My new approach to MP subgrouping, which argues that the rapid expansion of PMP was followed by the emergence of a complex dialect network rather than large traditional subgroups, is out now.

My colleague mitcho and I have a new preprint available that looks at the very interesting passive voice constructions in the Lebo' Vo' Kenyah language, spoken at Long San, Sarawak, Malaysia. ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/008...

Proto Austronesian *kuCux 'louse' became Proto Malayo-Polynesian *kutu, a form preserved in Indonesian as "kutu" before being borrowed into English and spread across English langauge elementary schools as "cooties"

One thing I found interesting is when a language lost a word and then reinvented it. Take the Proto Austronesian for bear, the animal acd.clld.org/cognatesets/... They lost the word during the migration to the Phillipines and then made new one when they found bears in Borneo.

My first ever journal paper! Terrified but so excited to see it in print. This is for the underdogs: Batanic langs & oblique case. Turns out the oblique does more and the locative does less than we think! Happy to bring Batanic to the fore of Austronesian linguistics! doi.org/10.1515/stuf... (DM 📄)

Did Austronesian people use boats with outriggers to sail from Taiwan to the Philippines? Some linguists have argued that the innovation of the outrigger was critical for crossing the strait and was responsible for the expansion of Austronesian people and their languages out of Taiwan.

Does Rukai have glides? I think it does. Check out my comment article "The Reality of Rukai Glides" in Theoretical Linguistics: doi.org/10.1515/tl-2.... (DM for a pre-print if you don't have access)