Papers by Lawrence A. Reid
Oceanic Linguistics, 2020
This article is a response to Blust's lengthy article in Oceanic Linguistics 58(2): 153-256 in wh... more This article is a response to Blust's lengthy article in Oceanic Linguistics 58(2): 153-256 in which he begins by critiquing an old paper (Reid 1982) that he knows I no longer believe in, but Blust continues to discuss it as though it is still my current position. His article is an attempt to establish his Proto-Philippines (PPH) primarily by reconstructing a large body of lexical items that he assumes are only found in the Philippines. I do not believe a PPH existed. I discuss multiple problems in phonology that are apparent in his reconstructions, both in the article and his online Austronesian Comparative Dictionary from which he has drawn his reconstructions. This includes the issue of prenasalization, its direction, and loss. Much of the discussion is involved with borrowing, or Blust's term "leakage," which assumes the reality of a PPH. His discussion of borrowing rejects what is known and discussed by other researchers. There is discussion of relying on negative evidence for assuming the reality of a hypothesis that Blust claims I was guilty of, and of which he is also guilty. The Blust article does not discuss the position of the languages of many Negrito groups in relation to his PPH, where his earlier articles do. The problems with his PPH are summarized in the conclusion. 1. See also Reid (2019) in which I formally retract my tree diagram of the Central Cordilleran languages, published in Reid (1974).
The subgroup of Philippine languages here called Northern Luzon (earlier descriptions called it C... more The subgroup of Philippine languages here called Northern Luzon (earlier descriptions called it Cordilleran), is slowly becoming better understood as new descriptions of its constituent languages are being published. This paper draws on the material that is now available to reconstruct various features of the morphosyntax of the parent of the group, Proto-Northern Luzon. Evidence for the unity of the group will first be examined, noting that there is little phonological evidence to unite the family, although the largest group of languages within the family, those which comprise what has been called Meso-Cordilleran does share certain phonological innovations. There is however a fairly substantial body of exclusively-shared lexical innovations which have been claimed to be reconstructible to Proto-Northern Luzon. The general typological features of clausal constructions, both transitive and intransitive, as well as non-verbal, found throughout Northern Luzon will be considered to be ...
Oceanic Linguistics, 2020
This article focuses on the development of kan, a "say" verb in Central Cordilleran languages. Th... more This article focuses on the development of kan, a "say" verb in Central Cordilleran languages. The article deals with the possible historical development of this verb, and then discusses the unusual development of the locative voice suffix-an that it requires, which loses its final consonant only when singular pronouns are added, but not when plural pronouns are added. This is true for all locative and patient voice suffixes in Central Cordilleran languages. When a noun is the agent of the verb, there is a genitive enclitic before it, but only when the preceding word ends in a vowel, otherwise there is no genitive marking. This is discussed with reference to quotative indexes and the claim is made that the historical change of quotative index nominals to verbs results in the unusual development of "say" verbs and other verbs with locative and patient voice suffixes. 1. This is a retitled and rewritten article of a paper presented to the 24th International Conference on Historical Linguistics originally titled 'Abductive Spread of Reanalyzed Quotative Index Forms'. I wish to thank the people who commented on it, especially Malcolm Ross and Hsiu-chuan Liao who sent me written reviews after the conference. The paper retitled as 'Historical Reanalysis: Voice Suffixes in Northern Philippine Languages' has been anonymously reviewed by two people, for which I send my thanks. Their detailed comments have resulted in a restructured paper and retitled paper, but they are not responsible for any errors that are mine alone.
This paper attempts to provide an explanation for the diachronic development of long vowels in Ar... more This paper attempts to provide an explanation for the diachronic development of long vowels in Arta, a Negrito language spoken in Nagtipunan, Quirino Province, the Philippines. In Arta, a large number of lexical roots and morphologically complex words have long vowels in them, but the items with a long penultimate vowel which are shared with other Philippine languages that retain an older accentual system are reflected as short vowels. Thus, the long vowels seen in Arta should be separated from inherited accents. It is argued that these vowels developed independently in the language by compensatory lengthening and vowel fusion, after the loss of *k, *q, and *h. Since both compensatory lengthening and vowel fusion crucially involve the principle of mora count conservation, the phonological changes which occurred in Arta indicate that the mora has played a significant role in the language.
