The chapter illustrates a method for historical comparison and phylogenetic reconstruction that uses syntactic characters; it presents various experiments based on this method and designed to test the widespread assumption that syntax does not carry a historical signal. It shows that formal syntactic evidence, coded as a set of parameters about the nominal syntax of languages from 6 or 7 distinct families in Eurasia, retrieves between 80% and 90% of the phylogenetic clusters established on the grounds of classical lexical methods (i.e. through cognacy judgments).
