generics: problem with inference of primitive return values

Compiling this class:
---- begin BugTernary.java ---
public class BugTernary<T> {
    BugTernary<T> next;
    static <T> int size(BugTernary<T> bt) {
if (bt==null)
return 0;
else
return 1+size(bt.next);
    }
    static <T> int size2(BugTernary<T> bt) {
return (bt==null) ? 0 : 1+size(bt.next);
    }
}
---- end bugTernary.java ---

yields the following error messages from the 1.2 prototype compiler:

---
$ /home/cananian/jsr14_adding_generics-1_2-ea/scripts/javac -d . -g -gj BugTernary.java
BugTernary.java:7: incompatible.types
found : <T>int
required: java.lang.Object
            return 1+size(bt.next);
                         ^
BugTernary.java:7: incompatible types
found : java.lang.String
required: int
            return 1+size(bt.next);
                    ^
2 errors
$
---

Note that the type inference algorithm seems to be incorrectly trying to
co-erce the size() method to an Object, rather than an int.
For some reason, the version in size2() escapes unscathed; note that
size2() calls size() recursively. Changing the call from size() to
size2() in the size2 method will cause the compiler to emit the same
erroneous error that it does for the size() method --- so perhaps the fact
that this is a recursive call is to blame?
  --scott

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