On the Reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian Voiced Coronal Obstruents

Abstract: The reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian voiced coronal obstruent phonemes remains a major challenge in the literature. Previous studies have noted that four or more sound correspondence sets involving voiced coronal obstruent reflexes can be identified when comparing data from different Austronesian languages, despite the fact that most languages individually have at most two reflexes, with only Paiwan having three. This paper proposes that the additional voiced obstruent phoneme in Paiwan was an ancient borrowing from Rukai and that Proto-Austronesian had only two voiced coronal obstruent phonemes: *d, a dental stop, and *ɖ, a retroflex stop. The additional sound correspondences, found almost always in word-initial position, are explained as being the result of the phonetically motivated tendency for dentals and retroflexes to be easily confused in word-initial position. The remaining coronal phonemes in Proto-Austronesian can largely be classified as being dentals or retroflexes and thus support the reconstruction of a two-way distinction of coronals at the Proto-Austronesian level.