Bridget Drinka: Stratified Reconstruction

Guest lecture

Stratified Reconstruction and a New View of the Family Tree Model

This paper presents an array of models that have been proposed to represent relationship among languages, especially Indo-European languages. The claim is made that the family tree model as it stands is an inadequate depiction of the complex relationships of the Indo-European languages, and that a new model is needed. The model presented is a 3-dimensional enhancement of the family tree model which incorporates contact data alongside genetic data in characterizing the relationship of languages across time and space. This model relies upon the stratification of archaic vs. innovative structures, allowing us not only to recognize the Indo-European languages as related, but also to acknowledge that some Indo-European languages, like Indo-Iranian and Greek, must have remained in contact longer than others. The adoption of this new 3-d model and the recognition of late contact among Indo-European languages has implications for the geographical positioning of IE languages on the map of Eurasia, constituting more evidence, for example, that the ‘Out of India’ theory, whether referring to the indigeneity of Indo-Aryan on the Indian subcontinent or the origination of proto-Indo-European itself in that location, is untenable.