The Higher Phylogeny of Austronesian: A Response to Winter

This paper is a response to criticism by Winter in an earlier issue of this journal of Sagart’s discussion of the higher phylogeny of Austronesian. I give examples outside of Austronesian of compound numerals being affected by several apparently irregular changes; argue that the number of changes proposed in my Austronesian model is realistic; explain the order of establishment of disyllabic numerals as depending on two factors, cardinal order and number of competitors; give Austronesian examples showing that the drive to disyllabism does apply to morphologically complex forms; and ascribe the limited similarities between the phylogenies of Blust and Ross to chance. Finally, I claim that the only realistic explanation of the nesting of six related isoglosses is a sequence of innovations.