Loanwords and Linguistic Phylogenetics: *<i>peleku</i>‐ ‘axe’ and *(<i>H</i>)<i>a(i)g</i>‐ ‘goat’¹

Abstract This paper assesses the role of borrowings in two different approaches to linguistic phylogenetics: Traditional qualitative analyses of lexemes, and quantitative computational analysis of cognacy. It problematises the assumption that loanwords can be excluded altogether from datasets of lexical cognacy. It discusses two exemplary lexemes with a limited regional or topological distribution, which have been argued to be borrowings into intermediate proto‐languages between the dissolution of Proto‐Indo‐European and the protolanguages reconstructible for the daughter branches: * pelek̑u ‐ ‘axe’ (limited to Indo‐Iranian and Greek; allegedly from a Semitic language) and * (H)a(i̯)g̑ ‐ ‘goat’ (limited to “Balkanic”, “Indo‐Slavic” or both; allegedly North‐East Caucasian). The paper brings to light how diverging analyses of these lexemes have been and may be used as phylogenetic arguments for different subgroupings. It further discusses the problems with the loan word origins of the lexemes: Although there is a Semitic root * p‐l‐q ‘cut’, it is impossible to derive the noun *pelek̑u‐ from it in Semitic and in Indo‐European; and while there is a reconstructed Proto‐North‐East‐Caucasian form comparable to *( H)a(i̯)g̑‐ , the connection is dependent on idiosyncrasies. The main point of the paper is that loanword judgements and linguistic reconstruction are interdependent. This does not discredit the discipline, but it does call for awareness of the assumptions underlying the linguistic analyses on which the phylogenetic results rest, no matter the approach.