Robert Blust
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 98642 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Robert Blust |
| PRENOMES | Robert |
| SOBRENOME | Blust |
| ASSINATURA | BLUST R |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Hawaii–West Oahu |
| VERIFICADO | Não |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 108 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 352 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 107 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1969 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2024 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
"The Myth of the Rainbow Serpent "Myth
From the time that A. R. Radcliffe-Brown provided the first detailed description in 1926, the Rainbow Serpent culture complex has been regarded, either explicitly or implicitly, as the exclusive domain of Aboriginal Australia. An extensive survey of the ethnology of the rainbow fails to support this view, since elements of the same belief system appear in animistic societies around the world. These typically represent the rainbow as an enormous s…
The Dragon and the Rainbow
Conclusions
ConclusionsOnce we begin to seriously investigate the ethnology of the rainbow, the truth about the dragon is seen to lie all around us, like a field of newly fallen snow, immaculate and clear.Yet, everywhere we see it trampled into an unrecognizable slush by the ceaseless traffic of baseless speculation.This has been the story of the dragon for well over a century.To state once more the only conclusion that can possibly be supported by the evide…
Tylor Strikes Back
The notion of a "survival" in culture, first proposed by E. B. Tylor in 1871, was used extensively for perhaps three decades, and then fell into disfavor, and came to be regarded by many anthropologists as unworthy of further consideration. Yet the concept of a survival is logically coherent and is strongly supported in sister disciplines such as linguistics. This paper maintains that - despite whatever excesses may have given it a bad name - the…
The Neogrammarian hypothesis and pandemic irregularity
At least three types of sound change (prenasalization of obstruents, lenition of obstruents, conversion of labial consonants to the corresponding labiovelars) are widespread in the Austronesian language family as sporadic innovations. What marks these off as different from more familiar types of irregularity is their repeated occurrence across hundreds of related languages, a phenomenon that can conveniently be called “pandemic irregularity.” All…
The pitfalls of negative evidence
Beginning with publications in the early 1980s there have been attempts to use syntactic data to determine the highest-order subgroups of Austronesian. These efforts fall into two categories: those which claim that the voice affixes of Philippine-type languages originally had exclusively nominalizing functions, and those which claim that the affixes themselves were innovated after the separation of Rukai from the ancestor of all other Austronesia…
The Lowland Kenyah posterior implosives
The Kenyah languages of central Borneo form a distinct unit within the North Sarawak group of Austronesian languages. In northern Sarawak there is a well-defined contrast between types that have been called ‘Highland Kenyah’ and ‘Lowland Kenyah’. A key difference between these sets of closely-related languages is the reflexes of Proto-North Sarawak/Proto-Kenyah *b, *d, *j, *g and *b h , *d h , *j h , *g h , which are distinguished (usually as b, …
Pointing, Rainbows, and the Archaeology of Mind
For over a century anthropologists and folklorists have sporadically recorded a belief that one should not point at a rainbow, lest the offending finger become permanently bent, rot, be supernaturally severed, fall off, etc. In each case the belief was reported for a particular geographical region without apparent awareness of its presence elsewhere, and in no case was an explanation for this curious idea proposed. This paper documents what is ca…
More odd conditions? Voiced obstruents as triggers and suppressors in Miri, Sarawak
Miri, an Austronesian language spoken in northern Sarawak, Malaysia, has two sets of vowel changes that are conditioned by voiced obstruents. In the first set, a last-syllable low vowel is fronted and raised to [e], or less commonly [i], if a voiced obstruent appears earlier in the word, while a penultimate low vowel immediately following the trigger is skipped. In the second, a high vowel in the final syllable undergoes breaking (diphthongisatio…
"Response to Comments on "The Resurrection of Proto-Philippines
I am grateful to the four colleagues who have expressed their views on my argument for the reality of PPH, and I wish we could have had a larger number of contributors, with somewhat shorter and more relevant commentary in some cases to provide space for others
The Austronesian Homeland and Dispersal
