comparative method alexis manaster ramer ask claim relatedness subgroup establish base systematic morphological relationship sort likely observe paradigm declension m familiar claim much weaker form morphological comparison reliable phonological one basis establish linguistic relationship subgroup basis example robert hetzron propose rigorous internal subgroup semitic language base affix verb paradigm hetzron s proposal hebrew arabic aramaic constitute central semitic group believe correct support much evidence hetzron adduce much morphological morphosyntactic e g innovation novel negative marker etc read too much claim morphological priority establish subgroup alway interpret reaction difficulty distinguish convergent share phonological development principle basis difficult determine whether particular recurrent sound change language group represent share innovation rather convergent development pragmatically safer rely morphological innovation thus case semitic language change p f g jh junk treat share innovation lead subgroup inconsistent those deduce means hand unusual change change proto semitic glottalic consonant pharyngealize consonant much likely represent share innovation typological rarity pharyngealize consonant regard fritz newmeyer s question comparative syntactic reconstruction nt systematic publish counter jeffer claim principle impossible however case overly pessimistic assessment problem course appropriate context compare phoneme word morpheme morpheme paradigm s clear context word order presumably discourse context play role imagine language family share unusual word order vi vi dominant type whatever those counterfactual want attribute order latest share ancestor pragmatically speak s lot easier information morphological context particular phoneme reliable information larger context sentence construction type nonetheless least inchoately perhap inchoateness jeffer object notion syntactic reconstruction surely behind claim proto indo european sov proto semitic svo two principle genetic reconstruction lingua alouse faber faber haskin yale edu 