5 1462 comparative method couple remarks recent exchange comparative method 1 far importance morphology concerned believe alexis right sorry karl important think would impossible insist morphological prallels like latin est sunt german ist sind cited karl teeter prove relationship old church slavic parallel forms iest perfectly agreeing karl teeter latin german however modern russian present copula dissapeared still recognize forms like iest sut sound bitterly archaic student student oni studenty stu dents let us imagine situation surviving slavic language russian old church slavonic materials lack paradigm make russian less indoeuropean latin german make impossible proof ie nature think answer negative second alexis certainly right says refusal admit lexical evidence make impossible prove mandarin related cantonese vietnamese related khasi even worse wont able state beijing mandarin related xi mandarin hanoi vietnamese related saigon vietnamese nothing resembling est sunt ist sind found closely related dialects moreover would dismantle families north north east asia well since agglutinative morphology also exhibit anything kind ie therefore continuing claim logically end state around 50 unrelated languages japan alone possibility prove genetic relationship various japanese dialects subdialects since grammar like ie cases proof genetic relationship based mostly grammar cases rests solely lexical items well lucky cases like ie one demonstrate relatedness basis grammar lexicon absolutization cases may lead us dismissal pretty well established language families cases like proto _ english french actually easily controlled using basic voca bulary lexical comparisons matter many romance words borrowed b yenglish basic vocabulary still germanic easily demon strated contrary try label idea basic vocabulary semantic primitive 2 geoffrey pullum writes wonder would good idea hear something defenders wideranging largetime depth comparison prefererably concerning would count evidence genetic relationship things case lowerlevel comparisons either lack regular phonetic correspondences lack enough number cognates representing basic vocabulary items basic morphological markers established basis regular correspondences amerindianist believe amerind greenberg present correspondences whole method mass comparisons direct violation traditional conservative comparative methodology therefore would side greenberg opponents matter believe absolutely unfair put illich svitych one company greenberg ruhlen geoffrey pullum posting illich svitych work starts charts phonetic correspondences work regularly throughout 3 volume work therefore sharp contrast greenberg mass comparisons whole work least areas judge altaic uralic done painstaiking care accuracy reflecting state art contemporary time work done sixties may opponents longrange compa rison last familiarize works illich svitych dolgopol kii others believe represent successful longrange comparative work though necessarily mean agree illich svitych proposals many things remain done rather repeat groundless allegations illich svitych address come forward concrete arguments work rather general statements illich svitych work like greenberg ceiling comparative method sincerely sasha vovin avvovin miamiu acs muohio edu