The Austronesian language family is the second largest on Earth in number of languages, and was the largest in geographical extent before the European colonial expansions of the past five centuries. This alone makes the determination of its homeland a research question of the first order. There is now near-universal agreement among both linguists and archaeologists that the Austronesian expansion began from Taiwan, somewhat more than a millennium…
Let's talk about trees
This volume contains an introduction and eight papers presented at an international symposium ‘Let's Talk about Trees’, which was organised by Ritsuko Kikusawa and hosted by the National Museum of Ethnology of Osaka, Japan, in February 2013. The stated purpose of the meeting was to evaluate the pros and cons of the classic tree model of historical linguistics in describing the order of splits within a language family. Because the problem of model…
Why Dragons Are Bisexual
Dragons are portrayed in widely separated cultures as simultaneously male and female. While this trait may appear arbitrary, its global distribution implies that it is motivated by observations available to all humans. Many seemingly arbitrary traits of dragons are shared by conceptions of the rainbow, which is widely portrayed as having both male (primary) and female (secondary) arcs. This correlation of features in mythical and natural counterp…
Ancient DNA and its contribution to understanding the human history of the Pacific Islands
Two recent papers, by Lipson et al. and Posth et al., have challenged current interpretations of the initial settlement of Remote Oceania. We invited Stuart Bedford, who is an author on both papers, to outline their importance, and a number of scholars in various disciplines to comment on their findings
First Islanders
The Challenge of Semantic Reconstruction
Of all aspects of linguistic reconstruction, semantic reconstruction is perhaps the most vexing. Where the meanings of cognates are nearly uniform, there is not much to discuss; but where meanings differ widely, or where they appear to incorporate unrelated concepts, the challenge of determining an original sense can be considerable. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) *suku illustrates the second of these problems. In Malay, the meanings 'ethnic group…
Research priorities in historical-comparative linguistics
International audience
Terror from the Sky
Terror from the Sky
Within recorded history. most Southeast Asian peoples have been of “southern Mongoloid” physical type, whether they speak Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Austronesian, Tai-Kadai, or Hmong-Mien languages. However, population distributions suggest that this is a post-Pleistocene phenomenon and that for tens of millennia before the last glaciation ended Greater Mainland Southeast Asia, which included the currently insular world that rests on the Sunda…
One mark per word? Some patterns of dissimilation in Austronesian and Australian languages
Adequately accounting for patterns of dissimilation has challenged more than one linguistic theory. This paper brings together evidence for certain recurrent patterns of dissimilation in Austronesian and Australian languages. It does not claim to have found a definitive solution to why these patterns occur, but it does provide indications that avoidance of multiple markedness may be causally implicated. Although the emphasis is different, the pro…
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
Austronesian
The Austronesian (AN) language family contains nearly 20% of the world’s languages, and extends more than halfway around the globe, from Madagascar to Easter Island. The more than 1200 historically attested languages in this family are descended from an ancestor that probably was spoken on Taiwan between 5500 and 6000 years ago. In the course of the AN diaspora over a period of several millennia these languages have come into contact with many ot…
Lexicography on the Internet – Austronesian Language Sources
The Proto-Oceanic palatals
The Austronesian Homeland
Proceedings of "Origin and Expansion of the Austronesians"
Hunter-Gatherers and Their Neighbors from Prehistory to the Present [and Comments and Replies]
Austronesian culture history
Although subject to limitations of its own, historical linguistics can illuminate fragments of the human cultural past that are often irrecoverable from the archaeological record. Where both lines of evidence bear on a common referent they may be mutually corroboratory or contradictory. A number of inferences of all three types are considered, and certain conclusions reached which differ markedly from recent word‐based reconstructions of Austrone…
The prehistory of the Austronesian-speaking peoples
Early Austronesian Social Organization
Published views on early Austronesian social organization can be characterized broadly as representing one of two mutually irreconcilable positions: one that recognizes descent groups and another that does not. The former position-in a highly specific form that I call the "prescriptive-alliance hypothesis"-has been adopted by most Dutch scholars concerned with the culture history of Indonesia and was independently reached by Levi-Strauss in the c…
