Comments on Jacques Guy's 'Lexicostatistics as Chess'.

The author provides a rebuttal to another rebuttal in the same issue written by linguist Jaques B. M. Guy entitled "Lexicostatistics as Chess: Observations on Paul Black's Lexicostatistics with Massive Borrowing." Paul Black, the author of the original article that Guy criticized, asserts that whatever the merits of Guy's observations about the treatment of loanwords, as a lexicostatistician he can accept Guy's critique to the extent that he employs the simplifying assumption that retention rates are constant, and Black realizes that statistical variation can sometimes result in errors. Even so, since such other approaches to classification as the use of shared innovations seem no more reliable, Black prefers to take advantage of the evidence of both types of approaches.