The Concept of Proof in Genetic Linguistics*

• Main Author: Greenberg, Joseph H
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 2005
• Subjects: eskimo*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199257713.003.0008; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/52201901/isbn-9780199257713-book-part-8.pdf

Abstract Virtually all historical linguists share a common notion which may be stated in something like the following terms. One starts with a hypothesis of relationship between two or more languages or groups of languages. If groups of languages are involved these in turn are conceived of as a number of languages which already have been proven to be related, e.g. the Indo-European family. Taking as examples binary hypotheses (these are the most frequent in the literature) we may illustrate the three possibilities by actual examples. An instance in which we deal with two single languages is the Japanese-Korean hypothesis, of a single language with a group of languages, the Eskimo-Indo-European hypothesis and of one group with another group the Indo-European-U ralic hypothesis.