Linguistic Evidence for Some Early Austronesian Taboos
The linguistic value of the Wallace line
It is well known that reconstructed vocabulary can be of value in determining the center of dispersal ('homeland') of a language family.1 It is also commonly recognized that the level of assignment (chrono logical value) of reconstructed vocabulary is dependent on the sub grouping of the languages compared. In particular, a linguistic feature can safely be attributed to the common ancestor of a collection of lan guages only if it is attested in a…
Structural Patterns of Sibling Classification in Island Oceania
The underlying structure of discriminations in the classification of siblings has received considerable attention. Prior research has demonstrated the tendency of patterns of sibling classification to persist, often for thousands of years, in groups of societies that speak related languages. In this paper it is shown that a sample of 223 societies from Island Oceania exhibits 11 structural types of sibling classification linked in a developmental…
The Austronesian Homeland and Dispersal
The Austronesian language family is the second largest on Earth in number of languages, and was the largest in geographical extent before the European colonial expansions of the past five centuries. This alone makes the determination of its homeland a research question of the first order. There is now near-universal agreement among both linguists and archaeologists that the Austronesian expansion began from Taiwan, somewhat more than a millennium…
Nasals and Nasalization in Borneo
This paper discusses the phenomena of nasal harmony, nasal preplosion, and nasal postplosion in several languages spoken in Borneo. Unlike Indo-European languages, it is concluded that most Austronesian languages have onset-driven nasal harmony. Nasal preplosion is attested in several geographically discontinuous regions of Borneo, and among Austronesian languages elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Moreover, in some cases nasal preplosion can be inferr…
Austronesian sibling terms and culture history
The problemAlthough language families such as Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan have more speakers, the Austronesian language family is the world's secondlargest in number of languages, with well over 900 members (Ruhlen 1987).These languages have a wide geographical distribution in Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, portions of mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, and a variety of Pacific nations located within the broad geographical reg…
Ancient DNA and its contribution to understanding the human history of the Pacific Islands
Two recent papers, by Lipson et al. and Posth et al., have challenged current interpretations of the initial settlement of Remote Oceania. We invited Stuart Bedford, who is an author on both papers, to outline their importance, and a number of scholars in various disciplines to comment on their findings
The Historical Relationships of the Languages of Central Maluku, Indonesia
The reconstruction of proto-Malayo-Javanic
In 1965 Isidore Dyen published a lexicostatistical classification of some 245 Austronesian languages ? the most ambitious undertaking of its kind ever attempted. The purpose of this classification was to specify, in accordance with an implicit family tree model of linguistic differen tiation, the hierarchy of pairings between all languages and language groups in the Austronesian family. By definition the structure of the resulting dendrogram was …
Beyond the Austronesian Homeland
Robert Blust, Beyond the Austronesian Homeland: The Austric Hypothesis and Its Implications for Archaeology, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 86, No. 5, Prehistoric Settlement of the Pacific (1996), pp. 117-158
Obstruent epenthesis and the unity of phonological features
The long consonants of Long Terawan
On the history of the Rejang vowels and diphthongs
The development of the Proto-Austronesian (PAN) vowels in Rejang is of interest for two reasons.First, it exemplifies a pattern of phonemic splits, shifts and mergers of unusual complexity for an Austronesian (AN) language.Second, it shows that this pattern and exceptions to it cannot be stated in full without reference to semantic conditions.In connection with the first point Dyen (1949) described the development of the PAN vowels in Trukese.His…
Austronesian Culture History
Robert Blust, Austronesian Culture History: The Window of Language, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 86, No. 5, Prehistoric Settlement of the Pacific (1996), pp. 28-35
The Linguistic Study of Indonesia
Austronesian Etymologies
Coronal-noncoronal consonant clusters
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…
