comparative linguistics amr ares cs wayne edu seems lot people also seem hold another curious position namely show relatedness group languages exhibiting systematic correspondences sounds vocabularies said languages exhibiting systematically related morphological paradigms alexis manaster ramer good lord watching thread somewhat jaundiced eye thinking going get experience languages vanuatu morphological paradigms least stable features followed phonology stable lexical yes remember taught mean morphology reliable actually reliable criterion also taught lot stuff experience showed false think reliance morphology come 1 hangover elaboration comparative method indo european rather say discovery sanskrit may happen members language family particularly retentive morphologically whence generalization languages fallacy extrapolating irish barmaids redheads 2 easy measure count lexical similarity claims based measurements therefore easily open scrutiny refutation aside discussion whether linguistics science meaning karl popper well one domain could hand measure morphological similarity worse systematic similarities morphological paradigms hardly open refutation speaking devil received letter yesterday merritt ruhlen would appreciate could send copy forthcoming article anthropos concerning probability chance resemblances commenting meaning sort salve perhaps felt salt general take dim view comparative linguistics various methodologies mostly ad hoc without sound basis often relying complete misunderstanding processes work examples claims methods crop perennially also thoughts feelings today sigh j guy trl oz au