quality:correction, structural:summarization
Dryer (2022)

Matthew Dryer used lexicostatistics to evaluate Pawley and Hammarström (2018), based on 40-word Swadesh list data from the ASJP database. Dryer concludes that the following language families are likely to be Trans–New Guinea. They are listed in order of highest to lowest score, i.e. starting with the most likely.

Dryer does not consider that evidence based solely on pronouns and the word for 'louse' is sufficient to conclude that a family is a member of Trans-New Guinea. This is because they are more likely to be an areal form (Wanderwort) in the case of the word for 'louse' or to be highly conservative in the case of pronouns. Dryer states that similarities solely in pronouns mean that the families are related but that the relationship is so distant as to be "undetectable".

Dryer notes that this is a preliminary quantitative analysis and only gives a rough prediction of the families that may or may not belong within Trans–New Guinea, and that the lexical similarities it is based on may be due to loanwords, areal forms (Wanderwörter) and so forth.