The comparative method tells us, in principle, nothing about the acoustic shape of reconstructed forms; it identifies the phonemes in reconstructed forms merely as recurrent units.
- Bloomfield (1935), a pag.309

The comparative method assumes that each branch or language bears independent witness to the forms of the parent language, and that identities or correspondences among the related languages reveal features of the parent speech.
- Bloomfield (1935), a pag.310

Thus, the comparative method reconstructs uniform parent languages existing at points in time, and deduces the changes which took place after each such parent language split, up to the next following parent language or recorded language.
- Bloomfield (1935), a pag.311

The comparative method thus shows us the ancestry of languages in the form of a family-tree, with successive branchings [...]
- Bloomfield (1935), a pag.311