ABSTRACT
In their proposal for the origin of internal structure of word forms, Peter
MacNeilage and Barbara Davis (2000) asked whether patterns they observed in
infants were relevant for historical linguistics. They tested this hypothesis on the
list of the 27 Proto-World roots or Global Etymologies (henceforth GEs),
proposed in 1994 by Merritt Ruhlen and John D. Bengtson (henceforth R&B).
