萬大泰雅語疑問句型之研究

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(1)Chapter One Introduction This thesis aims at investigating interrogative constructions of Plngawan Atayal (henceforth Plngawan). In the following, a brief introduction of Plngawan is given. We also briefly explain the goals of this thesis, the methodology adopted and the general outline of the present study. 1.1 Genetic classification and geographical distribution of Plngawan Atayal is divided into two major dialects, Squliq and C’uli’, which are further divided into various sub-dialects.. According to Li (1985a) and Huang (2006),. Plngawan, spoken in Nantou County, belongs to the C’uli’ dialect.. Atayal is. genetically close to Seediq (itself being divided into three dialects, Tkdaya (or Paran), Truku and Toda).. They form one of the major subgroups among Formosan. languages, i.e. Atayalic (see also Li 1985b, Starosta 1995 and Blust 1999). The linguistic position of Plngawan is schematized below. Seediq Atayalic PAN. Squliq Atayal. .... C’uli’. Plngawan Mayrinax .... Figure 1.1 Genetic classification of Plngawan The population of Plngawan is around 1,000. They mainly live in Wanda and Qin-ai communities, both of which are located in Qin-ai village, Ren-ai Township, Nantou County, as shown in Map 1.1 to 1.3 below.. 1.

(2) Ren-ai. Nantou. Township. County. Map 1.1 Nantou County. Map 1.2 Ren-ai Township. Tkdaya (Paran) Seediq. .. Meiyuan. .. Ruiyan. . .. . . Wushe. Plngawan Atayal. Mstbaun (Squliq) Atayal. Toda Seediq. Chunyang. Wanda Qin-ai. Inago Seediq. Sunglin. Map 1.3 Linguistic distribution in Ren-ai Township. As shown in Map 1.3, Plngawan is spoken in Wanda and Qin-ai, and it is surrounded by communities of non-C’uli’ Atayalic speakers, such as Squliq Atayal in Ruiyan, Toda Seediq in Chunyang, Inago Seediq in Sunglin and Tkdaya Seediq in Meiyuan and Wushe.. Being located in such a multi-linguistic area, it is found that. many Plngawan people become fluent bi-/tri-lingual speakers through intermarriage and population movement. That is, they may speak Plngawan and other Seediq dialects and/or Squliq Atayal. 2.

(3) In terms of linguistic ability, however, it seems to decrease with age, i.e. while most Plngawan people older than fifty are native speakers of Plngawan and/or fluent bi-/tri-lingual speakers, those around their thirties to fifties become semi-speakers who may understand Plngawan and/or other Atayalic languages/dialects through hearing but seldom speak well themselves; those under thirty may be unable to understand any Atayalic languages/dialects at all. Being in contact with so many non-C’uli’ Atayalic languages/dialects, Plngawan also provides a rich platform for socio-linguistic studies on issues like language contact and language change (cf. for instance Rau 2004), as will be reviewed below. 1.2 Previous studies on Plngawan Plngawan has been mentioned in three articles, i.e. Li (1985a), Rau (2004) and Huang (2006).. The first two investigate phonological and lexical features in an. attempt to clarify the position of Plngawan in the Atayalic family, and the last is concerned with the case marking system of Plngawan. Li (1985a) presents both phonological and lexical criteria for the classification of Atayalic dialect groups. He shows that Plngawan shares with Seediq four of the six phonological features that distinguish Seediq from Atayal.. However, since. Plngawan retains the basic vocabulary stock of most other Atayal dialects, it has to be subgrouped under Atayal rather than Seediq. Rau (2004) conducts a socio-linguistic survey of three Atayalic dialects in Ren-ai Township, including Plngawan, Mstbaun (Squliq) Atayal and Inago Seediq. It is found that while Plngawan is more similar to Mstbaun Atayal in terms of shared vocabulary counting and cognates, Mstbaun Atayal is more similar to Inago Seediq. Thus, Rau suggests that instead of being classified as a C’uli’ Atayal dialect, Plngawan is better treated as “another Atayalic dialect at the periphery of the dialect chain” (Rau 2004:74). 3.

(4) Huang (2006) is the first article dedicated to a syntactic analysis of Plngawan. It focuses on the case marking of Plngawan, with a comparison with two other dialects, Wulai (Squliq) and Mayrinax (C’uli’) Atayal. 1.3 Goals of the thesis and methodology In order for readers to understand our description of interrogative constructions, we first give a sketch grammar that provides a general overview of Plngawan, covering linguistic aspects relevant to the topic of this thesis.. And then, we. investigate both morphosyntactic and phonological aspects of Plngawan interrogative constructions.. While it may apparently only supply one more additional study on. this topic, we hope that this research will actually provide a more detailed analysis of intonation of interrogative sentences than what has been previously carried out. The following methodological steps were undertaken: First, a corpus was collected through fieldwork and web search.. Fieldwork was. carried out in Wanda, Qin-ai and Wushe from September 2005 to May 2008.. We. have worked with four major informants, as shown in Table 1.1. Table 1.1 Informants: native Plngawan speakers Atayal name. Gender. Year of Birth. Watan Nawi. Chinese name 乃明東. Male. 1946~2006 Wanda. Plngawan Mandarin Chinese. Yuma Watan. 張美花. Female. 1961~. Wushe. Plngawan Tkdaya Seediq Toda Seediq Mandarin Chinese. Kumuy. 乃阿端. Female. 1940~. Puli. Plngawan (a bit) Mandarin Chinese. Yumin. 洪成家. Male. 1948~. Qin-ai. Plngawan Mandarin Chinese. 4. Place of Language/Dialect living spoken.

(5) In addition to fieldwork, data were also collected from the textbooks of aboriginal languages published by the Ministry of Education and learning materials attached to the website of the Council of Indigenous Peoples (http://61.31.235.34/). Second, Praat 1 was used to carry out the phonetic analysis and draw figures. We also used Praat for pitch manipulation, pause/stress detection, etc. The theoretical framework adopted in the thesis is a semantic functional approach, i.e. elements and syntactic structures are analyzed and interpreted based on their meanings and semantic/syntactic functions. 1.4 Outline of the thesis This thesis contains six chapters. In Chapter 1, an introduction of Plngawan is given.. Chapter 2 provides a sketch grammar that serves as a basis for further. analysis and discussion of Plngawan interrogative constructions.. Chapter 3 offers a. review of previous studies on interrogative constructions from both a typological (general linguistics) and a Formosan perspective.. In Chapter 4, we conduct a. morphosyntactic analysis and investigate both formation and function of Plngawan interrogative sentences. In Chapter 5, we not only examine intonation patterns of interrogative sentences in more detail but also discuss how intonation enables interrogative sentences to be interpreted as non-questions and how it helps speakers to express attitudinal implications.. A summary of the previous chapters and. suggestions for further studies are given in Chapter 6.. Finally, all the examples from. Plngawan in this thesis were digitally recorded and are contained in the CD joined to this thesis. The file names correspond to the numbers of the examples.. 1. Praat was built up by Paul Boersma and David Weenink and can be downloaded for free from the following website http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/. 5.

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(7) Chapter Two A Sketch Grammar of Plngawan Atayal In this chapter, a sketch grammar of Plngawan is provided, which covers phonology, morphology, syntax and their interfaces, e.g. morphophonemics. 2.1 Phonology In this section, we investigate Plngawan phonology from three aspects, including (i) phoneme inventory, (ii) syllable structure and stress, and (iii) intonation patterns. 2.1.1 Phoneme inventory There are 18 consonants in Plngawan, 2 as shown in Table 2.1. Table 2.1 Consonants in Plngawan Consonants. Labial. Alveolar. Stop. p. Nasal. m. Fricative. Voiceless Voiced. Velar. Glottal. t. k. ’. n. ng. s. x. b. h. g. Affricate. c. Lateral. l. Trill. r. Flap. r. Glide. Palatal. w. y. The orthography of each consonant is described in the following examples. (2.1) p is a voiceless bilabial stop, e.g. pawas ‘sing’ t is a voiceless alveolar stop, e.g. tanux ‘outside’, mit ‘goat’ 2. Based on the Orthographic Systems of Formosan Languages published by the Council of Indigenous Peoples and the Ministry of Education in December 2005, there are 19 consonants in Plngawan. The consonant that is not found in our data and not listed in Table 2.1 is the uvular stop q. According to Li (1981), k and ’ in Plngawan are two reflexes of the Proto-Atayal uvular stop q, as shown below. Proto-Atayal Plngawan Gloss a. *qusiya’ ’usye’ ‘water’ b. *cəlaq calak ‘mud, field’ 7.

