Reconstructions

Note

Also Yami pesed ‘navel’, Karo Batak pusat ‘the placenta’ (< Malay?), Enggano e-puko ‘navel, center’, Tae' posiʔ ‘navel; mid-point’, posiʔ tana ‘deep cleft in the ground, in a valley or on a plain, where the earth has subsided’, Makassarese pocciʔ ‘navel; mid-point; touch-hole of a cannon’, Leti lusru ‘navel’, lusar-nu ‘his/her navel’, Buli pusal ‘navel, umbilical cord’.

In addition to its basic sense of ‘navel; mid-point or center of a place’ varying expressions that cannot yet be reconstructed with PMP *pusej evidently also functioned to indicate: 1. the center of the earth (Simalur, Sundanese, Ngadha), 2. the center or deepest part of the sea (Tagalog, Waray-Waray, Tboli, Malay, Bare'e), 3. the apex of a casting net (Malay, Mentawai, Old Javanese, Sika), 4. consanguineal kin (Nias, Tontemboan, Bare'e, Ngadha), and 5. a weaving pattern in basketry or with rattan (see *pusej). Some of these inferences are further strengthened by reflexes of the doublet POc *bito, as seen in Hawaiian piko ‘fig. blood relative; design in plaiting the hat called pāpale ‘ie; bottom round of a carrying net’.

As noted by Ross (1988:43-45) with regard to terms for ‘navel’ in Oceanic languages, there is a striking abundance of variants that are partially similar in form, but that do not exhibit recurrent sound correspondences. This led him to posit no fewer than seven pre-POc doublets: *puso, *piso, *mpuso, *mpiso, *puto, *mputo, and *mpito. Although a similar plethora of non-corresponding but similar forms is found in Formosan languages (Ferrell 1969:229), regular reflexes of *pusej are widespread throughout the Philippines and western Indonesia and not in competition with variants, the comparative picture worsening (again) for unknown reasons only as one moves into eastern Indonesia and the Pacific.