*b   

*ba₁ conjunction: or, if; perhaps; because

Note:   The appropriateness of including all of these forms in a single cognate set is perhaps open to question. However, reflexes of *ba appear to function as conjunctions in nearly all of the languages cited, and semantically many of them introduce an element of doubt, qualification or negation. Both Bare'e and Uma ba are said to be shortened forms of bara (< *baraŋ ‘marker of uncertainty, conditionality or hope’), but the basis for this interpretation is unclear.

*ba₂ interjection or exclamation

Note:   Also Ilokano baá ‘an interjection to startle people or to make children laugh’, Ngaju Dayak bah ‘interjection of astonishment’, Balinese bah ‘interjection of amazement’, Uma baʔ ‘interjection’, Nggela mbaa (with nasal grade initial) ‘exclamation, look out!’. The lengthened or doubled vowels in the Ilokano and Nggela forms and the occasional final /h/ in WMP languages may be motivated in different ways by the emotive character of this word.

*ba₃ preposition: at, on, in, to

Note:   PMP has well-established generic locative prepositions *i and *di which appear to cover approximately the same semantic range as *ba. The semantic distinction between Tetun ba ("arriving" at, etc.) and iha ("being" at, etc.) may also have applied to PMP *ba and *i, *di, but there is as yet no comparative support for this interpretation.

*ba₄ under, below

Note:   Presumably connected with *babaq ‘under, below’, though the connection remains obscure.

*ba₅ postverbal interrogative particle

Note:   This grammatical marker appears in several languages of the central and southern Philippines, but thus far is attested outside the Philippines only in Malagasy (Dempwolff (1934-38) reconstructed *ba based on reflexes in Tagalog and Malagasy, and I have been able to extend his documentation very little). All languages that contain a reflex of *ba are verb-initial, and in all cases the reflex of *ba is postverbal. Panganiban (1973:93) gives Tagalog ba in the Manila-Bulacan area, but ga or bagá in Kumintang. Reid (p.c.) speculates that Tagalog ba is a reduction of earlier *bagá, and attempts to relate this interrogative marker to Ilokano bagá ‘say, tell, speak, declare, utter, relate’ and similar forms in other northern Philippine languages. Ilokano bagá, however, almost certainly reflects *bajaq ‘say, relate, announce’, and the broader comparative evidence suggests that Kumintang Tagalog bagá is compounded of earlier monosyllables.

*ba₆ go

Note:   Paton (1973) describes Lonwolwol va as a short form of van ‘go, pass’ (< POc *pano). Since original medial nasals are otherwise retained in Lonwolwol and since none of the other languages from which cognates are cited here could regularly reflect POc *pano (or PMP *panaw) Paton's interpretation of the Lonwolwol form appears to be unjustified.

This cognate set appears in Blust (1993b:254), where it is observed that Nothofer (1992), favors a comparison with Mongondow bayaʔ ‘go’ < PMP *bayaq. Nothofer's proposal has the advantage of eliminating a canonical anomaly (since PMP monosyllabic content morphemes are otherwise virtually unknown), but conflicts with the Motu reflex (*bayaq should > **hala). Alternatively Mongondow bayaʔ and all of the items cited here except Motu ha could be assigned to *bayaq.

This is one of the extremely rare monosyllables that appears to have been a content morpheme in PCEMP. Although the glosses for CMP languages suggest that it was a main verb, several of the Oceanic reflexes indicate that it was an auxiliary, and as such it may have been unstressed and so a part of the following phonological word (hence the comment by Codrington and Palmer (1896) that Mota va ‘go or come’ is sometimes hard to distinguish from the causative prefix va-).