(8) k is a voiceless velar stop, e.g. kani’ ‘eat’, tehuk ‘arrive’ ’ is a voiceless glottal stop, e.g. ’ucyux ‘fish’, ’ule’ ‘child’ m is a voiced bilabial nasal, e.g. mama’ ‘uncle’ n is a voiced alveolar nasal, e.g. ni’un ‘food’, kaman ‘grass’ ng . is a voiced velar nasal, e.g. ngahi ‘sweet potato’, tuting ‘beat’ s is a voiceless alveolar fricative, e.g. sasiy ‘shade’, ramas ‘good’ x is a voiceless velar fricative, e.g. muxal ‘sick’, ’awax ‘wash’ h is a voiceless glottal fricative, e.g. huril ‘dog’, ’awah ‘come’ b is a voiced bilabial fricative, e.g. box ‘uncooked rice’ g 3 is a voiced velar fricative, e.g. gong ‘river’ c is a voiceless alveolar affricate, e.g. cuxan ‘tomorrow’ l is a voiced lateral, e.g. lukus ‘clothes’, ’amol ‘what’ r is a voiced trill, e.g. ralu’ ‘name’ r is a voiced flap, e.g. rungiy ‘monkey’, malikur ‘male’ w is a voiced bilabial glide, e.g. wagiy ‘sun’, morow ‘house’ y. is a voiced palatal glide, e.g. yaya’ ‘mother’, rumuy ‘shake’. Some (near) minimal pairs of the consonants in Plngawan are shown in (2.2). (2.2) a.. p. vs. b.. t. vs. k. vs vs. m. vs vs. r. vs vs. x. vs vs. c.. d.. e.. f.. b. pila ‘money’ bilak ‘few’ s ta’ ‘1PI.Nom’ musa’ ‘AF.go’ c ca’ ‘particle’ ’ kutux ‘the first’ ’utux ‘one’ g ’aguw ‘wine’ n mami’ ‘rice’ mani’ ‘AF.eat’ ng mangilis ‘AF.cry’ r ’uri’ ‘white hair’ ’uri’ ‘also’ l tuli’ ‘stand up’ h ’awax ‘wash (dishes)’ ’awah ‘come’. 3. Words ending with consonants m, b and p are not found in Plngawan. As Li (1985b) suggests, Plngawan shares a phonological change with Seediq in that Proto-Atayalic labial sounds have changed to velars in word-final position: *-p and *-b > -k, *-m > -ng. 8.

(9) Plngawan exhibits five vowels i, u, e, o and a, as shown in Table 2.2 and described in (2.3). Table 2.2 Vowels in Plngawan Vowels. Front. Central. High. i. u. Mid. e. o. Low. Back. a. (2.3) i is a high front vowel, e.g. ’ima ‘who’, mit ‘goat’, sani ‘here’ u is a high back vowel, e.g. ’ule’ ‘child’, tugal ‘three’, temu ‘Temu’ e is a mid front vowel, e.g. ’enpicu ‘pencil’, temi ‘Temi’ ne’ ‘wait’ o is a mid back vowel, e.g. ’olit ‘mouse’, kanon ‘when’, ho’ ‘yes’ a is a low central vowel, e.g. ’atiy ‘corn’, mami’ ‘rice’, kora ‘all’ As shown in (2.3), vowels cannot occur in word-initial position. Plngawan forbids onsetless syllables.. Some (near) minimal pairs of the five vowels. are given in (2.4). (2.4) a.. b.. c.. i. u. e. vs. u. vs. e. vs. o. vs. a. vs. e. vs. o. vs. a. vs. o. This suggests that. ’ini ‘Neg.Rea’ ’inu ‘where’ rungiy ‘monkey’ rung-en ‘forget-LF’ kira ‘today’ kora ‘all’ nanahi ‘mountain’ naha ‘3P.Gen’ hungu’ ‘bridge’ cange’ ‘ear’ yutas ‘grandfather’ yotas ‘big’ tunux ‘head’ tanux ‘outside’ kanel ‘female’ kanon ‘when’. 9.

(10) d.. o. vs. a. vs. a. cyel ‘Exi.Rem’ ’ocya’ ‘tea’ soni ‘today’ sani ‘here’. 2.1.2 Syllable structure and stress In Plngawan, a syllable is composed of an initial consonant (C), a vowel (V) and an optional final consonant, represented as CV(C), such as mu ‘1S.Gen’ and mit ‘goat’. (2.5) a. b. c.. Three common types of combination of two syllables are shown in (2.5). CV.CV CV.CVC CVC.CVC. e.g. ’ima ‘who’, ngahi ‘sweet potato’ e.g. pawas ‘sing’, rayas ‘face’ e.g. nabkis ‘old person’, pahpuy ‘cook’. As shown in (2.5c), consonants may occur in juxtaposition only when they belong to two different syllables. Plngawan.. Neither consonant nor vowel clusters are allowed in. When two vowels occur in sequence, they either form a single syllable. composed of a vowel and a glide (G) or are separated as two syllables with the insertion of a glide or a glottal stop, as illustrated in (2.6). (2.6) a. b. c. d. e. f.. VV iu ia ai au ui ua. Æ Æ Æ Æ Æ Æ. one-syllable (GV/VG) ’ucyux ‘fish’ sanahyagal ‘delicious’ cubay ‘real’ salahaw ‘play’ rumuy ‘shake’ wanux ‘bull’. two-syllable (V.’V/V.GV) ci’uli’ ‘person’ ’iya ‘no’ ga’iloh ‘banana’ payux ‘many’ tu’ilung ‘pine tree’ puyaya ‘female’. Stress falls on the last syllable if it is heavy, i.e. when the syllable ends with a consonant or a long vowel (a vowel-glide sequence), e.g. pawas ‘sing’, ’ucyux ‘fish’ and ’atiy ‘corn’.. For words ending with a short vowel, i.e. a light syllable, stress. falls on the penultimate syllable, e.g. ’ima ‘who’ and mabahu ‘wash’. 10.

(11) 2.1.3 Intonation Three major types of intonation contours are identified, including final-falling, final-rising and final-rising-falling.. Declarative and imperative sentences usually. show a final-falling contour, as shown in (2.7)-(2.8) and Figure 2.1 to 2.4. (2.7) a.. ba’=cu know.AF=1S.Nom ‘I can sing.’. mawas. AF.sing. 500. 0 0. 1.37206 Time (s). Figure 2.1 Intonation contour of (2.7a) b.. ’ini=cu kaba’ Neg=1S.Nom know ‘I cannot sing.’. mawas. AF.sing. 500. 0 0. 2.06263 Time (s). Figure 2.2 Intonation contour of (2.7b) (2.8) a.. ’usa’ mawas! go AF.sing ‘Go singing!’. 500. 0 0. 1.33281 Time (s). Figure 2.3 Intonation contour of (2.8a). 11.

