Abstract
Noting the increasing weight given to shared as subgrouping criteria, this paper investigates distortions that may occur through inclusion of nonauthentic lexical (which it terms mavericks) and correlates examples of such nonauthentic with datable archaeological and historiographic data. Protoforms for 'iron' are found to be nonauthentic, their distribution suggesting the Sulu-Sangir area as an important dispersal center, and agreeing with historiographic and linguistic evidence for considerable Philippine and Malay borrowing into Formosan languages. XBuJa-lawau 'clove' and Xsalaka 'silver' are connected with the Malay spice trade since 200 B.c.; Xpirak 'silver' and X(a)mas 'gold' with Funan overlordship in the third and fourth centuries A.D., whereby an identification of the location of protohistoric Yavadvipa is made. Linguistic evidence on sorghum and millet suggests dispersal in the Philippine-Indonesia'area between 1500 and 700 B.C., being contemporanous with the transmission of XbuLauan 'gold'. Data for rice are found to agree with Bellwood, although they suggest that it was a highland rather than lowland crop in the Philippine-Indonesia area. The dispersal of Xparij and Xparigi? 'ditch around stone fortification' suggests dispersal of the late megalithic from Sulu-Sangir to West Indonesia, implying an Indonesian origin for the megalithic of South and Northeast India. Linguistic evidence is proposed for a Southeast China origin for the Austronesian double canoe, for Austronesian participation in development of the 'ship of the dead' cult in Indochina, and for an Austronesian introduction of high-seas shipping to India. A substratum trail tracing the migration route to Oceania is investigated. Forms for 'person' throw light upon the relationship between mongoloid and australoid Austronesians, suggesting that Proto-Austronesian was spoken by australoids. Nonreplacement are found to be unreliable as subgrouping criteria, and it is concluded that the methods of exclusively shared innovations and treatment as dialect chain should be mutually exclusive approaches to subgrouping problems. Because all subgrouping methods are susceptible to distortion, the author advocates inclusion of all available methods, in spite of the disparaties to be expected.
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