Tutorial on Computational Linguistic Phylogeny

Language and Linguistics Compass 2/5 (2008): 760–820, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00082.xTutorial on Computational Linguistic PhylogenyJohanna NicholsUniversity of California, BerkeleyTandy Warnow*University of TexasAbstractOver the last 10 or more years, there has been a tremendous increase in the useof computational techniques (many of which come directly from biology) forestimating evolutionary histories (i.e., phylogenies) of languages. This tutorialsurveys the different methods and different types of linguistic data that have beenused to estimate phylogenies, explains the scientific and mathematical foundationsof phylogenetic estimation, and presents methodologies for evaluating a phylogenyestimation method.1. IntroductionOver the last 10 or more years, there has been a tremendous increase inthe use of computational techniques (many of which come directly frombiology) for estimating evolutionary histories of languages. Despite theenthusiasm with which the popular press has received these studies, it isprobably fair to say that much of the community of historical linguists hasbeen skeptical of the claims made by these studies, and perhaps evendubious of the potential for such approaches to be of use.Indeed, while we ourselves are quite positive about the use of compu-tational techniques for phylogenetic estimation in linguistics, it is quitedifficult to evaluate phylogeny estimation methods, since the true evolu-tionary history of any language ...