(12) b.. ’iya ’usa’ mawas! Neg go AF.sing ‘Don’t go singing!’. 500. 0 0. 1.50125 Time (s). Figure 2.4 Intonation contour of (2.8b) The pieces of curves in the figures indicate the pitch value of words and can be connected as a line to show the intonation contour of the whole sentence.. As shown. in Figure 2.1 to 2.4, there is an obvious dropping curve toward the end of the sentence, which usually reaches the lowest pitch value of a sentence.. The dropping curves. may be preceded by a slight rising contour, but since these peaks remain lower than sentence-initial ones, we still treat them as final-falling to make a clear distinction from yes-no questions whose final-rising-falling contours show a sharply raised peak that usually reaches the top of the pitch range. Final-rising and final-rising-falling contours are usually observed in interrogative sentences, which will be discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. 2.2 Morphology Morphemes in Plngawan are divided into free and bound categories, the latter of which includes affixes and clitics. In this section, we investigate two morphological processes, i.e. affixation and reduplication, and three types of morphophonemic rules. 2.2.1 Morphological processes 2.2.1.1 Affixation Affixation is a productive process whereby new words are derived. In terms of distribution, affixes are classified as prefixes, infixes and suffixes, as exemplified below.. 12.

(13) Prefixation 4. (2.9) a.. muga- ‘transform into’. a’. muga-huril ‘transform into a dog’ muga-’amol ‘transform into what’ b. la- ‘plurality’ b’. la-yaki’ ‘grandmother and her friends’ la-yumin ‘Yumin and his friends’ (2.10). Infixation. a. <um> ‘agent focus’ a’. t<um>ahuk ‘cook<AF>cook’ t<um>uting ‘beat<AF>beat’ b. <in> ‘perfective’ b’. m<in>ani’ ‘AF<Prf>eat’ m<in>ahiy ‘AF<Prf>hit’ (2.11). Suffixation. a. -an ‘locative focus’ a’. tax-an ‘see-LF’ patas-an ‘write-LF’ b. -an ‘locative case’ b’. watan-an ‘Watan-Loc’ yutas-an ‘grandfather-Loc’ Regarding affixation in Plngawan, two points are noteworthy. First, an affix may exhibit different functions when attached to different stems, such as -an ‘LF/Loc’. Second, a morpheme may have phonological allomorphs, as exemplified by <um> and <un> ‘AF’ in (2.12). (2.12). a.. <um> ‘AF’ before vowels b. k<um>aral ‘talk’ s<um>iliy ‘beat with a stick’ c<um>uling ‘roast’. 4. <un> ‘AF’ before consonants k<un>rak ‘catch’ s<un>kisli’ ‘like’ c<un>buw ‘shoot’. In Plngawan, the number of prefix is much higher than that of suffix and infix, but for ease of illustration, only two examples are given for each type of affixation. This listing is far from being exhaustive. The issue of Plngawan affixation may deserve further investigation. 13.

(14) The two AF markers are phonological allomorphs with <um> occurring before vowels and <un> before consonants. 2.2.1.2 Reduplication Two types of reduplication are found in Plngawan, i.e. CVC-reduplication and Ca-reduplication. In CVC-reduplication, the first syllable of a word is reduplicated, which is found in the marking of plurality of certain nouns and numerals, as shown in (2.13). (2.13) a. b.. CVC-reduplication Base form Gloss ’ule’ ’utux. ‘child’ ‘one’. ~ ~. Derived form. Gloss. ’ul-’ule’ ’ut-’utux. ‘children’ ‘every one’. In Ca-reduplication, the first consonant of a word and the vowel a are reduplicated.. NAF verbs are marked as irrealis via Ca-reduplication on their NAF. forms, as shown in (2.14). (2.14) a. b. c.. Ca-reduplication Base form Gloss. Derived form Gloss. tahk-un ‘be cooked’ hicol-an ‘do what to’ ta-tahk-un=mu ka’ Red-cook-PF-1S.Gen Nom ‘The fish will be cooked by me.’. ~ ta-tahk-un ~ ha-hicol-an ’ucyux hani. fish this. ‘will be cooked’ ‘will do what to’. 2.2.2 Morphophonemic rules Three types of morphophonemic rules are discussed in this section, including insertion, alternation and monophthonization. 2.2.2.1 Insertion In § 2.1.2, we showed that glides or the glottal stop are inserted between two adjacent vowels to avoid vowel clusters.. The other type of insertion occurs when the 14.

(15) vowel a is inserted between two adjacent consonants, as illustrated in (2.15). (2.15). a. b.. sakisli’ ‘like’ < *skisli’ (as in ma-skisli’ Rec-like ‘like each other’) sababa’ ‘learn’ < *sba’ (as in pa-sba’ Cau-learn ‘teach’). We consider that the form sakisli’ ‘like’ results from the insertion of the vowel a in the verb root *skisli’ ‘like’. An alternative analysis consisting in positing the deletion of a and assuming that the root is sakisli’ would not properly account for the AF-marked s<un>kisli’ (and not s<um>akisli’). 2.2.2.2 Alternation Alternation refers to the change of sounds in specific phonetic environments. Four types of alternation rules are discussed below. First, verbs initiated with consonants like p-, b-, k-, g- and ’- are AF-marked by replacing these consonants with m- ‘AF’, as illustrated in (2.16). (2.16). Verb root Gloss. AF-form Gloss. a.. pawas. ‘sing’. ~. mawas. ‘AF.sing’. b. c. d. e.. bahiy kani’ galuw ’usa’. ‘hit’ ‘eat’ ‘together’ ‘go’. ~ ~ ~ ~. mahiy mani’ maluw musa’. ‘AF.hit’ ‘AF.eat’ ‘AF.together’ ‘AF.go’. The second type is concerned with the alternation between m and n.. As shown. in (2.12), two AF markers <um> and <un> are phonological allomorphs in that <um> occurs before vowels and <un> before consonants.. It is also observed in. some words undergoing CVC-reduplication that m is replaced by n when occurring before consonants, as shown in (2.17). (2.17). a. b.. ’in-’ima ‘Red-who’ ’an-’amol ‘Red-what’. < <. *’im-’ima *’am-’amol. 15. < <. ’ima ‘who’ ’amol ‘what’.

(16) Third, consonants may change when occurring in different positions in a syllable. Consider (2.18). (2.18). In syllable-final position Surface Syllable Gloss. a. ma-ha’ [ma.ha’] a’. haco’ [ha.co’]. In syllable-initial position Surface Syllable Gloss. ‘AF-go’ ‘do what’. hal-an [ha.lan] ‘go-LF’ hacol-un [ha.co.lun] ‘do what-PF’. b. salahaw [sa.la.haw] ‘play’ b’. parow [pa.row] ‘help’. salahg-an [sa.lah.gan] ‘play-LF’ rog-un [ro.gun] ‘help-PF’. As shown in (2.18), while consonants ’ and w occur syllable-finally, l and g appear before vowels, i.e. in syllable-initial position. The fourth type deals with the alternation between vowels, as exemplified by the i~e alternation in (2.19). (2.19). a. b.. kani’ ’aki’. ‘eat’ ‘stay’. ~ ~. na-ne’-an kel-an. ‘Red-eat-LF’ ‘stay-LF’. As shown in (2.19), the high front vowel i is lowered as e when the low vowel a occurs in the next syllable. 2.2.2.3 Monophthonization When a high vowel i/u is adjacent to a or when they are separated by the glottal stop, the process of monophthonization may occur, as shown in (2.20). (2.20). a.. temu + -an. ‘Temu’ + ‘Loc’. ~. a’. yawi’ + -an b. bahiy + -an b’. pana’ + -un. ‘Yawi’ + ‘Loc’ ‘hit’ + ‘LF’ ‘wait’ + ‘PF’. ~ ~ ~. tem-on. ‘Temu-Loc’ yaw-en ‘Yawi-Loc’ b<in>ah-en ‘hit<Prf>hit-LF’ n-on ‘wait-PF’. The other example lies in the monophthonization of awa to o when occurring after the labial nasal m, as illustrated in (2.21).. 16.

