Editing Mass comparison (section)

==== Sound symbolism and onomatopoeia ====

Proponents of mass comparison often neglect to exclude classes of words that are usually considered to be unreliable for proving linguistic relationships. For instance, Greenberg made no attempt to exclude [[onomatopoeic]] words from his data. Onomatopoeic words are often excluded from linguistic comparison, as similar-sounding onomatopoeic words can easily evolve in parallel. Though it is impossible to make a definite judgement as to whether a word is onomatopoeic, certain [[semantic field]]s, such as "blow" and "suck", show a cross-linguistic tendency to be onomatopoeic; making such a judgement may require deep analysis of a type that mass comparison makes difficult. Similarly, Greenberg neglected to exclude items affected by [[sound symbolism]], which often distorts the original shape of lexical items, from his data. Finally, "nursery words", such as [[Mama and papa|"mama" and "papa"]] lack evidential value in linguistic comparison, as they are usually thought to derive from the sounds [[infants]] make when beginning to [[language acquisition|acquire languages]]. Advocates of mass comparison often avoid taking sufficient care to exclude nursery words; one, [[Merritt Ruhlen]] has even attempted to downplay the problems inherent in using them in linguistic comparison.<ref name="Campbell and Poser 2008"/><ref name="Campbell 1997"/> The fact that many of [[indigenous languages of the Americas]] have pronouns that begin with [[nasal stops]], which Greenberg sees as evidence of common ancestry, may ultimately also be linked to early speech development; [[Algonquian languages|Algonquian]] specialist [[Ives Goddard]] notes that "A gesture equivalent to that used to articulate the sound ''n'' is the single most important voluntary muscular activity of a nursing infant".<ref>{{Cite book|chapter=Sapir's Comparative Method|last=Goddard|first=Ives|author-link=Ives Goddard|date=1986|series=Amsterdam Studies in the History and Theory of the Language Sciences|title=New perspectives in language, culture, and personality: Proceedings of the Edward Sapir Centenary Conference (Ottawa, 1-3 October 1984)|volume=41 |editor-last1=Cowan|editor-first1=William|editor-last2=Foster|editor-first2=Michael K.|editor-last3=Koerner|editor-first3=Konrad|page=202|location=Amsterdam|publisher=John Benjamins|doi=10.1075/sihols.41.09god|isbn=978-90-272-4522-9 }}</ref>