*baba₁ carry a person pick-a-back; ride pick-a-back

Note:   Also Malagasy babi (expected **vavi) ‘carrying on the back’, Mota pepe ‘carry a child on back or hip’. If there is one prototype meaning that can be identified for *baba it is ‘to carry a child pick-a-back’. The term presumably also extended to the transport of sick or injured adults in a similar manner, but its full semantic range remains unclear. The nominal referents in Casiguran Dumagat, Kelabit and Wolio fail to agree, and probably are secondary. Bimanese waʔa ‘carry’, Manggarai ba, wa ‘carry, accompany, take along’ exhibit an apparent semantic generalization similar to that seen in Malay, Karo Batak, Old Javanese and some of the languages of Sulawesi, but show phonological irregularities which cast doubt on the appropriateness of including these forms in the present cognate set.

*baba₂ father

Note:   Also Makassarese baʔba ‘father (esp. as an address to hajis)’. As part of universal nursery language this item could have arisen independently in all or many of the languages in which it appears. At the same time universal tendencies were no less operative in proto-languages than they are in attested languages, and *baba is just as likely to be an inherited form which resisted regular sound change in languages such as Malagasy, Atoni, Fordata and Kei as a result of the recurrent reinforcement that nursery language provided. In any event the term evidently was used in child language or intimate address rather than as the normal adult word for ‘father’ (*ama).

*babaD reproduce, multiply

*bábad soak

Note:   Hanunóo badbád appears to be a secondary development from a form which originally lacked a medial cluster.

*babak strike, chip stone

*baban group, company, collection, swarm

Note:   With root *-ban ‘group, company’.

*babaq₁ lower surface, bottom; short, low; below, beneath, under

Note:   Although a PAn term for ‘under, below’ is unknown, *babaq₁ and *babaw₃ should be treated as a contrast set in PMP. Syntactically both followed *i ‘generic marker of location’, a fact reflected not only in the syntax of many daughter languages, but also in occasional lexicalizations of the preposition + nominal expression. In isolation both *babaq₁ and *babaw₃ probably were nouns meaning ‘lower surface/bottom’ and ‘upper surface/top’. Since they typically followed a preposition, however, their more common English translations would be ‘below, beneath, under’ and ‘on, upon, over, above’.

The following semantic problems are also noteworthy:

(1) reflexes of *babaw refer to high country (headwaters of a river, highlands) in a number of languages. These usages could be products of convergence or could be retentions of a figurative usage similar to the literal senses of the directional terms *daya ‘upriver, toward the interior’ and *lahud ‘downriver, toward the sea’. By contrast, a reflex of *babaq meaning ‘lowlands’ has been noted only in Bontok.

(2) reflexes of *babaq mean ‘short in height, low’ in several widely separated languages. This usage could be a product of convergence or may have been a figurative counterpart of PMP *pandak ‘short’. An analogous usage *babaw = ‘tall’ is attested only marginally in Banggai babo ‘high-rising forest’.

(3) reflexes of *babaq in Chamorro and in several CEMP languages refer to cardinal directions (‘South’ in Chamorro, Fordata and Yamdena, ‘West’ in Komodo and Kambera, ‘North’ in Kei and Southeast Ambrym). By contrast, no reflex of *babaw is known to refer to a cardinal direction.

(4) perhaps the most intriguing problem concerning the comparative semantics of *babaq and *babaw are the semantic equations ‘above’ = ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ = ‘below’. To grasp the full set of interrelations it will be necessary to consider PAn *dalem ‘inside; deep’ as well. In both Bare'e (WMP) and Gilbertese (OC) the reflex of *babaw refers both to the upper surface and to the outside of things. In the Polynesian languages as a group the reflex of *babaw refers only to the outside. No comparable change has been noted for reflexes of *babaq, but reflexes of *dalem ‘inside; deep’ have come to mean ‘beneath, below, down, under’ in a number of WMP and OC languages: Ifugaw dalóm ‘under, beneath, deep, low’, Cebuano dálum ‘beneath, below’, Samoan lalo ‘down, under’, Tuvaluan lalo ‘under, below; the bottom; deep; low; humble, humility’. Moreover, reflexes of *dalem have followed the same semantic trajectory as reflexes of *babaq in coming to refer to the cardinal directions, as in Niue lalo ‘below, under; the bottom; the west’, Rarotongan raro ‘beneath, under, below; down; the under or lower portion; west, westward, towards sunset, to leeward’, Maori raro ‘the bottom, the under side; down; beneath, under; North’ and Hawaiian lalo ‘down, downward, low; under, beneath; leeward, southern’. The equation ‘above’ = ‘outside’ suggests that *i babaw referred prototypically to the surface of water or the earth. Given a parallel semantic equation for reflexes of *i babaq we would expect ‘below’ to sometimes develop the meaning ‘inside’. For a more detailed treatment of these problems cf. Blust (1997).

