Re: Digest Number 319

--- In cybalist@..., romilly@... wrote:

> --- 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."

Which I suppose means no hard evidence against a presumed antediluvian
d/n/l/r alternation in P(...)P Austronesian?
If the problem arises in later subgroups, in order to rule out the
alternation for ProtoAustronesian, you would have to be sure of
which of d,n,l,r occurs in Proto-Polynesian, Prote-Malayic, Proto-
Philippine, I suppose, or does the uncertainty spread transitively to
Proto-Austronesian?

Torsten