The Languages and Linguistics of Mainland Southeast Asia, 2021
Mantauran is one of the six dialects of the Formosan language Rukai, spoken in the southcentral r... more Mantauran is one of the six dialects of the Formosan language Rukai, spoken in the southcentral region of Taiwan. It is spoken by only 250-300 people and is highly endangered, with only a few elderly speakers still fluent. This alone is reason enough to document the language that in a generation or so will probably no longer be spoken. But Rukai is unique in that it apparently exhibits an accusative case-marking system, while most other Formosan languages are arguably ergative, and it does not exhibit the widespread "focus" system characteristic of the so-called "Philippine-type" languages of Taiwan, such as Amis, Kavalan, Bunun, Thao, and Atayal. While a substantial grammar exists of one of the other dialects, Tanan Rukai (Li 1973), until Elizabeth Zeitoun (henceforth EZ) began her research on the language, there was very little information available about the morphosyntax of this dialect. With this grammar, we now have extensive coverage of two considerably different dialects of Rukai. EZ's goals in writing the grammar in effect match the reasons given above. They were "to provide a description of the most salient characteristics of the grammar of Mantauran in order to reach a better understanding of this language and second, to make available enough empirical data to show in what respect Mantauran differs form the other Rukai dialects and other Formosan languages in general" (13). In these respects it is clear that EZ has succeeded admirably. The grammar is a model of clear prose and elegant argumentation supported by a multitude of carefully chosen examples drawn primarily from over 600 pages of transcribed narrative and folktale texts that the author collected from her primary language consultant. Chapter 1 discusses the current status of Mantauran Rukai (henceforth MR), providing brief notes on some of the commonly used loanwords, most introduced during the Japanese colonial period, and it is to this language, according to the author, that speakers persistently resort. The possibility that Japanese has also influenced the morphology will be commented on below. This chapter also provides the theoretical orientation of the work, stating that the grammar is a functional and empirically based account of MR, utilizing principles laid out by Dixon (1997) and Noonan (2006). The Conclusion (463) also notes that the grammar is "not circumscribed in any formal theory." Nevertheless, various syntactic operations used by formalists, such as "raising," form part of her argumentation to support one analysis over another in later chapters. A succinct outline of the grammar closes the chapter. Chapter 2 provides a standard structuralist account of the phonology and morphophonemics of MR, and a summary of the sound changes that have occurred in the language from Proto-Rukai as reconstructed by Li (1977). Of particular interest in this chapter is the evidence, rare in Austronesian languages, of a contrast between vowel-initial forms, and glottal stop-initial forms, such as Ɂoɭipotso 'unwrap' vs. oɭipotso 'wrap'. Of interest in the morphophonemics section are the various processes labeled by EZ as rightward
This paper explores various problems in modeling the Philippine linguistic situation. Simple clad... more This paper explores various problems in modeling the Philippine linguistic situation. Simple cladistic models are valuable in modeling proposed genetic relationships based on the results of the comparative-historical method, but are problematic when dealing with the languages of Negrito groups that adopted Austronesian languages. They are also problematic in dealing with networking as the result of dialect chaining, and widespread lexical borrowing from non-Austronesian languages, each of which creates special problems in modeling the Philippine linguistic situation. 93 An alternative model proposed by Sagart (2004) suggests a nested structure, based on proposed innovations in numerals. Note that although MP languages reflect PAN, none of them are spoken in (mainland) Taiwan. The evidence suggests that the changes that distinguish MP languages from their sister languages in Taiwan could have developed in the Batanic Islands of the northern Philippines (Ross 2005
Senri Ethnological Studies, Sep 18, 2009
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Papers by Lawrence A. Reid
The two goals of the publication are to give tribute to our teacher and colleague Dr. Rachkov and to present a comprehensive picture of the history and the present state of Philippine studies in St. Petersburg. Papers written by our colleagues from the Philippines, as well as from Moscow, UK and USA, with whom we have long-time scholarly ties, are included.
The present book is the forth issue of the series of publications «Maklayevsky Sbornik» (‘Maclay Publications’) for papers and monographs on Insular Southeast Asia, Australia and the Pacific.
The book will be of interest for anthropologists, philologists, linguists, historians and the general reader, interested in traditional and modern culture and languages of the Philippines, as well as in the history of Philippine studies in Russia.
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