*babaq₂ width, breadth

Note:   Also Motu lababa ‘wide, as cloth, road, etc.; breadth’, Tolai tabābā ‘wide, broad, spacious (as a cloth); breadth’.

*babas blown off course

Note:   At first glance this appears to be a straightforward comparison. However, Malay should reflect *babas as **bawas. Malay has reduced original obstruent clusters in reduplicated monosyllables, and there is some evidence that cluster reduction occurred after the change *-aba > -awa-. If so, Malay babas could reflect *basbas. However, there is no evidence that Ilokano has reduced obstruent clusters in reduplicated monosyllables. It is possible that this comparative irregularity is a product of borrowing. Since Ilokano is far more likely to have borrowed from Malay than the reverse, a borrowing hypotheses implies that Malay babas reflects a pre-Malay innovation *basbas which reached Ilokano via Malay sailors (who were perhaps blown off course?) at some time after the reduction of medial obstruent clusters in Malay. Alternatively the comparison -- despite its strong appeal -- may be an etymological siren.

*babat belly of an animal

Note:   If Bahasa Indonesia babat is directly inherited the etymon must have been *batbat, as the sequence *-aba- normally became Malay, Bahasa Indonesia -awa-.

*babaw₁ rat, mouse

*babaw₂ shallow

Note:   In the dictionaries of several languages (e.g. Bikol, Nias) the reflexes of *babaw₂ and *babaw₃ are combined as differing senses of a single polysemous form. Given the semantics of e.g. English superficial this interpretation has some a priori plausibility. However, the occurrence of a monosyllabic root *-baw₂ ‘shallow’ in this and other forms (see roots) strongly suggests that ‘shallow’ is the primary sense of *babaw₂, not a secondary extension from the meaning ‘upper surface; top’. The two forms are accordingly regarded as distinct, despite certain points of semantic similarity.

*babaw₃ upper surface, top; highlands; on, upon, over, above

Note:   Also Bintulu ɓaw ‘above, on top of; tall’.

*babaw₄ to weed (a garden, etc.)

Note:   Based on the Ngaju Dayak and Toba Batak forms Dempwolff (1934-38) posited PAn *babaw ‘to weed’. Milke (1968), on the other hand, proposed POc *wawo ‘to weed; weed’ uncultivated land’, a form that could not directly continue Dempwolff's reconstruction. Blust (1970) compared Maranao wawaw with Milke's *wawo and suggested "PAn" (= PMP) *wawaw as a disjunct of Dempwolff's *babaw. However, of the seven morphemes from six languages cited by Milke in support of *wawo only one (Nggela vavo) can possibly be considered a regular reflex (*w- sometimes disappears and sometimes appears as v-). We are left with no alternative, then, but to dismiss both POc *wawo and PMP *wawaw as unmotivated by the evidence.

*babuy babuy sowbug, woodlouse: terrestrial isopod of the genus Oniscus

Note:   Also Malay babi tanah ‘insect, unident.’. Presumably a reduplication of *babuy ‘pig’. Although the conceptual basis for a connection between pigs and sowbugs remains obscure, it is noteworthy that a similar association appears in e.g. Spanish cochina ‘sow’, cochinilla ‘sowbug’ (lit. "little sow"), and, of course, in the English word itself.