(17) (2.21). a. b.. ’awah ‘come’ ’awalax ‘rain’. > moh > ’<um>olax. ‘AF.come’ ‘rain<AF>rain’. All the morphophonemic rules discussed above are schematized in (2.22). (2.22). a.. Insertion ø ø. b.. Æ Æ. g, ’ / V__V a / C__C. Alternation p, b, k, g, ’ Æ m / __V (AF form) m Æ n / __C ’ Æ l / __V w Æ g / __V i Æ e / __Ca. c.. Monophthonization 5 ua, au, a’u, awa ia, iya, i’a. Æ Æ. o / N__ e / __N. or. __N. 2.3 Syntax In this section, we investigate the basic word order and four major syntactic issues of Plngawan, including case marking, pronouns, focus markers and tense/aspect/mood system. 2.3.1 Word order Plngawan is basically a predicate-initial and subject-final language, as shown in (2.23).. 5. The alternations between ia/ai/ya/ay ~ e and ua/au/wa/aw ~ o are also observed when we compare certain lexical items in Mayrinax Atayal and Plngawan, as illustrated below. a.. Mayrinax kanailil karariax ragiyax. Plngawan kanel karirex ragex. Gloss b. ‘female’ ‘every day’ ‘mountain peak’ 17. Mayrinax sawni kwara kanuwan. Plngawan soni kora kanon. Gloss ‘today’ ‘all’ ‘when’.

(18) (2.23). a.. t<um>ahuk ci ’ucyux cook<AF>cook Acc fish ‘Mother cooks fish.’. ka’ Nom. b.. ta-tahk-un=mu ka’ ’ucyux Red-cook-PF=1S.Gen Nom fish ‘The fish will be cooked by me.’. yaya’. mother hani. this. However, sentences can end with non-subject arguments when nominative pronouns are cliticized to sentence-initial predicates as in (2.24a) or when temporal nouns occur sentence-finally as in (2.24b). (2.24). a.. mani’=cu AF.eat=1S.Nom ‘I eat fish.’. ci ’ucyux. Acc fish. a’. * t<um>ahuk cook<AF>cook. ci ’ucyux Acc fish. b.. cu. 1S.Nom. pa-kani’ ci ’ucyux ka’ Irr.AF-eat Acc fish Nom ‘Mother will eat fish tomorrow.’. yaya’ mother. cuxan. tomorrow. Sentences that are initiated with verbal predicates like (2.23) and (2.24) are usually considered as verbal sentences. realized by nouns. (2.25). In equational constructions, 6 predicates are. Consider (2.25).. a.. watan ka’ ci’uli’ Watan Nom person ‘This person is Watan.’. hani. this. b.. yaya’ ka’ t<um>ahuk mother Nom cook<AF>cook ‘Mother cooks fish.’ Lit: ‘It is mother who cooks fish.’. 6. ci ’ucyux. Acc fish. An equational construction refers to “a type of sentence where a verb places two noun phrases into a relationship of identity (Chang 1998:16).” As there is no copula verb in Plngawan, an equational construction becomes an NP-NP clause, with the first NP serving as the predicate and the second NP as the subject preceded by the nominative case marker ka’. 18.

(19) c.. cuxan ka’ ma-moh=cu. tomorrow Nom Red-come=1S.Nom ‘I will come tomorrow.’. In equational sentences, predicate nouns may precede subjects consisting of a single noun as in (2.25a), a nominalized verbal clause whose subject is fronted initially as the predicate as in (2.25b) or a complete verbal clause as in (2.25c). As shown in (2.24a), pronoun clitics must be attached to the sentence-initial elements that are usually verbal predicates.. Predicate nouns may also attract. pronoun clitics that co-refer with them or indicate possessors of them, as shown in (2.26a-b) respectively. (2.26). a.. watan=cu kung. Watan=1S.Nom 1S.Neu ‘I am (the person) Watan.’. b.. yaya’=mu ka’ mother=1S.Gen Nom ‘My mother cooks fish.’. t<um>ahuk cook<AF>cook. ci ’ucyux. Acc fish. When pronoun clitics neither co-refer with predicate nouns nor indicate possessors of them, they are attracted to the first element of the nominalized verbal clause instead, as shown in (2.27). (2.27). a.. tugal wal=mu three Prf=1S.Gen ‘I have eaten three.’. a’. * tugal=mu wal three=1S.Gen Prf. ni’-un. eat-PF ni’-un. eat-PF. 19.

(20) 2.3.2 Case marking system 7 Participants represented by full NPs depend on case markers (and/or focus markers) to express their grammatical and/or semantic relations to the predicate. In Plngawan, five case markers are identified, as shown in Table 2.3. Table 2.3 Case marking on nouns Cases. Nominative. Nouns. Accusative/. Genitive. Locative. Comitative. Proper nouns. ka’. ci/cika’. Benefactive. ni/nika’. Common nouns. Instrumental/. na/naka’. 8. -an. (ni) -an. ---. na. As shown in (2.23) and (2.25), the nominative case marker ka’ may occur before proper/common nouns and nominalized verbal clauses to mark them as the grammatical subject. It is noted that ka’ can be optional when there is only one subject in a sentence. When two ka’ occur simultaneously in a sentence where one marks the subject of the main clause and the other marks the subject of an embedded clause, only one ka’ is allowed to appear. Examples are given in (2.28). (2.28). a.. b.. ta-tahk-un=mu (ka’) ’ucyux Red-cook-PF=1S.Gen (Nom) fish ‘The fish will be cooked by me.’ cuxan ø ma-moh ka’ tomorrow Red-come ‘Watan will come tomorrow.’. b’. * cuxan tomorrow. Nom. ka’ ma-moh ka’ Nom Red-come Nom. 7. hani. this watan. Watan watan. Watan. In Huang (2006), five case markers in Plngawan are identified: nominative ka’, accusative ci/cika’, comitative ci/cika’, genitive ni/na and instrumental/beneficiary ni/na. The suffix -an is regarded as an accusative case suffix. In the present study, we treat the accusative and the comitative ci/cika’ as one case marker because their semantic representations, i.e. patients and comitative participants, are in complementary distribution syntactically. The suffix -an is regarded as the locative case marker because it not only marks proper nouns as patients but also as possessive or locative pronouns. Besides, the benefactive case marker for proper nouns is found to be (ni) -an rather than ni as presented in Huang (2006). 8 Both the genitive case marker ni/na and the accusative/comitative case marker ci have nika’/naka’ and cika’ as their variants, whose semantic differences may deserve further research. 20.

(21) The accusative/comitative case markers ci and cika’ show no proper/common distinction, and they mark the following noun as a patient or a comitative participant, as shown in (2.29). (2.29). a.. m<in>ahiy ci watan AF<Prf>hit Acc Watan ‘Walis hit Watan.’. a’. m<in>ahiy ci huril AF<Prf>hit Acc dog ‘Walis hit a dog.’ b.. ka’ Nom. walis. Walis. ka’ Nom. walis. Walis. ma-moh=min cami ci Red-AF.come=1PE.Nom 1PE.Neu Com ‘I will come with Watan tomorrow.’. watan Watan. b’. t<in>ahuk=mu ka’ gilung cook<Prf.PF>cook=1S.Gen Nom chicken ‘I cooked chicken and fish.’. laha 3P.Neu. cuxan. tomorrow ci ’ucyux. Com fish. Genitive case markers ni and nika’ are used for proper nouns, i.e. personal nouns and kinship terms, and na/naka’ for common nouns.. Functionally, they mark nouns. as possessors or agents in NAF sentences, as shown in (2.30) and (2.31). (2.30). (2.31). a.. m<in>ani’=cu AF<Prf>eat=1S.Nom ‘I ate Watan’s fish.’. ci ’ucyux Acc fish. b.. cyel saca ka’ Exi.Rem there Nom ‘The child’s book is there.’. a.. t<in>ahuk ni yaya’ ka’ cook<Prf.PF>cook Gen mother Nom ‘The fish was cooked by Mother.’. ’ucyux. fish. b.. k<in>ac-an na banga’ ka’ bite<Prf>bite-LF Gen bee Nom ‘I was stung on my hand by a bee.’. ’aba’=mu. hand=1S.Gen. patas book. 21. ni watan. Gen Watan na ’ule’ Gen child. haca. that.

