Trivial Truths and Genetic "Patterns"

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/4/01 5:25:34 AM Mountain Daylight Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

> Then let my rephrase my question.  Can more than one proto-language be
> reconstructed from a "group" of languages?  And, if so, then will those
> additional proto-languages show up in reconstruction if one assumes before
> hand that there was only one proto-language?   If on the other hand the
> answer to the first question is no, then why not?

-- you only get a protolanguage out of the group of languages used to
reconstruct if there was, in fact, a protolanguage.

If the languages aren't genetically related, the method produces nothing.