Proto-Micronesian Reconstructions: 2

Abstract

Part 1 presents some 980 reconstructions for Proto-Micronesian, Proto-Central Micronesian, and Proto-Western Micronesian. Part 2 (to appear in volume 42 [2]) gives reconstructions for two additional subgroups within Proto-Micronesian: Proto-Pohnpeic and Proto-Chuukic, and their immediate ancestor, Proto-Pohnpeic-Chuukic. A handful of putative loans are also identi²ed, and a single English ²nder list is provided for all of the reconstructions. INTRODUCTION.Lexical data for a number of Micronesian languages began to be collected systematically in the mid-1960s as part of the development of language lessons for the U.S. Peace Corps and in connection with other Micronesian language projects that followed at the University of Hawai'i. These data were stored on a mainframe computer using programs then being developed (Hsu and Peters 1984), and eventually dictionaries were published for a number of the languages included in this study (