What is Relatedness?

[Richard M. Alderson III]

On 16 Jan 2000, Steve Long wrote:

> Which brings me back to the point of my original post.  A language borrows
> and innovates radically.  To the point where let's say - to make the point
> clear to the most obtuse degree - 99% of all lexical and morphological
> features are not from the original parent.

If the language has *borrowed* 99% of its lexical and morphological features
from another, it is a dialect of the second language with a substrate of the
first, not the first at all.

If it has borrowed 99% of its lexicon, and *innovated* 99% of its morphology,
such that it does not match the morphology of the lexical donor, it would most
likely be best viewed as a creole.

Whatever the mix envisioned, yes, as Mr. Long writes,

> The radically changing language could have little or no evidence left of its
> genetic affilation.  CRITICAL EVIDENCE OF THAT 'GENETIC' AFFILATION HAS BEEN
> LOST.

However, since we would not be looking at such a language for genetic evidence,
it is irrelevant to the main effort.

								Rich Alderson