*babuy₁ bird sp.

*babuy₂ epilepsy

Note:   It seems likely that the PWMP word for ‘epilepsy’ was a longer expression (perhaps *sakit babuy), but the available evidence does not permit this inference. Because it reflects a distinct morpheme (PMP *beRek ‘domesticated pig’), Nggela mbolo ‘pig; foam from the mouth, epilepsy’ confirms that *babuy ‘epilepsy’ derives from *babuy ‘pig’, and indicates that this puzzling association was already present in PMP. For evidence of a wider Southeast Asian distribution of the association ‘pig’ + ‘crazy/illness’ = ‘epilepsy’ cf. Matisoff (1978:70), where it is noted that similar expressions also occur in Khmer, Mon, Thai and Burmese.

*babuy₃ pig

Note:   Also Ansus tapuy, Serui-Laut tafui, Palauan babíi, Ulithian pa:bwi ‘pig’, Yapese bæbiy (< Palauan), paabuuy (< Ulithian) ‘pig; bulldozer’, Chamorro bæbuy ‘pig, swine; a term used in keeping track of score by counting the number of games won in tres siete (card game), all of which appear to be loans from languages of the Philippines or eastern Sulawesi (the nearest areas where *-uy did not merge with *i), or possibly from the central Moluccas before *-uy was reduced to –u.

Dempwolff (1934-38) reconstructed *babuy ‘pig’. Blust (1970) reconstructed *babuy ‘wild pig’, *beRek ‘domesticated pig’. At the time this semantic distinction appeared to be justified since:

a) the semantic profiles of their reflexes suggested that the two terms were not synonymous,
b) the semantic categories ‘wild pig’ and ‘domesticated pig’ are represented by distinct morphemes in many of the languages of Taiwan, the Philippines, Borneo and Sumatra,
c) although reflexes of *babuy refer distinctively both to the wild pig and to the domesticated pig, reflexes of *beRek refer distinctively to the domesticated pig in Taiwan and Borneo, but never refer distinctively to the wild pig,
d) reflexes of *babuy are found in eastern Indonesia as far as the central Moluccas, but nowhere further to the east and e) apparent loanwords resembling POc *mpoRok are found in a number of the Papuan languages of New Guinea (Blust 1970, Blust 1976).

It now appears necessary to alter this interpretation in the following way: although *beRek evidently meant ‘domesticated pig’ *babuy referred to pigs in general, with qualifications where needed. In other words, the glosses of *babuy and *beRek were not perfectly complementary, but partially overlapping. There are four types of evidence which support this conclusion:

(1) If *babuy meant ‘wild pig’ it has undergone a semantic change to the meaning ‘domesticated pig’ in a disconcertingly large number of widely dispersed languages. Examples include: (Taiwan) Seediq babuy, Saisiyat baboy, Bunun babu, Siraya vavoy, (Philippines) Atta (Pamplona) bábi, Gaddang babuy, Casiguran Dumagat bábuy, KAKI bebuy, Isneg ábuy, Tiruray babuy, (Malaysia-Indonesia) Oya Melanau, Narum, Miri, Kiput babuy, Kedayan bawi, Lemanak babi, Simalur bafu, Javanese babi ‘domesticated pig’.

(2) The word for ‘pig’ has been borrowed into a number of the languages of western Micronesia from an unknown Austronesian source. In each case the borrowed morpheme reflects *babuy, never *beRek. Since domesticated pigs are more likely to be borrowed than wild pigs, the borrowed reflex of *babuy must have referred, at least optionally, to the domesticated pig. While this does not mean that *babuy referred to the domesticated pig, the probability of such a reference is strengthened in direct relation to the age of the loan. Examples are: Palauan babíi ‘pig’ (expected **bab), Chamorro babui ‘pig, swine’ (expected **papi), Yapese paabuuy ‘pig; bulldozer’, Woleaian paabiiy ‘pig, hog, boar, sow, swine’ (expected **faf). The agreement of Chamorro babui ‘term used in keeping track of score by counting the number of games won in tres siete (card game)’ with Malay babi ‘"pig", as a name for the fifth chicky-suit’ points to what may be an independent Chamorro borrowing (from a Philippine language?) of the same morpheme in a symbolic context.

