megalocomparison

English

Etymology

From megalo- +‎ comparison, coined by Matisoff (1990) in a critique of Joseph Greenberg's "mass comparison" (see quotation below).[1]

Noun

megalocomparison (uncountable)

  1. (historical linguistics, uncommon, often derogatory) Long-range comparison; especially, far-fetched long-range comparison that cannot sufficiently demonstrate any genetic relationship.
    • [1990, J. A. Matisoff, “On Megalocomparison”, in Language, volume 66, number 1, →DOI, pages 106–120:
      Megalocomparison takes on any more remote relationship, where sound-correspondences are not regular and putative cognates are few, so that chance rivals genetic relationship as the explanation for perceived similarities.]
    • 1994, J. T. Katz, “Review of Explanation in Historical Linguistics by G. W. Davis & G. K. Iverson”, in Language, volume 70, number 1, →DOI, pages 199–200:
      There have been many recent broadsides on megalocomparison, and those who still think them inappropriate may find this paper a revelation […]
    • 2009, J. Norman, “A New Look at Altaic [Review of Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages by S. Starostin, A. Dybo, O. Mudrak, I. Gruntov, & V. Glumov]”, in Journal of the American Oriental Society‎[1], volume 129, number 1, pages 83–89:
      It seems to be part of a larger project of megalo-comparison whose aim is ultimately to reduce the number of language families in the world to a much smaller number than is now normally accepted.

Derived terms

References

  1. ^ Matisoff, J. A. (1990). On Megalocomparison. Language, 66(1), 106–120. →DOI
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