the Chinese study

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

I wrote:
<<I would think that the method you describe would be much more functional if
    it at least triangulated daughter languages.  And avoided using prior
    reconstructions - proving itself on its own, so to speak.>>

In a message dated 9/7/99 11:19:07 PM, jonpat at staff.cs.usyd.edu.au wrote:

<<To amplify this point -the Chinese data was not a reconstruction -it used 3
documented languages. If you are using reconstructed languages then the only
meaningful use of our tool is that it identifies which of two  reconstructed
relative chronologies is more probable given the patterns in the data.>>

Well then one of my suggestions was anticipated.  I have nothing to complain
about here.

I wrote
  <<In *PIE, certain aspects are considered the innovations of a particular
    daughter language because they do not appear in the other daughter
    languages, and are therefore factored out of the reconstruction.  If you
    only have two daughter languages - as you did above - how do you identify
    the innovation versus the original form in reconstruction?>>

jonpat at staff.cs.usyd.edu.au wrote:
<<If I understand "innovation" correctly it has to represented by a rule of
insertion from a null position. that's not a problem it's just another rule
at
a particular point in the Relative Chronolgy. The algortihm will process it
correctly.>>

This would appear to be a moot point from what you said above.  But just to
be clear:  I'm not sure where your algorithm starts, but my point was simple.
 We find a state B(F1) and C(F1).  Languages B and C differ by the use of say
one phoneme alone.  Otherwise they are identical and coeval.  We assume and
reconstruct a parent A.  The lone phoneme difference between B and C creates
an unknown: whether the phoneme in B is from the parent or whether the
phoneme in C is from the parent.  If we conclude B is identical to the
parent, then C carries the "innovation."  (Forget about dual innovations for
now.)

Based on the above there is no statistical certainty at all in choosing B
over C or vice versa.  It is not the "insertion from the null position" that
is the issue I think you will see here, but in fact how that insertion
decision affects the reconstruction.  Reconstructions should work backward in
time.  So if "insertion" = "innovation", it presumes in fact that the
"inserted" data was not in the parent.  But in fact we are in complete
uncertainty about that fact.  (But again you are not reconstructing.)

Since you also said that your approach can only compare two reconstructions,
this may not be a problem for you.  Although you will not be able to reduce
the uncertainty in the example above no matter how many reconstructions you
test.  Because two alternative reconstructions will not necessarily make one
of the choices better than the other.

It may seem trivial in terms of the work you are doing.  But this fundamental
uncertainty in any reconstructive process can yield very different results in
subsequent analysis using those reconstructions as a basis.

Otherwise most of the observations I made don't even seem to apply.

Regards,
Steve Long