(22) The suffix -an is used for proper nouns that bear locative case.. Consider the. following examples in (2.32). (2.32). a.. ’ini=cu pasye’ watan-an. Neg=1S.Nom laugh at Watan-Loc ‘I did not laugh at Watan.’. a’. * ’ini=cu pasye’ ci watan-an. Neg=1S.Nom laugh at Acc Watan-Loc b.. m<in>ahiy ci watan-an ka’ AF<Prf>hit Acc Watan-Loc Nom ‘Walis hit Watan’s (dog, child, etc.).’. c.. m<in>sa’=cu watan-an AF<Prf>go=1S.Nom Watan-Loc ‘I went to Watan’s place yesterday.’. walis. Walis. hira. yesterday. As shown in (2.32a-a’), when the suffix -an is attached to a proper noun interpreted as a patient, the noun cannot be preceded by the accusative case marker ci simultaneously.. The co-occurrence of ci and -an is possible only if the proper noun. is interpreted as referring to a possessor, as in (2.32b).. In (2.32c), the proper noun. marked with the locative suffix -an is interpreted as a location. The instrumental/benefactive case markers (ni) -an and na are used for proper and common nouns respectively. The representations of being a beneficiary or an instrument are in complementary distribution semantically, i.e. while nouns referring to human beings may function as beneficiary, those referring to non-human entities usually serve as instruments. (2.33). a.. Examples are given in (2.33).. t<um>ahuk=cu cook<AF>cook=1S.Nom ‘I cook fish for Watan.’. (ni) (Ben). watan-an Watan-Ben. a’. paston na ’ule’ ka’ prepare to cook.AF Ben child Nom ‘Mother prepares to cook for the child.’ 22. ci ’ucyux. Acc fish. yaya’. mother.

(23) b.. ma-’abuw na rating ci ’usye’ AF-drink Ins bowl Acc water ‘Watan drinks water with a bowl.’. ka’ Nom. watan. Watan. Finally, nouns referring to time and place are usually not preceded by case markers of any type. Only temporal nouns that indicate past time can be preceded by ci 9. (2.34). Consider the following examples in (2.34). a.. ma-ma-ha’. b.. Red-AF-go Taipei tomorrow Nom Temu ‘Temu will go to Taipei tomorrow.’ m<in>sa’ ø tayhoku (ci) hira ka’ temu.. ø. tayhoku ø. cuxan. AF<Prf>go Taipei (CI) yesterday ‘Temu went to Taipei yesterday.’. ka’. Nom. temu.. Temu. The non-occurrence of case markers before temporal and locational nouns may be explained as follows. Since they do not refer to core participants involved in an event and are usually semantically identifiable, they do not need case markers to indicate their grammatical and/or semantic relations to the predicate. 2.3.3 Pronouns Participants expressed by personal pronouns are not preceded by case markers mentioned above, but instead, are divided into four case-embedded categories, including nominative, genitive, locative and neutral.. The first two types are bound. clitics and the latter two are free forms, as shown in Table 2.4 below. 9. For the time being, we cannot tell whether the past ci is semantically and/or syntactically identical or different from the accusative ci, but just like Plngawan speakers allow only one occurrence of ka’, it is impossible for the accusative ci to co-occur simultaneously with the past ci. Consider the following examples: (i). m<in>ani’ ci ’ucyux AF<Prf>eat Acc fish ‘Temu ate fish yesterday.’ (ii) m<in>ani’ ø ’ucyux AF<Prf>eat fish ‘Temu ate fish yesterday.’ (iii) * m<in>ani’ ci ’ucyux AF<Prf>eat Acc fish. ø. hira ka’ temu. yesterday Nom Temu. ci CI. hira ka’ temu. yesterday Nom Temu. ci CI. hira ka’ temu. yesterday Nom Temu 23.

(24) Table 2.4 Personal pronouns in Plngawan Form & Case Person & Number. Bound. Free. Nominative. 1S. =cu ; =ci. =mu. kinang. kuring/kung. 2S. =su ; =si. =su. sinang. ’isu. 3S. ---. =ni. hiyan. hiya. 1P-inclusive. =ta’. =ta’. ’itan. ’ita’. 1P-exclusive. =min. =min. caminan. cami. 2P. =mamu. =mamu. cimunan. cimu. 3P. ---. =naha. lahan. laha. 1S.Gen+2S.Nom. =misu. 2S.Gen+1S.Nom. =saku. 1S.Nom+3S.Gen. =cini. 2S.Nom+3S.Gen. =sini. 1PI.Nom+3S.Gen. =tani. 1PE.Nom+3S.Gen. =mini. 2P.Nom+3S.Gen. =mani. Genitive. Locative. Neutral. Like lexical nouns preceded by ka’, nominative pronouns refer to the subject of a sentence and are always attached to sentence-initial predicates, as illustrated in (2.35) (2.35). a.. ma’as=cu. AF.happy=1S.Nom ‘I am happy.’. b.. watan=cu. Watan=1S.Nom ‘I am Watan.’. Genitive pronoun clitics may refer to agents in NAF sentences as in (2.36a) or possessors as in (2.36b-b’) below. (2.36). a.. kisli’=mu like.PF=1S.Gen ‘I like Watan.’. ka’ Nom. watan. Watan. 24.

(25) b.. ’ule’=mu ka’ child=1S.Gen Nom ‘Watan is my child.’. watan. Watan. b’. s<un>kisli’ ci ’ule’=mu ka’ like<AF>like Acc child=1S.Gen Nom ‘Watan likes my child.’. watan. Watan. In Plngawan, when a nominative and a genitive personal pronoun occur simultaneously, they may be contracted as one clitic and attached to sentence-initial predicates, as exemplified in (2.37). (2.37). a.. kisli’=misu. like.PF=1S.Gen:2S.Nom ‘I like you.’. b.. malikur=cini. male=1S.Nom:3S.Gen ‘I am her husband.’. Locative pronouns are free forms, and like proper nouns suffixed with -an, they may refer to patients, benefactive roles or function as locative and possessive pronouns, as illustrated in (2.38a-d). (2.38). a.. s<un>kisli’ sinang like<AF>like 2S.Loc ‘Watan likes you.’. ka’ Nom. b.. b<in>iniy=mu sinang buy<Prf.PF>buy=1S.Gen 2S.Loc ‘I bought the clothes for you.’. c.. ma-ha’=cu sinang cuxan. AF-go=1S.Nom 2S.Loc tomorrow ‘I will go to your place tomorrow.’. d.. sinang ka’ patas 2S.Loc Nom book ‘This book is yours.’. hani. this. 25. watan. Watan ka’ Nom. lukus clothes. hani. this.

(26) Pronouns classified as “neutral case” seem to bear a looser grammatical relation to the predicate and thus do not need to be assigned a specific case. In terms of function, they may serve as topics and emphatic pronouns or provide short responses to questions, as exemplified in (2.39)-(2.41) respectively. (2.39). Topics. a.. kuring/*kung ga watan. 1S.Neu Top Watan ‘As for me, I am Watan.’. b.. hiya ga malikur=mu. 3S.Neu Top male=1S.Gen ‘As for him, he is my husband.’. (2.40). Emphatic pronouns. a.. watan=cu kung/*kuring. Watan=1S.Nom 1S.Neu ‘I am the person Watan.’. b.. ’ima=su (ka’) who=2S.Nom (Nom) ‘Who are YOU?’. (2.41). ’isu? 2S.Neu. Responses. Q:. ’ima ma-ma-ha’? who Red-AF-go ‘Who will go?’. A:. kuring/kung! 1S.Neu ‘I!’. Two things are noted from the above examples. First, only the first person neutral pronoun has two forms, i.e. kuring as a topic and kung an emphatic pronoun, but they can both be used as a response to questions.. Second, emphatic pronouns. can be preceded by the nominative case marker ka’ as in (2.40b), which confirms that they do not bear cases themselves. 26.

