Revisiting “Eye of the day”

Abstract A particular lexical construction for “sun” composed of morphemes for “eye” and either “day” or “sky” has been widely reported for Austronesian languages. Urban (2010) made the case for this phenomenon as an areal feature originating in Austronesian, with attestation in Austroasiatic and Tai-Kadai varieties, but absent in Sino-Tibetan. A follow-up ( Blust 2011 ) argued for the possibility of independent genesis across the languages, while reiterating the absence of the feature in Sino-Tibetan. This paper presents a large scale survey of Tibeto-Burman language varieties. Data from this region show widespread occurrence of the phenomenon in distinct constructions, arguing against contact as the inciting factor. Instead, this paper argues for multiple innovation events, with only small scale regional spread through contact. Data are analysed from approximately 250 doculects from a wide range of sources, including newly elicited data for Bodo-Garo, Maringic and Northern Naga varieties.