Austronesianist Looks at Sino-Austronesian
[译]：一个南岛语系学者对南岛语言的看法
Robert Blust

Abstract 摘要

0. THE POINT OF DEPARTURE.
I have been asked to comment briefly on the SinoAustronesian (SAN) hypothesis of Laurent Sagart . The units of comparison with which Sagart works are Old Chinese (OC), “circa 800-500 BC, a language closely related to, if not directly descended from , the language of the Shang inscription” (Sagart 1993:3), and various reconstructed stages of AN. In Sagart (1993) the latter are called “reconstructed Austronesian” (RAN), a cover term for proto-languages ranging from PAN (circa 4000 BC) to Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP, circa 3500 BC) to Proto-Western Malayo-Polynesian (PWMP, circa 3000 BC) (Blust 1984/85). In order to reduce the probability that the proposed etymologies are products of chance, Sagart (1994) restricts his comparison to OC and PAN. Since I am evaluating the evidence for the SAN hypothesis as a whole my comments will necessarily range across both publications, without always distinguishing between them.

Perhaps the first remark worth making is that Sagart derives Chinese from PAN or various lower-order AN proto-languages (PMP, PWMP, etc.). The effect of this procedure is to disarm possible criticism of his startling hypothesis from the AN side: so long as the literature is cited accurately – and in this respect Sagart cannot be faulted – there can be no quibbling with his reconstructions from the very Austronesianists who have proposed them. At the same time one must not lose sight of the historical implications of such a comparative procedure. If all essential features of Old Chinese (OC), including consonant series, vowels, tone, and some lexical alternations suggestive of earlier morphology can be derived from unmodified forms of existing AN reconstructions, we are forced to the even more startling conclusion that Chinese is not a sister branch of AN, but rather a geographically displaced and typologically aberrant member of the AN language family itself.

Because Sagart essentially equates SAN and AN, and treats the reconstructed AN material in a responsible and competent manner, the burden of falsifying the SAN hypothesis must fall most heavily on the shoulders of those who are professionally qualified (as I am not) to evaluate his treatment of the Chinese material. For this reason I will limit myself to comment briefly on some general features of the SAN hypothesis which I believe are worthy of critical consideration.

1. SINO-AUSTRONESIAN MORPHOLOGY
2. TONE.
3. ASPIRATION.
4. THE SINO-AUSTRONESIAN LEXICON.
5. THE PROBLEM OF COMPETING HYPOTHESES
6. THE HOMELAND PROBLEM
7. THE EVIDENCE OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
8. CONCLUSION.