Robert Blust
E138026
Robert Blust was an influential American linguist and Austronesian specialist known for his extensive comparative and historical work on the languages of the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Robert Blust canonical | 9 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1204566 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Robert Blust Context triple: [Greater North Borneo languages, proposedBy, Robert Blust]
-
A.
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg was an influential American linguist best known for his work on language classification and universals, including proposing major language families such as Nilo-Saharan.
-
B.
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was a pioneering American anthropologist-linguist whose work on language, culture, and cognition helped lay the foundations of modern linguistics and linguistic anthropology.
-
C.
Richard Ben-Veniste
Richard Ben-Veniste is an American lawyer and former Watergate prosecutor who served as a Democratic member of the 9/11 Commission.
-
D.
John R. Rickford
John R. Rickford is a prominent sociolinguist known for his influential work on varieties of English, especially African American Vernacular English and other ethnic dialects in the United States.
-
E.
Walt Wolfram
Walt Wolfram is an American sociolinguist renowned for his pioneering research on American English dialects and language variation, including minority and regional varieties.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Robert Blust Target entity description: Robert Blust was an influential American linguist and Austronesian specialist known for his extensive comparative and historical work on the languages of the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
-
A.
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg was an influential American linguist best known for his work on language classification and universals, including proposing major language families such as Nilo-Saharan.
-
B.
Edward Sapir
Edward Sapir was a pioneering American anthropologist-linguist whose work on language, culture, and cognition helped lay the foundations of modern linguistics and linguistic anthropology.
-
C.
Richard Ben-Veniste
Richard Ben-Veniste is an American lawyer and former Watergate prosecutor who served as a Democratic member of the 9/11 Commission.
-
D.
John R. Rickford
John R. Rickford is a prominent sociolinguist known for his influential work on varieties of English, especially African American Vernacular English and other ethnic dialects in the United States.
-
E.
Walt Wolfram
Walt Wolfram is an American sociolinguist renowned for his pioneering research on American English dialects and language variation, including minority and regional varieties.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Austronesianist
ⓘ
human ⓘ linguist ⓘ university professor ⓘ |
| areaOfActivity |
Borneo
ⓘ
Indonesia ⓘ Melanesia ⓘ Micronesia ⓘ Pacific Ocean ⓘ
surface form:
Pacific
Philippines ⓘ Southeast Asia ⓘ Taiwan, Province of China ⓘ
surface form:
Taiwan
|
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| educatedAt |
University of California, Los Angeles
ⓘ
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa ⓘ
surface form:
University of Hawaiʻi
|
| employer | University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa ⓘ |
| familyName | Blust ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
Austronesian languages
ⓘ
Malayo-Polynesian languages ⓘ Oceanic languages ⓘ comparative linguistics ⓘ historical linguistics ⓘ linguistics ⓘ |
| givenName | Robert ⓘ |
| hasAcademicDiscipline |
Austronesian linguistics
ⓘ
Oceanic linguistics ⓘ |
| influenced | Austronesian language classification in contemporary linguistics ⓘ |
| knownFor |
classification of Austronesian language family
ⓘ
comparative work on Austronesian languages ⓘ fieldwork on Pacific and Southeast Asian languages ⓘ historical reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian ⓘ |
| languageSpoken | English ⓘ |
| memberOf | Linguistic Society of America ⓘ |
| name | Robert Blust self-link ⓘ |
| notableWork |
Austronesian Languages (book)
ⓘ
Lexicon of Proto Austronesian ⓘ Austronesian Languages (book) ⓘ
surface form:
The Austronesian Languages (Cambridge University Press)
|
| positionHeld | Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa ⓘ |
| publishedIn |
Diachronica
ⓘ
Language ⓘ Oceanic Linguistics ⓘ |
| researchInterest |
areal linguistics
ⓘ
language change ⓘ lexicostatistics ⓘ morphological reconstruction ⓘ phonological reconstruction ⓘ |
| sexOrGender | male ⓘ |
| workLocation | Honolulu ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Robert Blust Description of subject: Robert Blust was an influential American linguist and Austronesian specialist known for his extensive comparative and historical work on the languages of the Pacific and Southeast Asia.
Referenced by (9)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Central Malayo-Polynesian languages