whale

[Robert Blust]

Dear Jean-Paul and Ross,

Actually, the sound correspondences don't work.  Tagalog /d/ normally
corresponds with PPN *l, *mb with *p, and *h with zero.  Given dambuhala?,
then, we would expect a PPN *lapuala.  Even if you were to allow *mb to
correspond to an 'oral grade' reflex in PPN the PPN form would be
*lafuala.  No amount of ad hoc fiddling with the other problems is going
to make this comparison much more attractive.

Bob Blust

On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, potetjp wrote:

> Ross,
> Your Proto-Polynesian *tafuraqa "whale" does seem to align with Tag.
> dambuhála?_ "whale" with metathesis of the last two syllables.
> da    ta
> m    Ø
> bu    fu
> ha    qa
> la    ra
> ?    Ø
> Is this correct?
> Best
> Jean-Paul
>
>
>