If I'm understand Beckwith's disassociation of Koguryo(ic) and  
Japanese from other Altaic languages, does this imply that Tungusic  
languages are only in some incidental way connected to "Altaic"  
languages at all? Does it mean that if there is an Altaic family it  
really has only two branches --Turkic and Mongolic? Does it leave the  
Tungusic languages as a free-standing language group?