Reconstructions

Note

Also Karo Batak ancuh ‘scoop up water in a bamboo container or the like’, ŋ-ancuh-i ‘drink from a bamboo water container by holding it firmly upright’, Mentawai aisu ‘fetch water’, Old Javanese asu ‘draw or scoop water’, Proto-Minahasan *asu(h) ‘draw water, scoop up water’, Rotinese aso ‘scoop water with the hand or with a bucket from a river or spring’, Leti osru ‘fetch water’, Moa ahru ‘bail water from a canoe’.

Although PMP *limas ‘canoe bailer’ is reflected as POc *nimas, with the same meaning, PMP *qasu evidently underwent a semantic change that is reflected in a number of languages. The recorded glosses suggest a PMP meaning ‘fetch water, scoop up water’, or the like, the central idea being the use of a container to collect water that will be used. In Proto-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian the meaning ‘fetch water, scoop up water’ apparently became associated instead with *qutub, and *qasu shifted semantically to become the verbal counterpart of *limas, the central idea being the use of a container to collect water that will be disposed of. The appearance of final /h/ both in Karo Batak, and in some of the Minahasan languages is puzzling, but cannot be accomodated under any independently motivated reconstructional hypothesis.