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This chapter provides a review of some of the inferences about both language structure and cultural content that can be extracted from the lexicons of Formosan languages. It provides a window on structural features of the vocabulary of PAn as well as many aspects of the physical environment and culture of the speakers of this language. Reconstructed forms depend on the subgrouping assumed for the AN languages on the basis of exclusively shared innovations in phonology that are not likely to be products of convergence.
The author demonstrates that both dragons and rainbows are cultural universals, that many of the traits that are attributed to dragons in widely separated parts of the planet are also attributed to rainbows, and that the number and antiquity of such shared traits cannot be attributed to chance or common inheritance, but rather to common cognitive pathways by which human psychology has responded to the natural environment in a wide array of cultures around the world.
The author demonstrates that both dragons and rainbows are cultural universals, that many of the traits that are attributed to dragons in widely separated parts of the planet are also attributed to rainbows, and that the number and antiquity of such shared traits cannot be attributed to chance or common inheritance, but rather to common cognitive pathways by which human psychology has responded to the natural environment in a wide array of cultures around the world.