Subject: comparative method : n - ary comparison again

some time ago , while we were discussing comparative linguistics , the question was raised ( by bill poser , i think ) of whether anybody ever claims in print that binary comparison is preferable to n-ary comparison . while i cited one reference at that time , i thought it might be still be of general interest to adduce one more , which has just come to my attention . in his attack on the theory that japanese is altaic ( and on altaic as a whole ) , janhunen 1992 argues that the odds of finding apparent matches simply by chance when japanese is compared to the four altaic languages / subgroups , viz . , turkic , mongolic , tungusic , and korean , are four times as high as are the odds of finding such spurious matches when japanese is compared to just one language , specifically korean ( which is singled out by janhunen because there has been a fair amount of work on japanese - korean comparison which ignored altaic ) . in other words , janhunen assumes that a 5 - ary comparison is four times as likely to produce matches purely by chance ( what i call ' false positives ' ) as is a binary comparison . this , needless to say , is a fallacy , but there you have it . janhunen , juha . 1992 . das japanische in vergleichender sicht . journal de la soci t finno - ougrienne 84 . 145-161 .
