Reconstructions

Note

Also Karo Batak waren ‘vine, liana (generic); also a substitute term for "snake"’, Mussau oasa ‘vine; rope’. As noted in Blust (1985) the PMP generic term for ‘vine’ contradicts certain proposed universal evolutionary sequences in Brown (1984). In private correspondence Brown has maintained that *waRej probably meant ‘tying material’. There is, however, no empirical basis for Brown's conclusion. PMP *waRej clearly contrasts with PMP *talih ‘rope, string, cordage’, and the semantic contrast is maintained in some attested languages, as Nauna (Admiralties), where way means either ‘vine’ or ‘rope’, but tɨl (< *talih) means only ‘rope’ (never ‘vine’).

The semantic extensions to ‘rope’, ‘snake’ (PMP *nipay) and ‘vein, tendon’ (PMP *uRat) are all easily understood as modifications of an original meaning ‘vine’. Examples of the transfer of a term for a raw material to some useful product made from it are cited in Blust (1985). The English word ‘rope’ is not only applied to vines, but is extended to veins and tendons in New Guinea Pidgin, and in Borneo and Sumatra the word for ‘vine’ is often used as a benign substitute for ‘snake’ when one is exposed to the danger of snakes in the jungle. Significantly, reflexes of *talih rarely mean ‘vine’, and never mean ‘snake’.