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Cladistic representation of the Mayan linguistic family, going back 4000 years.(The numbers represent proposed historical dates in the Common Era).. In historical linguistics, the tree model (also Stammbaum, genetic, or cladistic model) is a model of the evolution of languages analogous to the concept of a family tree, particularly a phylogenetic tree in the biological evolution of species.
Historical glottometry is a method used in historical linguistics. It is a quantitative, non-cladistic approach to language subgrouping. The aim of historical glottometry (HG) is to address the limitations of the tree model when applied to dialect continua and linkages. It acknowledges that the genealogical structure of a linkage typically ...
The tree model presumes that all the circles should be nested and never crosscut, but studies in dialectology and historical linguistics show that assumption to be usually wrong and suggest that the wave-based approach may be more realistic than the tree model. A genealogical family in which isoglosses intersect is called a dialect continuum or ...
A rooted tree explicitly identifies a common ancestor, often by specifying a direction of evolution or by including an "outgroup" that is known to be only distantly related to the set of languages being classified. Most trees are binary, that is a parent has two children. A tree can always be produced even though it is not always appropriate.
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term family is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics analogous to a family tree, or to phylogenetic trees of taxa used in evolutionary taxonomy.
Schleicher helped popularize the tree model (also Stammbaum, genetic, or cladistic model) of historical linguistics, a model of the evolution of languages analogous to the concept of a family tree diagram, particularly a phylogenetic tree of the biological evolution of species.
A crucial aspect of meaning–text theory is the lexicon, considered to be a comprehensive catalogue of the lexical units (LUs) of a language, these units being the lexemes, collocations and other phrasemes, constructions, and other configurations of linguistic elements that are learned and implemented in speech by users of language.
An areal feature is contrasted with genetic relationship determined similarity within the same language family. Features may diffuse from one dominant language to neighbouring languages (see "sprachbund"). Genetic relationships are represented in the family tree model of language change, and areal relationships are represented in the wave model.