(3) Comparative evidence supports the reconstruction of PMP *babuy banua, domesticated pig’, *babuy halas ‘wild pig’. No similar descriptive terms have been reconstructed with *beRek.

(4) The reconstruction of PAn *babuy-an ‘pigpen, pigsty, piggery’ is inconsistent with the reconstruction *babuy ‘wild pig’, since it is the domesticated, not the wild pig that would be kept in pens.

The comparative evidence under (3) and (4) could conceivably be a product of convergence. However, convergent innovation is an unlikely explanation of the forms assigned to *babuy banua. Iban menoa means ‘an area of land held and used by a distinct community’, Bare'e banua means ‘house’ and Yamdena pnue means ‘village’. If the association of *babuy with *banua is historically secondary it has no obviously semantic basis. But PMP *banua ‘inhabited territory; area supporting the life of the human community’ forms a rather clear contrast set with PMP *halas ‘forest, uninhabited land’, and this same opposition is seen in *babuy banua vs. *babuy halas (*babuy lebu evidently contains a variant of *lebuq ‘village’, and may be a product of convergence).

In conclusion, Blust (1970) unjustifiably assumed the necessity of reconstructing semantically complementary terms ‘wild pig’ and ‘domesticated pig’. While *babuy halas meant ‘wild pig’ the domesticated pig was called either *beRek or *babuy banua (with *babuy lebu a less convincing third alternative). These observations undermine the suggestion in Blust (1976) that a reflex of *babuy was lost when Austronesian speakers moved into the Pacific because they entered a region in which wild pigs were not yet present. Reflexes of both *babuy and *beRek are found in Formosan and WMP, but only *babuy is reflected in PCMP and only *beRek in OC (despite Anceaux 1961:35) neither term is clearly reflected in South Halmahera-West New Guinea). Given this perspective, the absence of a reflex of *babuy in Oceanic languages is no more in need of special explanation than the absence of a reflex of *beRek in PCMP.

*bacak muddy, waterlogged (of ground)

Note:   Also Dobel basa ‘mud’. With root *-cak₁ ‘muddy’.

*baciR sexually impotent

*bacuk to hoe, chop up soil

Note:   With unexplained change *u > o in Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese. Buli bacu ‘axe’ appears to be a loan.

*badas grit, coarse sand, gravel

Note:   Also Kambera wara ‘sand, gravel’ (expected **warahu). Although most recorded reflexes of *badas are glossed ‘sand’, it appears likely from the Sundanese, Javanese, and Ngadha reflexes and the competing form *qenay that *badas referred to coarse sand or gravel, while *qenay indicated fine sand. Paiwan baras, varas ‘pebbles, ballast’ is given by Ferrell (1982) as a loan from English through Japanese (also cf. Javanese balas ‘a weight for holding or steadying something; ballast’).

*bad(e)ris draw a line

Note:   With root *-ris₂ ‘scratch a line’.

*badi nervous spell

*badiq dagger

Note:   Also Ngaju Dayak badek ‘a 6-9 inch dagger, with a cutting edge on only one side’, Iban badi ‘dagger’, Malay badik ‘small dagger’, Javanese baḍik ‘poniard’. It is possible that this is a loan distribution that originated with Malay badik.

*baduŋ bolo used in agricultural work

*badut jackfruit sp.

*bagahak fish sp.

Note:   Also Malay gahak ‘large silurid fish: Belodontichthys dinema’.

*bagak foolish

Note:   Possibly with root *-gak₁ ‘proud; boast’.

