Reconstructions

Note

Also Ilokano gi-nʔáwa ‘relief, comfort, ease, rest, relaxation’ (< Tagalog?), Pangasinan nawá ‘have sufficient space, time, etc.’, Hanunóo gi-nháwaʔ ‘body, including internal organs, respiratory tract, brain, etc.’, Masbatenyo mag-gi-nháwaʔ ‘breathe, respire, take breaths’, gi-nhawaʔ-án ‘respiratory system’, Acehnese ñawɔŋ ‘the personal soul, life-force’, Mongondow gina ‘breath; mind, heart, nature, disposition, feelings; condition, health; thoughts; meaning’, mo-gina ‘to breathe’, Uma inohaʔ ‘breath’, Buli ñawa ‘soul; life; breath’ (< Malay).

This is a challenging comparison, both formally and semantically. Forms with gi- appear to be a Greater Central Philippine innovation that spread into Ilokano (more recently) and into the languages of Sabah (more anciently). It is unclear whether Pangasinan li-náwa shares the same history (from *Ri-nihawa), or is a product of convergence. If it shares the same history then *Ri-hinawa must be posited for PPh, raising questions about the absence of *Ri- in other non-Greater Central Philippine languages. For this reason I tentatively assume that the li- of Pangasinan li-náwa is unrelated to the gi- of Central Philippine forms such as Tagalog gi-nháwa.

It would be easy to reconstruct PMP *ñawa and ignore the Philippine and Sulawesian forms that point to an original trisyllable, but the highly distinctive semantic agreement of Itbayaten hinawa ‘breath, respiration’, or Tombonuwo inawo ‘soul’ with disyllables such as Malay ñawa ‘life in its association with the breath; soul’ strongly suggests that we are dealing with a single cognate set. Since most AN languages reflect a form in which *i must have followed *n rather than preceding it I reconstruct *nihawa, a trisyllable that is supported by Yakan niyawa, Sangir niawa, and many languages that appear to reflect an original *ñawa. Unless we posit doublets *nihawa, *hinawa this unavoidably implies an independent metathesis in e.g. Itbayaten hinawa, Tombonuwo inawo, Tae' inaa, Muna inawa, and what appears to be a secondary metathesis in Greater Central Philippine forms such as Tagalog gi-nháwa (with syncopated *i in the environment VC__CV).

The reconstruction proposed here differs from that of Tsuchida (1976:229), who posited PAn *ñiSawa with an initial palatal nasal, but also reconstructed *N- in other forms. However, there are problems with this proposal. First, very little evidence has been found to support the claim that PAn *N and *ñ were distinct phonemes. Second, the sound correspondences between Kanakanabu and Saaroa that Tsuchida took to support *ñ are violated by Saaroa in this case (in showing /n/ rather than /ɬ/). Third, most instances of PAn *N clearly became PMP *n, and given a PAn palatal nasal we would expect the Kapampangan form to be **-iñawa, not –inawa (note that the Wolio variant iñawa is also irregular, and is best seen as a sporadic palatalization of n by the preceding high vowel).

Reflexes of PMP *nihawa are particularly interesting in providing one of the rare examples of a phonemic palatal nasal arising from a sequence of *n + ia, much like PAn/PMP *ni-á ‘3sg. genitive’ > POc *-ña ‘3sg possessor’. What is unknown is how many parallel innovations of the form *nihawa > niawa > ñawa must be assumed in order to account for the data in terms that are compatible with currently accepted subgrouping hypotheses. It is clear, for example, that the reanalysis of *nihawa to *-ñawa was already complete in POc *mañawa, parallel to the reanalysis of PMP *ni-á to POc *-ña ‘3sg possessor’, but languages such as Malay evidently developed a palatal nasal in this form through an independent change that followed the same evolutionary path.

Finally, the semantics of *nihawa provide a reminder of the universality of animism, as first clearly stated by Tylor (1871): from the notion ‘breath; to breathe’ there is a link to the ‘breath soul’, and from this to ‘soul; inner self, mind, feelings’, but in another direction to ‘breathe easily, take a break, rest’. Although it may initially appear to be adventitious, the recurrent reference to the fontanel links to the widespread traditional belief that the soul exits the body in dreams or death through the fontanel/top of the head (also clearly linked to the pulsation of breathing in an infant’s still-forming skull).