Reconstructions

Note

Also Pazeh umah ‘body louse’, Thao tumbush ‘clothes louse’, Bunun tumbus ‘body louse’, Maranao tom ‘human body louse’, Sasak ke-tuma ‘kind of red clothes louse’, Tetun ka-tuma ‘white mite which attacks clothes’, Kedayan tumoʔ ‘clothes louse’, Wetan toma ‘louse’, Selaru tum-lef ‘wall louse’, Kei tuman ‘small louse’, Buruese tuman ‘flea, an insect that infests clothing’, Buli tun ‘clothes louse.

This important term provides one of the key pieces of evidence that PAn *-aS and *-eS merged as PMP *-ah. Although reflexes of *CumeS are widespread they are not nearly as common as those of *kuCu ‘head louse’, thus suggesting that the latter term had greater psychological salience than the former. This observation is perhaps related to the fact that delousing as a socially significant grooming activity almost invariably involves the removal of head lice rather than body lice --- a behavioral trait which appears to be shared with other primates (as chimpanzees), and which therefore probably has pre-human origins. In the absence of other evidence for a prefix *ka- which could be added to animal names I tentatively assume that the initial elements in Sasak ke-tuma and Tetun ka-tuma are products of historically unrelated morphological processes.