Robert A Blust
Biographic Data
| ID | 381658 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert A Blust |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert A |
| FAMILY NAME | Blust |
| SIGNATURE | BLUST R A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
North Borneo Sourcebook
North Borneo Sourcebook seeks to address the lack of available data for the languages of northern Borneo, where forty to fifty distinct languages are spoken in the Malaysian state of Sabah alone. While members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) have worked in Sabah for several decades and have published articles on individual languages, until now no comprehensive survey of the languages of Sabah had yet been done. In addition to the lan…
Research priorities in historical-comparative linguistics
International audience
Primary split revisited
Textbook treatments generally state that primary split, or split-merger leads to positional neutralization, but has no effect on phoneme inventory. However, if the phonemes affected by a primary split have a defective distribution at the time of the change the result may be loss of contrast, or inventory reduction. This potential is illustrated with artificial data, but involves no assumptions that are contrary to common types of sound change
Must sound change be linguistically motivated
A number of well-documented sound changes in Austronesian languages do not appear to be either phonetically or phonologically motivated. Although it is possible that some of these changes involved intermediate steps for which we have no direct documentation, the assumption that this was always the case appears arbitrary, and is in violation of Occam's Razor. These data thus raise the question whether sound change must be phonetically motivated, a…
Ablaut in Northwest Borneo
Ablaut, a morphological device familiar to Indo-Europeanists, is extremely rare in the more than 900 Austronesian languages, but is widespread in the languages of northern Sarawak. At least seven languages within this area make extensive use of simple verbal ablaut, and all but two of these also use 'compound ablaut', an affixational process which combines homorganic nasal substitution of the stem-initial consonant with internal vowel change. Com…
Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia
Austronesian Root Theory
Since the pioneering analyses of Renward Brandstetter (1860–1942) a quasi-morphological element called the ‘root’ has been recognized in Austronesian linguistics. This monograph confronts many of the methodological and substantive issues raised but never fully resolved by Brandstetter. In an effort to reassess the value of his work for contemporary linguistics the author examines Brandstetter’s methods and results, and applies a modified from of …
A Note on Semantic Cycles in Historical Change
Preview this article: A Note on Semantic Cycles in Historical Change, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/dia.6.2.14blu-1.gif
Lexical Reconstruction and Semantic Reconstruction
In their book of 1974, Lexical Reconstruction: The case of the Proto-Athapaskan kinship system, Isidore Dyen and David F. Aberle developed a methodology for matching reconstructed morphemes with semantic categories. The promise that their contribution holds out to the linguist and to the culture-historian is that of a rigorous tool of historical inference free from the arbitrariness sometimes associated with the linguistic treatment of meaning. I…
On Language and Early Austronesian Social Organization
A Rediscovered Austronesian Comparative Paradigm
Dempwolff's Reduplicated Monosyllables
Proto-Austronesian
The Proto-Austronesian Word for 'Two'
Robert A. Blust, The Proto-Austronesian Word for 'Two': A Second Look, Oceanic Linguistics, Vol. 13, No. 1/2, Papers of the First International Conference on Comparative Austronesian Linguistics, 1974: Proto-Austronesian and Western Austronesian (Summer - Winter, 1974), pp. 123-161
Proto-Austronesian Syntax
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo.
