these forms: Based on these correspondences, Ruhlen lists these roots for the ancestor language: ku = 'who' ma = 'what' pal = 'two' akwa = 'water' tik = 'finger' kanV = 'arm' boko = 'arm' buŋku = 'knee' sum = 'hair' putV = 'vulva' čuna = 'nose, smell' The full list of Bengtson's and Ruhlen's (1994) 27 "global etymologies" is given below. {| class="wikitable sortable" ! No. !! Root !! Gloss |- | 1 || aja || ‘mother, older female relative’ |- | 2 || bu(n)ka || ‘knee, to bend’ |- | 3 || bur || ‘ashes, dust’ |- | 4 || čun(g)a || ‘nose; to smell’ |- | 5 || kama || ‘hold (in the hand)’ |- | 6 || kano || ‘arm’ |- | 7 || kati || ‘bone’ |- | 8 || k’olo || ‘hole’ |- | 9 || kuan || ‘dog’ |- | 10 || ku(n) || ‘who?’ |- | 11 || kuna || ‘woman’ |- | 12 || mako || ‘child’ |- | 13 || maliq’a || ‘to suck(le), nurse; breast’ |- | 14 || mana || ‘to stay (in a place)’ |- | 15 || mano || ‘man’ |- | 16 || mena || ‘to think (about)’ |- | 17 || mi(n) || ‘what?’ |- | 18 || pal || ‘two’ |- | 19 || par || ‘to fly’ |- | 20 || poko || ‘arm’ |- | 21 || puti || ‘vulva’ |- | 22 || teku || ‘leg, foot’ |- | 23 || tik || ‘finger; one’ |- | 24 || tika || ‘earth’ |- | 25 || tsaku || ‘leg, foot’ |- | 26 || tsuma || ‘hair’ |- | 27 || ʔaq’wa || ‘water’ |} Syntax In a 2011 paper, Murray Gell-Mann and Merritt Ruhlen argued that the ancestral language had subject–object–verb (SOV) word order. The reason for thinking so is that in the world's natural language families, it is typical for the original language to have an SOV word order, and languages that evolve from it sometimes deviate. Their proposal develops an earlier one made by Talmy Givón (1979:271–309). Languages with SOV word order have a strong tendency to have other word orders in common, such as: Adjectives precede the nouns they modify. Dependent genitives precede the nouns they modify. "Prepositions" are really "postpositions", following the nouns they refer to. For example, instead of saying (as in English) The