(27) Demonstrative pronouns hani ‘this’ and haca ‘that’ may function as case-marked arguments or as post-nominal modifiers, as shown in (2.42). (2.42). a.. m<in>ani’ ci hani la ga, ramas tax-an AF<Prf>eat Acc this Part Top good.AF see-LF ‘After eating this, she becomes beautiful.’. b.. watan-an ka’ patas Watan-Loc Nom book ‘This book is Watan’s.’. la. Part. hani. this. When referring to subjects, demonstrative pronouns are either preceded by ka’ or undergo contraction with ka’ and become kani ‘Nom.this’ and kaca ‘Nom.that’. Thus, the co-occurrence of ka’ and nominative-marked demonstrative pronouns is ungrammatical, as shown in (2.43). (2.43). a.. watan-an ka’ Watan-Loc Nom ‘This is Watan’s.’. hani. this. b.. watan-an (*ka’) kani. Watan-Loc (*Nom) Nom.this ‘This is Watan’s.’. 2.3.4 Focus markers 10 Focus markers are affixes attached to verbal predicates that indicate semantic roles of the grammatical subject.. They are classified into four categories, i.e. agent,. patient, locative and instrumental/benefactive focus, as shown in Table 2.5.. 10. Focus markers used in negative and imperative sentences usually show different forms, for example: (i). ras-ani=cu! take-Imp.BF=1S.Nom ‘Take it for me!’. The benefactive focus marker is -ani rather than si- in an imperative sentence. So far, we only present focus markers used in affirmative declarative sentences because they are identical to those used in interrogative constructions in Plngawan. 27.

(28) Table 2.5 Focus markers used in affirmative declarative sentences Focus. Forms. Agent focus (AF). m-, <um> (<un>), ma-, ø. Patient focus (PF). -un (-on), ø. Locative focus (LF). -an (-en). Instrumental/Benefactive focus (I/BF). si-. Verbal predicates are marked as AF when subjects refer to agents of an event. The use of various AF markers is sensitive to verbal semantics, i.e. degree of dynamicity.. Dynamic verbs tend to be marked with m-/<um>/<un>, e.g. k<un>rak. ‘catch<AF>catch’ and less dynamic or stative verbs with ma-/ø, e.g. maluw ‘AF.be together’. 11. The choice among m-, <um> and <un> is phonologically conditioned,. as shown in (2.12) and (2.19) discussed above; the choice between ma- and ø, however, seems to be lexically determined. (2.44). Examples are given in (2.44).. a.. mani’ ci ’ucyux AF.eat Acc fish ‘Watan eats fish.’. ka’ Nom. watan. Watan. b.. t<um>uting ci ’ule’ beat<AF>beat Acc child ‘Watan beats the child.’. c.. s<un>bale’ ci rakat make<AF>make Acc chair ‘Watan makes a chair.’. d.. ma-tanah ka’ AF-red Nom ‘My clothes are red.’. e.. ø-yotas ka’ morow=su. AF-big Nom house=2S.Gen ‘Your house is big.’. ka’ Nom. watan. Watan. (< tuting ‘beat’). ka’ watan. (< sabale’ ‘make’) Nom Watan. lukus=mu. clothes=1S.Gen. 11. (< kani’ ‘eat’). (< tanah ‘red’). (< yotas ‘big’). The phenomenon that verbs of different degree of dynamicity take different AF markers is also found in Mayrinax Atayal. According to Huang (2000), in Mayrinax Atayal, verbs manifesting dynamic events are affixed with m- or <um>, e.g. m-astatail ‘AF-jump’; those designating less dynamic events or states are affixed with ma- or ø, e.g. ma-qilaap ‘AF-sleep’. 28.

(29) When subjects refer to patients, verbal predicates are marked with PF -un, -on or ø, with the first two as phonological allomorphs, i.e. a’-un > -on, as shown in (2.45). (2.45). a.. tahk-un=mu cook-PF=1S.Gen ‘I cook fish.’. ka’ Nom. ’ucyux. fish. b.. wal=mu bak-on ka’ Prf=1S.Gen break-PF Nom ‘I broke the bowl.’. c.. kisli’-ø=mu like-PF=1S.Gen ‘I like Watan.’. ka’ Nom. (< tahuk ‘cook’). rating. bowl. (< baka’ ‘break). watan. Watan. (< sakisli’ ‘like’). The two LF markers -an and -en are also phonological allomorphs, i.e. iy-an > -en.. They both denote subjects as locations or patients that can be conceptually. realized as locations to which an event happened, as shown in (2.46). (2.46). a.. ’<in>tax-an ni walis see<Prf>see-LF Gen Walis ‘Walis saw Watan.’. ka’ Nom. watan. Watan. (< katox ‘see’). b. b<in>ah-en ni temu hit<Prf>hit-LF Gen Temu ‘Temu hit Watan.’. ka’ Nom. watan. Watan. (< bahiy ‘hit’). The I/BF marker si- has no phonological variant, and it marks the subject as an instrument or a beneficiary, as shown in (2.47). (2.47). a.. si-culing=mu ci ’ucyux IF-roast=1S.Gen Acc fish ‘I roast the fish with charcoal.’. b.. si-pawas ni yaya’ ka’ BF-sing Gen mother Nom ‘Mother sings for the child.’. 29. ka’ Nom. beloh. (< culing ‘roast’) charcoal. ’ule’ . child. (< pawas ‘sing’).

(30) 2.3.5 Tense/aspect/mood (TAM) marking system Plngawan does not grammaticalize the concept of tense, but it distinguishes realis/non-future from irrealis/future mood and shows aspectual distinctions among perfective, progressive and habitual. 2.3.5.1 Realis mood Events that have been completed or have taken/is taking place are marked as realis, which is further divided into perfective, progressive and habitual aspects. Perfective aspect is usually marked with the infix <in>, as shown in (2.48). (2.48). a.. m<in>ani’ ci ’ucyux AF<Prf>eat Acc fish ‘Watan ate the fish.’. a’. ?*t<um><in>uting 12 beat<AF><Prf>beat ‘Watan beat Walis.’. ka’ Nom. watan. Watan. ci walis Acc Walis. b.. t<in>ahuk ni yaya’ cook<Prf.PF>cook Gen mother ‘Mother cooked the fish.’. c. ’<in>tax-an=mu see-Prf-see-LF=1S.Gen ‘I saw Watan in Taipei.’. ka’ Nom. ka’ Nom. watan. Watan. ’ucyux. fish. tayhoku watan. Taipei Watan. 12. Mrs. Yuma Watan, our major informant, did not accept this utterance, though the co-occurrence of <um> and <in> as in (2.48a’) was actually acceptable to late Mr. Watan Nawi (aged 60 in 2006). However, as he suggested, such forms were used in Plngawan in earlier times. Nowadays, it seems that the two infixes <um> and <in> have undergone phonological contraction as <un> ‘AF.Prf’, as illustrated in the following examples: (i). a. b.. r<um>anga’ r<un>anga’. (ii). a.. ’<um>olax tanux na. rain<AF>rain outside still ‘It is still raining outside.’ ’<un>olax tanux la. rain<AF.Prf>rain outside Part ‘It has rained outside (so the ground is wet). b.. ‘raise<AF>raise’ ‘raise<AF.Prf>raise’. Thus, we may propose two sources of the AF infix <un>, i.e. first, <un> is the phonological allomorph of <um> before consonants, and second, <un> is the contraction of <um> ‘AF’ and <in> ‘Prf’. 30.

