the vocabulary -- of unattested parent languages from information about
All aspects of language change, and a great deal is know about general
mechanisms and historical details of changes at all levels of linguistic
analysis. However, a special and conspicuous success has been achieved
in modeling changes in phonological systems, traditionally called sound
change. In the cases where we have access to several historical stages
-- for instance, the development of the modern Romance Languages from
Latin -- these sound changes are remarkably regular. Techniques developed
in such cases permit us to reconstruct the sound system -- and some of
the vocabulary -- of unattested parent languages from information about
daughter languages.