Recently, linguists such as Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley have built large lexicons for Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Polynesian.
Proto-Austronesian is reconstructed by constructing sets of correspondences among consonants in the various Austronesian languages, according to the comparative method.
In the past, some disagreements concerned whether certain correspondence sets were real or represent sporadic developments in particular languages.
Below are Proto-Austronesian phonemes reconstructed by Robert Blust, a professor of linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
[3] Wolff reconstructs a total of 19 consonants, 4 vowels (*i, *u, *a, *e, where *e = /ə/), 4 diphthongs (*ay, *aw, *iw, *uy), and syllabic stress.
According to Malcolm Ross,[5] the following aspects of Blust's system are uncontroversial: the labials (p b m w); the velars k ŋ; y; R; the vowels; and the above four diphthongs.
In the Polynesian languages, verbal morphology is relatively simple, while the main unit in a sentence is the phrase rather than the word.
However, Ross (2009)[10] notes that what may be the most divergent languages, Tsou, Rukai, and Puyuma, are not addressed by this reconstruction, which therefore cannot claim to be alignment system of the protolanguage of the entire family.
[2] The reconstructed case markers are as follows: Important Proto-Austronesian grammatical words include the ligature *na and locative *i.
[2] A verbal prefix *paRi- is also reconstructed (albeit at the lower level of PEMPTooltip Proto-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian), for “reciprocal or collective action”;[14] it is particularly developed in Oceanic languages.
The cardinal directions of north, south, east, and west developed among the Austronesian languages only after contact with the Europeans.
This has been proposed as evidence that Proto-Austronesians used to live on a mainland, since the sea would be visible from all angles on small islands.
Among the Bontok, Kankanaey, and Ifugaw languages of northern Luzon, the reflexes of *daya mean "sky" because they already live in some of the highest elevations in the Philippines (Blust 2009:301).
Below are reconstructed Proto-Austronesian, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic, and Proto-Polynesian numbers from the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database.
[21] Note that *lima 'five', ultimately the root for 'hand', is not found for 'five' in some Formosan languages, such as Pazeh, Saisiat, Luilang, Favorlang and Taokas; numerals cognate with Proto-Malayo-Polynesian 6–10 are found in Amis, Basay, Bunun, Kanakanabu, Kavalan, Paiwan, Puyuma, Saaroa and Tsou.
Laurent Sagart suggests that this was the PAn root, replaced by *lima in a lineage that lead to the remaining languages, rather than the reverse, because it seems to be retained in proto-Malayo-Polynesian in the forms 7, 8, 9, which appear to be disyllabic contractions of additive phrases attested from some of the western Formosan languages, especially Pazeh: Pazeh xaseb-uza 'six' (literally 'five-one'); xaseb-i-dusa 'seven' ('five-and-two'), with the bidu cognate with PMP *pitu; xaseb-a-turu 'eight' ('five-and-three'), with the baturu cognate with PMP *walu; xaseb-i-supat 'nine' ('five-and-four'), with the supa (< PAn *Sepat 'four') cognate with PMP *Siwa.
Below are reconstructed Proto-Austronesian, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic, and Proto-Polynesian verbs from the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database.