(31) d.. ø-p<in>awas=cini. ni. yaya’.. I/BF-sing<Prf>sing=1S.Nom:3S.Gen ‘Mother sang for me.’. Gen mother. Regarding the perfective infix <in>, it is noted that (i) <in> may co-occur with the AF marker m- but not <um>, (ii) as shown in (2.48b), it may be treated as a portmanteau serving both as a perfective marker and a PF marker, and (iii) the I/BF marker is zero form when predicates are marked with <in> simultaneously. The other strategy used to mark perfective is by means of the auxiliary wal/waral that is grammaticalized from the motion verb waral ‘go’ and can be shortened as wal.. Unlike the perfective infix <in>, wal may co-occur with verbs. marked with all types of focus markers, as illustrated in (2.49). (2.49). a.. waral t<um>uting Prf beat<AF>beat ‘Watan has beaten Walis.’. b.. ci walis Acc Walis. ka’ Nom. watan. Watan. wal=mu ni’-un ka’ tugal Prf=1S.Gen eat-PF Nom three ‘I ate three bowls of (cooked) rice.’. rating bowl. mami’. rice. c.. wal=mu tax-an Prf=1S.Gen see-LF ‘I saw Watan’s child.’. ni watan. Gen Watan. d.. wal=mu si-pakacik Prf=1S.Gen IF-lend ‘I lent Watan my book.’. ka’ Nom. ’ule’ child. watan Watan. ka’ Nom. patas=mu. book=1S.Gen. Progressive aspect is marked explicitly by the auxiliaries nel and cyel that are grammaticalized from existential verbs nel 13 ‘be here’ and cyel ‘be there’, as illustrated in (2.50).. 13. As observed by Prof. L. Huang, in Watan’s speech, the word “be here” was pronounced as nyel, but in Yuma’s speech, all of the occurrences of nyel are pronounced as nel. 31.

(32) (2.50). a.. nel=cu mabahu. Exi.Imm=1S.Nom AF.wash ‘I am washing (dishes).’. b.. cyel n-on ni watan Exi.Rem wait-PF Gen Watan ‘Watan is waiting for Lawa.’. ka’ Nom. lawa. Lawa. Verbs affixed only with focus markers are usually interpreted as habitual or states of facts, as shown in (2.51). (2.51). a.. t<um>ahuk ci ’ucyux ka’ yaya’. cook<AF>cook Acc fish Nom mother ‘Mother cooks fish.’ (Context: Mother often cooks fish, or Mother knows how to cook fish.). b.. ni’-un=mu ka’ ’ucyux. eat-PF=1S.Gen Nom fish ‘I eat fish.’ (Context: I often eat fish, or I am not afraid of eating fish.). In terms of habitual reading, the distinction between past and present is marked explicitely by temporal adjuncts, as shown in (2.52). (2.52). a.. mani’=cu AF.eat=1S.Nom ‘I often eat fish.’. ci ’ucyux Acc fish. b.. mani’=cu ci ’ucyux AF.eat=1S.Nom Acc fish ‘I used to eat fish often before.’. karirex. every day karirex rali every day before. hang. Part. 2.3.5.2 Irrealis mood Events that are about to take place or may happen in the future are marked as irrealis either with the prefix pa- that marks verbs both as AF and irrealis or through Ca-reduplication, as shown in (2.53).. 32.

(33) (2.53). a.. pa-kani’ ci ’ucyux cuxan Irr.AF-eat Acc fish tomorrow ‘Lawa will eat fish tomorrow.’. b.. ba-bah-en ni watan Red-hit-LF Gen Watan ‘Watan will hit the child.’. ka’ Nom. ka’ Nom ’ule’ child. lawa. Lawa. hani. this. The discussion about the tense/aspect/mood system of Plngawan is summarized in Table 2.6 with the exemplification of kani’ ‘eat’ or tahuk ‘cook’. Table 2.6 Tense/aspect/mood marking system 14 Mood. Realis. Aspect V-AF. Perfective <in>,. Habitual. Irrealis Progressive. Irrealis/Future. Ø. nel/cyel. pa-. m<in>ani’. mani’. nel/cyel mani’. pa-kani’. ‘ate/have eaten’. ‘eat’. ‘is eating’. ‘will eat’. Ø. nel/cyel. Ca-reduplication. ni’-un. nel/cyel ni’-un. na-ni’-un. ‘is eaten’. ‘is being eaten’. ‘will be eaten’. wal/waral Examples. wal t<um>ahuk ‘cooked/have cooked’. V-NAF. <in>, wal/waral. Examples. t<in>ahuk ‘was/has been cooked’ wal ni’-un ‘was/has been eaten’. 2.4 Summary In this chapter, we have provided a sketch grammar covering the phonology, morphology and syntax of Plngawan. Based on the discussion in this chapter, we will investigate the formation and functions of interrogative constructions in Chapter 4 and their intonation contours in Chapter 5. In Chapter 3, we will review how interrogative constructions are discussed in both general and Formosan linguistics. 14. Tense/aspect/mood markers may have different forms in negative or imperative sentences, which we leave for further study. Only those used in affirmative declarative sentences are shown in Table 2.6. 33.

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(35) Chapter Three Literature Review According to Siemund (2001), nearly all human languages make use of three major syntactic constructions to fulfill our basic needs of communication, including declarative, imperative and interrogative sentences. give commands and seek for information.. They enable us to state facts,. In § 3.1, a brief overview about how. interrogative constructions are analyzed in general linguistics is provided.. In § 3.2,. similar issues discussed in Formosan linguistics are reviewed. 3.1 Interrogative constructions in general linguistics 3.1.1 Types of interrogative sentences Depending on the kind of information being inquired, interrogative constructions can be categorized into three types, namely, yes-no questions, alternative questions and information questions, 15 as illustrated in (3.1a-c) below. (3.1). a. b. c.. Q: Do you major in linguistics? A: Yes, I do. Q: Do you major in linguistics or medicine? A: (I major in) linguistics. Q: What is your major? A: (My major is) linguistics.. In (3.1a), the yes-no question is used to seek for agreement or disagreement from the addressee, and thus only a simple answer “yes” or “no” is expected. In (3.1b), the speaker uses an alternative question to ask the addressee to pick up one of the two choices.. To answer information questions such as (3.1c), more specific information. about persons, objects, time, etc. are required to fulfill the gap in the speaker’s 15. In previous studies, yes-no questions are also referred to as “polar” or “general” questions; alternative questions as “disjunctive” questions, and information questions as “content”, “constituent”, “wh-”, or “special” questions (cf. Siemund 2001). 35.

(36) knowledge. 3.1.2 Formation of interrogative constructions Strategies concerning the formation of interrogative sentences can be phonological or morphosyntactic. The former may include intonation, pitch accent or other phonemic properties, e.g. vowel length; the latter covers a wider range of techniques, including question particles, question words, inversion, tags, verbal inflections and disjunctive structure. In the following, we will show how the various strategies are used to form yes-no, alternative and information questions. 3.1.2.1 Yes-no questions In English, a declarative sentence like (3.2a) below may be turned into a yes-no question via (i) contour modification from final-falling to final-rising pattern as in (3.2b), (ii) the inversion between subject and auxiliary as in (3.2c), or (iii) the occurrence of question tags as in (3.2d). (3.2). a. b. c. d.. Cindy majors in linguistics. (Falling intonation) Cindy majors in linguistics? (Rising intonation) Does Cindy major in linguistics? Cindy majors in linguistics, doesn’t she?. Sentence (3.2b) is called a “declarative question” because it is syntactically identical to the declarative sentence, and the two sentences differ only in terms of intonation contours.. Sentences like (3.2d) are also called “tag questions”.. In. English, tags may have the same or reverse polarity with the preceding clause. Bolinger (1989:116) suggests that reverse polarity tags are used when speakers expect agreement from addressees. The other two strategies, i.e. question particle and verbal inflection, are illustrated in (3.3)-(3.4):. 36.