Rat ears, tree ears, ghost ears and thunder ears n Austronesian languages
Language and Living Things
An overlooked feature of Malay historical phonology
Malay is one of the best-studied of all Austronesian languages, both synchronically and diachronically. We would not therefore expect a study of Malay historical phonology to uncover much that is new. In this paper, however, I will suggest that a basic change has been overlooked in past work on the language
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
Austronesian culture history
Although subject to limitations of its own, historical linguistics can illuminate fragments of the human cultural past that are often irrecoverable from the archaeological record. Where both lines of evidence bear on a common referent they may be mutually corroboratory or contradictory. A number of inferences of all three types are considered, and certain conclusions reached which differ markedly from recent word‐based reconstructions of Austrone…
A Rediscovered Austronesian Comparative Paradigm
Current Trends in Linguistics, VIII
Proto-Western Malayo-Polynesian vocatives
The initial problem 1. In comparing the kinship terminology of Austronesian (AN) languages it is not unusual to find apparent cognates which differ in the presence of a synchronically unanalyzable initial or final segment that has thus far resisted historical explanation, as with Sediq t?rna?s but Thao ?a : ma?, 'father'.2 That Thao does not regularly reflect the sources of Sediq t (i.e. PAN *C, *t, *T) as zero is clear from e.g. Thao th? : qi? <…
Coronal-noncoronal consonant clusters
Notes on proto-Malayo-Polynesian phratry dualism
In a recent paper illustrating the application of the Comparative Method in linguistics to historical problems in social anthropology (Blust 1980), I proposed a reconstruction of early Austronesian social organization which ? despite fundamental differences in the evidence considered and the types of arguments adopted ? closely agrees with the non-linguistic reconstruction of early Indonesian society suggested by J. P. B. de Josselin de Jong (193…
More on the origins of glottalic consonants
Early Austronesian Social Organization
Published views on early Austronesian social organization can be characterized broadly as representing one of two mutually irreconcilable positions: one that recognizes descent groups and another that does not. The former position-in a highly specific form that I call the "prescriptive-alliance hypothesis"-has been adopted by most Dutch scholars concerned with the culture history of Indonesia and was independently reached by Levi-Strauss in the c…
On Language and Early Austronesian Social Organization
Reconstruction of Proto-Tsouic Phonology
On Early Austronesian Social Organization
The reconstruction of proto-Malayo-Javanic
In 1965 Isidore Dyen published a lexicostatistical classification of some 245 Austronesian languages ? the most ambitious undertaking of its kind ever attempted. The purpose of this classification was to specify, in accordance with an implicit family tree model of linguistic differen tiation, the hierarchy of pairings between all languages and language groups in the Austronesian family. By definition the structure of the resulting dendrogram was …
Linguistic Evidence for Some Early Austronesian Taboos
Dual Divisions in Oceania
The linguistic value of the Wallace line
It is well known that reconstructed vocabulary can be of value in determining the center of dispersal ('homeland') of a language family.1 It is also commonly recognized that the level of assignment (chrono logical value) of reconstructed vocabulary is dependent on the sub grouping of the languages compared. In particular, a linguistic feature can safely be attributed to the common ancestor of a collection of lan guages only if it is attested in a…
An overlooked feature of Malay historical phonology
Malay is one of the best-studied of all Austronesian languages, both synchronically and diachronically. We would not therefore expect a study of Malay historical phonology to uncover much that is new. In this paper, however, I will suggest that a basic change has been overlooked in past work on the language
A note on hypercorrection in Mongondow
The phenomenon of hypercorrection is a form of analogy well-known linguists. Like all analogies it is expressible as a four-part proportion of which three parts are known and the fourth is inferred, e.g. black: white night: What distinguishes hypercorrection from other forms of analogy is the necessary precondition that variants exist within a language of which one is widely regarded by speakers as correct and the other(s) as corrupt. To cite jus…
History (87 obras) · Linguistics (84 obras) · Philosophy (83 obras) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (64 obras) · Austronesian languages (35 obras) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (29 obras) · Phonetics and Phonology Research (28 obras) · Sociology (27 obras) · Geography (23 obras) · Computer Science (22 obras)