Reconstructions

Note

Also Hanunóo baʔgú ‘tree sp. (bast fibers from its bark used for making twisted bowstrings)’; Iban baruʔ laut ‘common coastal trees yielding cord from the bark: Hibiscus tiliaceus and Thespesia populnea Soland.’, Mandar warru ‘a tree: Hibiscus tiliaceus’. The Hibiscus tiliaceus is a widely distributed and economically useful shrub or small tree. The similarly useful Thespesia populnea is sometimes represented by a reflex of *baRu, but appears to have originally been represented by a distinct but very similar morpheme *balu (q.v.).

In addition a number of dictionaries cite tree names that reflect *baRu, but which in some cases may have no connection with the present cognate set. Examples include Paiwan vau ‘Blumea balsamifera (leaves called lamud used for covering tubers while cooking)’, Isneg báxo ‘tree suitable for the preparation of primitive beehives’, Ifugaw bagú ‘kind of tree, the bark of which may serve as a provisional cloth or as a mat to sleep on’, Manobo (Western Bukidnon) bagu ‘small tree, prob. Fagraea racemosa’, Simalur balu, falu, tulaŋ balu ‘tree sp.’, Karo Batak baru ‘plant resembling the kurri (ramie, or hemp plant) the flowers of which stick like burrs to the clothes’, Sundanese waru ‘tree belonging to the willow family which yields a good timber’, Ngadha varu ‘tree and gourd sp.’, Buruese bahu ‘a tree: Shorea sp.’, Buli pai ‘tree sp.’, Manam paru ‘a tree: Mangas Pid. (leaf used for cigarettes)’, Nggela valu ‘tree sp.’, 'Āre'āre haru ‘a shrub’, Arosi haru ‘tree sp.’, and Fijian bau ‘tree with edible fruit and beautiful brownish-red wood, used to make canoes, boxes, etc.: Sapotaceae sp.’.

The value of this plant as a source of cordage is reflected linguistically in two very distinct ways in OC languages: (1) In Proto-Micronesian the word for ‘hibiscus’ reflects POc *kulit ‘skin, bark’ + *baRu, the name for the valuable bark having come to stand for the entire tree; (2) Proto-Micronesian *fau fau ‘tie, bind, lash’; Fijian vau ‘tie, bind’, Niue fau ‘construct by tying, bind together, lash’, Samoan fau ‘bind, lash together’, Kapingamarangi hau ‘lash, tie, construct’, and similar verbs in other languages also appear to derive from *baRu. We thus see two linguistic changes motivated by the economic uses of this tree, the first a semantic change based on synecdoche, the second a semantic-syntactic change based on the habitual association of an activity and a material.