A Reply to Blust (2019) "The Resurrection of Proto-Philippines"

Abstract:The term "Philippine languages" has been used in either a geographical sense or a genetic sense in the Austronesian literature. The unity of a Philippine subfamily was challenged by Pawley, Reid, Ross, and Smith. Blust, however, defends the existence of "Proto-Philippines" with a single piece of phonological evidence and a list of 1,222 reconstructed PPh etyma. This paper reviews subgrouping evidence and methodology used by Blust. The only piece of phonological evidence, the merger of PAn *d and *z, is considered non-diagnostic because it is also widely attested in five first-order subgroups (among the ten first-order subgroups) of the Austronesian language family. The validity of Blust's lexical evidence is questioned because it is established based on negative evidence. Moreover, the presence of irregular reflexes also undermines the validity of some PPh etyma. It is concluded that Blust does not successfully resurrect PPh; instead, the status of Proto-Philippines remains controversial.