  at Cambridge, since there is nothing to support those dates other than human
  intuition.
  --rma ]