Mass comparison is a method developed by Joseph Greenberg to determine the level of genetic relatedness between languages. It is now usually called multilateral comparison. Mass comparison is rejected by most linguists, and its continued use is primarily restricted to fringe linguistics. Some of the top-level relationships Greenberg named are now generally accepted thanks to analysis with other, more widely accepted linguistic techniques, though they had already been posited by others (e.g. Afro-Asiatic and Niger–Congo). Others are accepted by many though disputed by some prominent specialists (e.g. Nilo-Saharan), while others are almost universally rejected (e.g. Eurasiatic, Khoisan and Amerind).
Methodology The idea of mass comparison method is that a group of languages is related when they show numerous resemblances in vocabulary, including pronouns, and morphemes, forming an interlocking pattern common to the group. Unlike the comparative method, mass comparison does not require any regular or systematic correspondences between the languages compared; all that is required is an impressionistic feeling of similarity. Greenberg does not establish a clear standard for determining relatedness; he does not set a standard for what he considers a "resemblance" or how many resemblances are needed to prove relationship. Mass comparison is done by setting up a table of basic vocabulary items and their forms in the languages to be compared for resemblances. The table can also include common morphemes. The following table was used by Greenberg to illustrate the technique. It shows the forms of six items of basic vocabulary in nine different languages, identified by letters.
According to Greenberg, basic relationships can be determined without any experience in the case of languages that are fairly closely related, though knowledge of probable paths of sound change acquired through typology allows one to go farther faster. For instance, the path p > f is extremely frequent, but the path f > p is much less so, enabling one to hypothesize that fi : pi and fik : pix are indeed related and go back to protoform *pi and *pik/x. Similarly, while knowledge that k > x is extremely frequent, x > k is much less so enables one to choose *pik over *pix. Thus, according to Greenberg (2005:318), phonological considerations come into play from the very beginning, even though mass comparison does not attempt to produce reconstructions of protolanguages as these belong to a later phase of study. The tables used in actual mass comparison involve much larger numbers of items and languages. The items included may be either lexical, such as 'hand', 'sky', and 'go', or morphological, such as PLURAL and MASCULINE. For Greenberg, the results achieved through mass comparison approached certainty: "The presence of fundamental vocabulary resemblances and resemblances in items with grammatical function, particularly if recurrent through a number of languages, is a sure indication of genetic relationship."
Relation to the comparative method As a tool for identifying genetic relationships between languages, mass comparison is an alternative to the comparative method. Proponents of mass comparison, such as Greenberg, claim that the comparative method is unnecessary to identify genetic relationships; furthermore, they claim that it can only be used once relationships are identified using mass comparison, making mass comparison the "first step" in determining relationships (1957:44). This contrasts with mainstream comparative linguistics, which relies on the comparative method to aid in identifying genetic relationships; specifically, it involves comparing data from two or more languages. If sets of recurrent sound correspondences are found, the languages are most likely related; if further investigation confirms the potential relationship, reconstructed ancestral forms can be set up using the collated sound correspondences. However, Greenberg did not entirely disavow the comparative method; he stated that "once we have a well-established stock I go about comparing and reconstructing just like anyone else, as can be seen in my various contributions to historical linguistics" (1990, quoted in Ruhlen 1994:285) and accused mainstream linguists of spreading "the strange and widely disseminated notion that I seek to replace the comparative method with a new and strange invention of my own" (2002:2). Earlier in his career, before he fully developed mass comparison, he even stated that his methodology did not "conflict in any fashion with the traditional comparative method" (1957:44). However, Greenberg sees the comparative method as playing no role in determining relationships, significantly reducing its importance compared to traditional methods of linguistic comparison. In effect, his approach of mass comparison sidelined the comparative method with a "new and strange invention of his own". Reflecting the methodological empiricism also present in his typological work, he viewed facts as of greater weight than their interpretations, stating (1957:45):
[R]econstruction of an original sound system has the status of an explanatory theory to account for etymologies already strong on other grounds. Between the *vaida of Bopp and the *γwoidxe of Sturtevant lie more than a hundred years of the intensive development of Indo-European phonological reconstruction. What has remained constant has been the validity of the etymologic relationship among Sanskrit veda, Greek woida, Gothic wita, all meaning "I know", and many other unshakable etymologies both of root and of non-root morphemes recognized at the outset. And who will be bold enough to conjecture from what original the Indo-Europeanist one hundred years from now will derive these same forms?
Criticism
Errors in application
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