Linguistics
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Abstract
3607. Blust, Robert. LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE FOR SOME EARLY AUSTRONESIAN TABOOS. American Anthropologist. 1981, 83(2):285-319. The author proposes a typology of culture-trait distributions that attempts to reduce the intuitive judgments of actual practice to a binary matrix constructed around linguistic relatedness, the continuousness of distribu tions and the naturalness of traits. It is maintained that where the societies compared are linguistically related, and cognate terms are available for a given culture-trait, the possibilities for historical inference are enhanced in various ways. In accordance with this framework two linguistic forms are reconstructed as referring to particular taboos in early Austronesian society. The reconstruction of the busun and baliw taboos implies the operation of certain general principles of organization and belief in early Austronesian society.