Towards Greater Accuracy in Lexicostatistic Dating

1 Articles bearing on lexicostatistic theory and method: WALTER W. ARNDT, Germanic Dialect Evolution in Lexico-Statistic Time Perspective, University of North Carolina Doctoral Dissertation, 1955. WILLIAM W. ELMENDORF, Word Taboo and Lexical Change in Coast Salish, IJAL 17.205-8 (1951). R. Fox, W. SIBLEY AND F. EGGAN, A Preliminary Glottochronology for Northern Luzon, Proceedings of the Eighth Pacific Science Congress, Manila. C. F. HOCKETT, Linguistic Time Perspective and its Anthropological Uses, IJAL 19.146-52 (1953). DAVID I. HIRSCH, Glottochronology and Eskimo and Eskimo-Aleut Prehistory, AA 56.825-38 (1954). G. EVELYN HUTCHINSON, The Half Life of a Word (Marginalia), American Scientist 41.633-34 (1953). ROBERT B. LEES, The Basis of Glottochronology, Language 29.113-27 (1953). Cognate Word Counts, unpublished. (Scored test lists used in the preceding.) MORRIS SWADESH, Salish Internal Relationships, IJAL 16.157-67 (1950). Diffusional Cumulation and Archaic Residue as Historical Explanations, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 7.1-21 (1951). Mosan I: A Problem in Remote Common Origin, IJAL 19.26-44 (1953). Lexico-Statistic Dating of Prehistoric Ethnic Contacts, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 96.452-63 (1952). Archeological and Linguistic Chronology of Indo-European, AA 55.349-52 (1953). The Language of the Archeologic Huastecs, Notes on Middle American Archaeology and Ethnology 4.223-27 (1953). Perspectives and Problems of Amerindian Comparative Linguistics, Word 10.306-32 (1954). Fechas Glotocronol6gicas importantes para la Prehistoria Nahua, Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropoldgicos, in press. NI. SWADESH, GEORGE I. QUIMBY, HENRY B. 3. Accuracy 4. The test vocabulary 4.1. Universality 4.2. Cultural implications 4.3. Simplicity 4.4. Interlingual ambiguity and semantic shading 4.5. Potential duplication 4.6. Identical roots 4 7. Sound imitation 4.8. Form words 5. Item persistence 6. Control procedure 6.1. Overlapping histories 6.2. Hidden divergence 6.3. Time depth weighting 6.4. Dating of samples 6.5. Scoring 6.6. Modifying factors 7. Provisional evaluation