*bagal overgrown, clumsy, sluggish

*bagaŋ a plant: Amorphophallus sp.

*bagay same kind or type; fitting; well-matched; suitable

*bágay thing; detail

Note:   Possibly a Central Philippine loanword in Kapampangan.

*bagbág to destroy, ruin

Note:   The Casiguran Dumagat form shows an irregularity that suggests borrowing from Tagalog. However, this explanation is harder to apply to Ibaloy, and the comparison is therefore assumed to be valid.

*bageqaŋ molar tooth

Note:   All languages cited here except Kapampangan, Hanunóo, Mandar, and Soboyo have merged PAn *R and *g as /g/. Kapampangan bágaŋ, Hanunóo bagʔáŋ ‘molar tooth’ are Central Philippine loans. Since Soboyo normally reflects *b as /f/, Soboyo bagaŋ also appears to be a loan (presumably from a language of northern Sulawesi or the southern Philippines). We might therefore dismiss the present doublet of *baReqaŋ as a product of irregular sound correspondences introduced through borrowing. However, for this to be possible it would also be necessary to dismiss Mandar bagaŋ as a loan, despite the lack of a clear source language and the generally low probability that the same body part term would be borrowed independently by more than one language. For the present *bageqaŋ is thus maintained as a rather precarious doublet of *baReqaŋ.

*bag(e)qut to pull out

Note:   With root *-gut₂ (or *-gequt?) ‘pull with a jerk’.

*bag(e)sák fall to the ground, of something heavy

Note:   Possibly a Tagalog loanword in Ilokano.

*bagiat anklet, ribbon worn around leg

*baguh a shrub or tree: Gnetum gnemon

Note:   Where a specific identification is not given in the source reflexes of *baguh can easily be confused with reflexes of *baRu ‘Hibiscus tiliaceus’ in languages that merge *g and *R, as both are small trees which yield a strong bast fiber used in making cordage. Unlike the Hibiscus tiliaceus, the Gnetum gnemon is further useful as a source of food, since its leaves serve as an important vegetable in some areas (Merrill 1954). The semantic distinction between PMP *suka (q.v.) Gnetum gnemon and the present etymon remains unclear.

*baguq disease that causes swelling of body parts

*bagut to pull out, as hair

Note:   Also Ilokano bagɁut-én ‘to pull out; uproot’; ag-pa-bagɁut ‘to have one’s tooth extracted’. With root *-gut₂ ‘to pull with a jerk’.

*bahak laugh boisterously

*bahaq mouth

Note:   Although this form is reflected as a monosyllable in most languages, Kenyah (Long Anap) p and Bintulu ɓ indicate an earlier cluster. If the complex stops of North Sarawak languages assigned by Blust (1969), Blust (1974) to *bS, *dS, *jS, *gS sometimes derive from the medial clusters in reduplicated monosyllables, *baqbaq would have yielded reflexes with first-syllable shwa and "complex" medial consonant. Some of the above forms could conceivably reflect such a development, with further loss of the first syllable. On the other hand, Manobo (Sarangani) bahaʔ suggests that there was a disyllabic word base with medial *S which could have yielded the North Sarawak initial consonants as reflexes of *bS. If valid, this implies that *baqbaq -- presumably a reduplication of *baSaq -- actually was *baSaq baSaq. Buludupi babpa ‘mouth’, cited by Ray (1913), may support this interpretation. For the agreement in the extended meanings of Kayan ba, Sika wa, cf. note to *baqbaq.

*bahaR loincloth

Note:   The use of this term in reference to the rainbow both in Tagalog and in Kayan (Busang) (Kayan dialect of the Kapuas basin), suggests that one way of referring to this phenomenon in PWMP was through a figurative expression which represented it as the loincloth of a deity.

*baháy a vine, possibly arrowroot; famine food

*bahén to sneeze

Note:   Also Agutaynen baken ‘to sneeze’.

*bahi woman, female