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Article published In: Understanding language genealogy: Alternatives to the tree model
Edited by Siva Kalyan, Alexandre François and Harald Hammarström
[Journal of Historical Linguistics 9:1] 2019
► pp. 128–167

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Save the trees

Why we need tree models in linguistic reconstruction (and when we should apply them)

 | Centre des Recherches Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale
 | Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Published online: 2 July 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.17008.mat
Abstract
Skepticism regarding the tree model has a long tradition in historical linguistics. Although scholars have emphasized that the tree model and its long-standing counterpart, the wave theory, are not necessarily incompatible, the opinion that family trees are unrealistic and should be completely abandoned in the field of historical linguistics has always enjoyed a certain popularity. This skepticism has further increased with the advent of recently proposed techniques for data visualization which seem to confirm that we can study language history without trees. In this article, we show that the concrete arguments that have been brought up in favor of achronistic wave models do not hold. By comparing the phenomenon of incomplete lineage sorting in biology with processes in linguistics, we show that data which do not seem as though they can be explained using trees can indeed be explained without turning to diffusion as an explanation. At the same time, methodological limits in historical reconstruction might easily lead to an overestimation of regularity, which may in turn appear as conflicting patterns when the researcher is trying to reconstruct a coherent phylogeny. We illustrate how, in several instances, trees can benefit language comparison, although we also discuss their shortcomings in modeling mixed languages. While acknowledging that not all aspects of language history are tree-like, and that integrated models which capture both vertical and lateral language relations may depict language history more realistically than trees do, we conclude that all models claiming that vertical language relations can be completely ignored are essentially wrong: either they still tacitly draw upon family trees or they only provide a static display of data and thus fail to model temporal aspects of language history.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Dendrophobia and dendrophilia in linguistics
    • 2.1Tree thinking in Schleicher’s work
    • 2.2Tree skepticism in the work of Schmidt and Schuchardt
    • 2.3Early arguments against the Stammbaumtheorie
  • 3.The new debate on trees and waves
    • 3.1Phylogenetic tree reconstruction after the quantitative turn
    • 3.2Linguistic data and data-display networks
    • 3.3Shared innovations and Historical Glottometry
  • 4.Saving the trees from the critics
    • 4.1Inherited variation and incomplete lineage sorting
      • 4.1.1Alternations
      • 4.1.2Proto-variation
      • 4.1.3Concluding remarks
    • 4.2The problem of identifying lexical innovations
      • 4.2.1Undetectable borrowings
      • 4.2.2Nativization of loanwords
  • 5.The benefit of trees in language comparison
    • 5.1Parallel innovations
    • 5.2Reconstruction of the Ursprache
    • 5.3Directionality of change
    • 5.4Common tendencies of language change
    • 5.5Language change and migration history
  • 6.The limits of the tree model
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (113)
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2022. Pour une histoire de la langue berbère dans sa diversité et sa complexité. Études et Documents Berbères N° 45-46:1 ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo
Camino, Iñaki
2021. On continental Basque dialects and some aspects of their chronology. Dialectologia et Geolinguistica 29:1 ► pp. 107 ff. DOI logo
Syrjänen, Kaj, Luke Maurits, Unni Leino, Terhi Honkola, Jadranka Rota & Outi Vesakoski
2021. Crouching TIGER, hidden structure: Exploring the nature of linguistic data using TIGER values. Journal of Language Evolution 6:2 ► pp. 99 ff. DOI logo
Teixidor-Toneu, Irene, Anneleen Kool, Simon J. Greenhill, Karoline Kjesrud, Jade J. Sandstedt, Vincent Manzanilla & Fiona M. Jordan
2021. Historical, archaeological and linguistic evidence test the phylogenetic inference of Viking-Age plant use. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376:1828 DOI logo
Ricquier, Birgit
2020. Language and Archeology. In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Kalyan, Siva & Alexandre François
2019. When the waves meet the trees. Journal of Historical Linguistics 9:1 ► pp. 168 ff. DOI logo
List, Johann-Mattis
2019. Beyond edit distances: Comparing linguistic reconstruction systems. Theoretical Linguistics 45:3-4 ► pp. 247 ff. DOI logo
List, Johann-Mattis
2023. Evolutionary Aspects of Language Change. In Evolutionary Thinking Across Disciplines [Synthese Library, 478], ► pp. 103 ff. DOI logo
List, Johann‐Mattis
2019. Automated methods for the investigation of language contact, with a focus on lexical borrowing. Language and Linguistics Compass 13:10 DOI logo
Verkerk, Annemarie
2019. Detecting non-tree-like signal using multiple tree topologies. Journal of Historical Linguistics 9:1 ► pp. 9 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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