The Comparative Method Reviewed

Its stength lies in its concentration on relaticely unfamiliar material, presented by scholars whose expertise is palpable at every turn. There is no doub that the effort that is requires to penetrate and , where necessary, to restate the authors' theoretical methodological premises and conclusions - the very conclusions likely to net the book some eager readers - will be well repaid. It is badly needed.
This wonderfully stimulating book... takes an honorable place in modern scholarship on reconstruction and language relatedness. Drawing on 'difficult' data from largely non-Indo-European languages... it highlights what the standard linguistics textbooks do not - the 'rough edges', the problems with the received wisdom. * Orin D. Gensler, Linguistics, Vol.35, 1999 *