A double counter‐universal in Kelabit 1
(1974). A double counter‐universal in Kelabit. Paper in Linguistics: Vol. 7, No. 3-4, pp. 309-324
The origins of Bintulu 6, d
Bintulu, an Austronesian language spoken in the district capital of that name and in several smaller communities in the basin of the Kemena river, Fourth Division, Sarawak, has two previously unrecognized implosive stop phonemes, 6 and d. Where these segments occur in lexical items known to reflect a Proto-Austronesian (PAN) reconstruction, they appear to result from an unconditioned phonemic split of PAN *b, *d, *D, or *j. A hypothesis construct…
Note on PAN *qa(R) (CtT)a 'Outsiders, Alien People'
Proto-Austronesian Addenda
Some New Proto-Austronesian Trisyllables
The origins of Bintulu 6, d
Bintulu, an Austronesian language spoken in the district capital of that name and in several smaller communities in the basin of the Kemena river, Fourth Division, Sarawak, has two previously unrecognized implosive stop phonemes, 6 and d. Where these segments occur in lexical items known to reflect a Proto-Austronesian (PAN) reconstruction, they appear to result from an unconditioned phonemic split of PAN *b, *d, *D, or *j. A hypothesis construct…
On Language and Early Austronesian Social Organization
Some New Proto-Austronesian Trisyllables
Proto-Austronesian Addenda
Note on PAN *qa(R) (CtT)a 'Outsiders, Alien People'
The origins of Bintulu 6, d
Bintulu, an Austronesian language spoken in the district capital of that name and in several smaller communities in the basin of the Kemena river, Fourth Division, Sarawak, has two previously unrecognized implosive stop phonemes, 6 and d. Where these segments occur in lexical items known to reflect a Proto-Austronesian (PAN) reconstruction, they appear to result from an unconditioned phonemic split of PAN *b, *d, *D, or *j. A hypothesis construct…
The Proto-Austronesian Word for 'Two'
Robert A. Blust, The Proto-Austronesian Word for 'Two': A Second Look, Oceanic Linguistics, Vol. 13, No. 1/2, Papers of the First International Conference on Comparative Austronesian Linguistics, 1974: Proto-Austronesian and Western Austronesian (Summer - Winter, 1974), pp. 123-161
Proto-Austronesian Syntax
Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo.
A double counter‐universal in Kelabit 1
(1974). A double counter‐universal in Kelabit. Paper in Linguistics: Vol. 7, No. 3-4, pp. 309-324
Dempwolff's Reduplicated Monosyllables
Proto-Austronesian
A Rediscovered Austronesian Comparative Paradigm
On Language and Early Austronesian Social Organization
Lexical Reconstruction and Semantic Reconstruction
In their book of 1974, Lexical Reconstruction: The case of the Proto-Athapaskan kinship system, Isidore Dyen and David F. Aberle developed a methodology for matching reconstructed morphemes with semantic categories. The promise that their contribution holds out to the linguist and to the culture-historian is that of a rigorous tool of historical inference free from the arbitrariness sometimes associated with the linguistic treatment of meaning. I…
A Note on Semantic Cycles in Historical Change
Preview this article: A Note on Semantic Cycles in Historical Change, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/dia.6.2.14blu-1.gif
Austronesian Root Theory
Since the pioneering analyses of Renward Brandstetter (1860–1942) a quasi-morphological element called the ‘root’ has been recognized in Austronesian linguistics. This monograph confronts many of the methodological and substantive issues raised but never fully resolved by Brandstetter. In an effort to reassess the value of his work for contemporary linguistics the author examines Brandstetter’s methods and results, and applies a modified from of …
Proto Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia
Ablaut in Northwest Borneo
Ablaut, a morphological device familiar to Indo-Europeanists, is extremely rare in the more than 900 Austronesian languages, but is widespread in the languages of northern Sarawak. At least seven languages within this area make extensive use of simple verbal ablaut, and all but two of these also use 'compound ablaut', an affixational process which combines homorganic nasal substitution of the stem-initial consonant with internal vowel change. Com…
Must sound change be linguistically motivated
A number of well-documented sound changes in Austronesian languages do not appear to be either phonetically or phonologically motivated. Although it is possible that some of these changes involved intermediate steps for which we have no direct documentation, the assumption that this was always the case appears arbitrary, and is in violation of Occam's Razor. These data thus raise the question whether sound change must be phonetically motivated, a…
Primary split revisited
Textbook treatments generally state that primary split, or split-merger leads to positional neutralization, but has no effect on phoneme inventory. However, if the phonemes affected by a primary split have a defective distribution at the time of the change the result may be loss of contrast, or inventory reduction. This potential is illustrated with artificial data, but involves no assumptions that are contrary to common types of sound change
Research priorities in historical-comparative linguistics
International audience
North Borneo Sourcebook
North Borneo Sourcebook seeks to address the lack of available data for the languages of northern Borneo, where forty to fifty distinct languages are spoken in the Malaysian state of Sabah alone. While members of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) have worked in Sabah for several decades and have published articles on individual languages, until now no comprehensive survey of the languages of Sabah had yet been done. In addition to the lan…
History (17 works) · Linguistics (15 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (10 works) · Austronesian languages (7 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Geography (4 works) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (4 works)