--- In cybalist@..., tgpedersen@... wrote:
> --- In cybalist@..., "roger mills" <romilly@...> wrote:
> >
> > One can be led badly astray by ascribing the "d/n/l/r
alternation"
> to
> > (proto) Austronesian; they are the reflexes in a variety of
> > individual languages, so of relatively recent development.
>
> So of?
> This "so" is very shorthand. Please explain. Has a generally
> recognized terminus post quem been established for the "d/l/n/r"
> alternation or is the assumed date faute de mieux?>
Sorry if I was unclear. What I meant was, it would be very unusual
to find variants in d/n/l/r et al. where the variation could be
ascribed to Proto Austronesian. The problem does arise in later
subgroups, e.g. Proto Philippine, or Proto Malayic; Proto Polynesian
for that matter-- where all manner of competing proto-forms can be
posited for words of same or very similar meaning. (And made more
difficult in some areas because so many languages are phonologically
so similar.) It becomes a question of direct or indirect inheritance,
and in the absence (unlike in the IE field)of a long written record,
we have to trot out the "usual suspects" of dialect and/or inter-
language borrowings. At least in the Malayo-Polynesian world, that's
usually a fair assumption, since they are known to have been skillful
sailors. As someone has said-- and you suggest in your later post
#5853)-- "sailors have many neighbors."