Manual of comparative linguistics. Alexander Akulov

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      All facts show us that comparison of lexicon is completely irrelevant methodology in the field of historical comparative studies of languages.

      Why we can say that language is first of all grammar, i.e.: system of grammar meanings and their distributions but not a heap of lexemes?

      Yet William Jones, founding father of linguistics, pointed on the fact that grammar is much more important than lexis:

      The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs, and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which perhaps no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family, if this were the place for discussing any question concerning the antiquities of Persia (Jones 1798: 422 – 423).

      Main function of any language is to be mean of communication, but in order to be able to communicate we have to set a system of rubrics/labels/markers first of all, that’s why main function of any language is to rubricate/to structurize reality. Structural level/grammar is the mean that rubricates reality and so it is much more important than lexicon. I suppose we can even say that structure appeared before languages of modern type, i.e.: when ancestors of Homo sapiens developed possibility of free combination of two signals inside one “utterance” it already was primitive form of modern language. Structure is something alike bottle while lexicon is liquid/matter which is inside the bottle; in a bottle can be put wine, water, gasoline or even sand but the bottle always remains bottle.

      To those who think that structure is not important I can give the following example taken from Japanese language: Gakusei ha essei wo gugutte purinto shita. “Having googled an essay student printed [it]”. What makes this phrase be a Japanese phrase? “Japanese” words gakusei “student” (a word of Chinese origin), essei “essay” (a word of English origin), purinto “print” or, may be, “Japanese” verb guguru “to google”? One can probably say that this example is very special since it was made without so called “basic lexicon”; however, such words are of everyday use and also, as it has been noted above, it is impossible to distinguish so called “basic lexicon” since all lexis is culturally determined and borrowings can be even inside of so called “basic lexis”. Any language can potentially accept thousands of foreign words and still remains the same language until its structure remains the same.

      All the above considered facts mean that comparison of lexis should not be base of genetic classification of languages and any researches about genetic affiliation should be based on comparative analysis of structures/grammar, i.e.: analysis and comparison of grammatical systems of compared languages is completely obligatory procedure to prove/test some hypothesis of genetic affiliation of a language. That’s why in current monograph two powerful typological tools are represented.

      2. Prefixation Ability Index (PAI) allows us to see whether two languages can potentially be genetically related

      2.1. PAI Method

      2.1.1. PAI method background

      A. P. Volodin pointed on the fact that all languages can be subdivided into two sets by the parameter of presence/absence of prefixation: one group has prefixation and the other has not (Volodin 1997: 9).

      The first set was conventionally named set of “American type” linear model of word form7.

      According to Volodin American type linear model of word form is the following:

      (p) + (r) + R + (s).

      The second one was conventionally named set of “Altaiс type” linear model of word form8.

      According to Volodin it is the following:

      (r) + R + (s)

      (p – prefix, s – suffix, R – main root, r – incorporated root; brackets mean that corresponding element can be absent or can be represented several times inside a particular form).

      Volodin supposed that there was a border between two sets and that languages belonging to the same set demonstrate certain structural similarities. Also he supposed that typological similarities could probably tell us something about possible routes of ethnic migrations.

      2.1.2. PAI hypothesis development

      Having got Volodin’s notion about two types of linear model of word form, I for quite a long time thought that there was a pretty strict water parting between languages that have prefixation and those that have not. For instance, I seriously thought that Japanese had no prefixes and tried to consider all prefixes of Japanese as variations of certain roots, i.e. as components of compounds; until one day I finally realized that so called “variations of roots” actually could never be placed in nuclear position and so they all should be considered as true prefixes, so strict dichotomy was broken and I had to elaborate new theory.

      As far as any language actually has some ability to make prefixation so there is no strict border between languages with prefixation and languages without prefixation and we should give up ideas of strict subdivision of all existing languages into two sets that have no intersection.

      Hence thereupon, linear model of word forms have the following structures:

      (P) + (R) + r + (s) – linear model of word form of American type;

      (p) + (r) + r + (S) – linear model of word form of Altaic type.

      Capital letters are markers of positions that are used more than positions marked by small letters.

      Thereby, there is no principal structural difference between languages of American type and Altaic type, difference is in degree of manifestation of certain parameters and so, in order to our conclusion will not be speculative, we should speak about degree of prefixation producing ability / prefixation ability degree / prefixation ability index, i.e.: of certain measure of prefixation.

      I suppose that each language has its own ability to produce prefixation and that this ability doesn’t change seriously during all stages of its history.

      Also I suppose that prefixation ability demonstrates itself in any circumstances, i.e.: it is manifested by any means: by means of original morphemes existing in a certain language or by borrowed morphemes.

      If a language has certain prefixation ability it is shown anyway. That’s why I don’t make difference between original and borrowed affixes.

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