Phylogenetic Models for Semitic Vocabulary
Résumé
Kitchen et al. (2009) analyze a data set of lexical trait data for twenty five Semitic languages, including ancient languages Hebrew, Aramaic and Akka- dian, modern South Arabian and Arabic languages and fifteen ethiosemitic lan- guages. They estimate a phylogenetic tree for the diversification of lexical traits using tree and trait models and methods set up for genetic sequence data. We reanalyze the data in a homplasy-free model for lexical trait data. We use a prior on phylogenies which is non-informative with respect to some of the key scien- tific hypotheses (concerning topology and root time). Our results are in broad agreement with those of Kitchen et al. (2009), though our 95% HPD for the root of the Semitic tree (the branching of Akkadian) is [4400, 5100]BP and we place Moroccan and Ogaden Arabic in the Modern South Arabian Group.
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