On the Methodological Bases of Genetic Language Comparison

Abstract

The notion of arbitrariness plays a fundamental role in the identification of linguistic properties which can prove genetic relatedness. In the traditional comparative method, arbitrariness is only relied upon in individual linguistic signs, The paper attempts to generalize the concept of arbitrariness to other areas of the linguistic system, including constraints on subsystems and processes, in order to widen the basis for genetic comparison and lay the theoretical foundation for new methods of genetic comparison.