(37) (3.3). Mandarin Chinese a. 姵如主修. b.. 語言學。. peiru zhuxiu yuyanxue. Peiru major linguistics ‘Peiru majors in linguistics.’ 姵如主修語言學. 嗎？. peiru zhuxiu yuyanxue ma? Peiru major linguistics QP ‘Does Peiru major in linguistics?’ (3.4). West Greenlandic (Sadock 1984: 190, adopted from Siemund 2001:1017) a.. nerivutit. ‘You ate.’. b.. nerivit? ‘Do you eat?’. As shown in (3.3), a declarative sentence in Mandarin Chinese is turned into a yes-no question with the occurrence of the sentence-final question particle ma.. In West. Greenlandic, part of the verbal morphology is modified, i.e. from -vutit to -vit. In most languages, yes-no questions are answered with morphemes meaning “yes/no”, as exemplified in (3.5). (3.5). Mandarin Chinese Q: 他是你的. A:. 學生. 嗎？. ta shi nide xuesheng ma? he is your student QP ‘Is he your student?’ 是的，他是我的學生。. shide, ta shi wode xuesheng. yes he is my student ‘Yes, he is my student.’ A’: 不(是)，他不是我的學生。 bu(shi), ta bushi wode Neg(is) he Neg-is my ‘No, he is not my student.’. 37. xuesheng. student.

(38) 3.1.2.2 Alternative questions According to Siemund (2001), alternative questions can be analyzed as the coordination of two yes-no questions that differ from each other with respect to only one of the constituents. Consider the English example in (3.6). (3.6). Q: Is Cindy a teacher or (is she) a student? A: She is a student. A’: * Yes, she is a student. Alternative questions in English are formed by connecting two yes-no questions. with the disjunctive coordinator or. As shown in (3.6), two things are noted: (i) they cannot be answered with “yes” or “no” like yes-no questions, and (ii) identical parts in the second yes-no clause usually have to be deleted to avoid redundancy. In Mandarin Chinese, alternative questions are also formed by means of such a disjunctive structure. (3.7) a.. Consider (3.7).. Mandarin Chinese 你是學生. (你. 還是. 是). 老師？. ni shi xuesheng haishi (ni shi) laoshi? you are student or (you are) teacher ‘Are you a student or (are you) a teacher?’ b. * 你是學生嗎還是 (你是) 老師 ni shi xuesheng you are student. ma haishi QP or. (ni (you. shi) are). laoshi teacher. 嗎？ ma? QP. As shown in (3.7), when the two yes-no questions are connected by the disjunctive coordinator haishi ‘or’ to form an alternative question, they cannot end with the question particle ma. The two yes-no questions in (3.7a) differ in terms of the predicate noun, i.e. student vs. teacher.. They may also differ in terms of polarity, as shown in (3.8).. 38.

(39) (3.8) a.. Mandarin Chinese 你是學生. b.. ni shi xuesheng haishi you are student or ‘Are you a student or not?’ 你是不是學生?. 還是. ni shibushi xuesheng? you are-Neg-are student ‘Are you a student?’ c. * 你是不是學生 ni you. shibushi are-Neg-are. (你). 不是. (學生)？. (ni) (you). bushi (xuesheng)? Neg-are (student). 嗎?. xuesheng student. ma? QP. Siemund (2001:1016) suggests that such a disjunctive structure with ellipsis as in (3.8a) may be grammaticalized as an A-(or-)not-A expression, which can be another strategy to form yes-no questions as in (3.8b).. Thus, the co-occurrence of an. A-not-A expression and the question particle ma is ungrammatical, as shown in (3.8c). 3.1.2.3 Information questions In a typological survey on interrogative constructions of 79 languages, Ultan (1978:228) finds that it is nearly universal for information questions to be formed by means of interrogative words which can be analyzed as “placeholders or variables in a proposition to be filled or assigned a value by the answer” (Siemund 2001:1018). Morphologically, interrogative words may be free or bound morphemes, as exemplified in (3.9) and (3.10). (3.9). a. b.. Who majors in linguistics? Where are you going?. (3.10). a.. Iraqi Arabic (Ultan 1978:229) š-dataakul? what-dataakul ‘What are you eating?’. 39.

(40) b.. Rotuman (Ultan 1978:229) hanue-s hanue-which ‘Which country?’. In some languages, interrogative words share a similar stem like wh- in English or qu- in French; in others, they may be morphologically distinct from each other. The number of question words also differs from language to language, depending on how many semantic distinctions are made.. In English, for instance, the. interrogative pronoun referring to human beings distinguishes nominative who from accusative whom; in Mandarin Chinese, however, only one form shei ‘who’ is used for both cases.. Besides, while some semantic distinctions are more universal, such. as human/non-human, e.g. who/what and countable/uncountable, e.g. how many/how much, others may be more language-specific like source/goal, e.g. whence/whereto and the distinction between past and non-past for temporal question words, etc. Below we will discuss two other issues relevant to morphosyntactic properties of interrogative words, i.e. parts of speech and distribution. 3.1.2.3.1 Parts of speech of interrogative words According to Anward (2001), a part of speech is the lexicalization of the semantic-syntactic mapping relations of words.. For example, when a word can. semantically denote a person or an object and syntactically function as an argument, it may be determined as a “noun”.. Some major parts of speech are shown in Table 3.1.. 40.

(41) Table 3.1 Parts of speech (Based on Anward 2001:727) Parts of speech Noun. Semantic classes person, object. Major syntactic functions argument. Pronoun. English examples man, dog, book, he, it. Verb. action, state, event. predicate. jump, sleep, break. Adverb. location, time, manner. adjunct, adverbial modifier. here, now, quickly,. Adjective. property. argument, predicate, adnominal modifier. red, big, happy. Demonstrative. property. this. Quantifier. quantity. argument, predicate, adnominal modifier. Numeral. quantity. Interjection. situation. many two. root (a sentence). ouch, hey, mhm. Ultan (1978:228-9) shows that all languages have question words that substitute for nouns and adverb-like elements indicating location, time, manner, etc.. A few. languages have question words that replace verbs, meaning “do what”, and some languages even have interrogative interjections, such as Tongan inē “What about it?”. Therefore, interrogative words are supposed to have identical parts of speech to the words they substitute for and hence exhibit similar syntactic functions.. However,. consider the use of what in (3.11) below. (3.11). a. b. c. d.. Q: What did you buy yesterday? A: I bought a book. Q: * Whats did you buy yesterday? A: I bought books. Q: What are you doing? A: I am reading. Q: * What are you? A: I am reading.. As shown in (3.11a), what is classified as an interrogative noun because it denotes an object (book) and functions as the subject in (3.11aQ), but unlike book in (3.11b), 41.

(42) what cannot be pluralized with -s.. In (3.11c-d), what serves as part of the. interrogative verb do what, and both morphemes must be co-used to question about actions. 3.1.2.3.2 Distribution of interrogative words In terms of distribution of interrogative words, languages are classified into three types (Cheng 1997).. They include fronting, optional-fronting and in-situ languages,. as illustrated in (3.12)-(3.14). (3.12) a. b. * b’.. Fronting languages: Ex. English Who saw Tom yesterday? Tom saw whom yesterday? Who did Tom see yesterday?. (3.13). Optional fronting languages: Ex. Tagalog (Aldridge 2002:394). a. * b<um>abasa ng libro Red<AF>read Obl book ‘Who is reading the book?’. ang Nom. a’. sino ang b<um>abasa who Nom Red<AF>read ‘Who is reading the book?’ b.. (3.14) a.. b.. b<um>abasa ng ano Red<AF>read Obl what ‘What is Maria reading?’. sino? who ng libro? Obl book. ang Nom. maria? Maria. In-situ languages: Ex. Mandarin Chinese 誰喜歡小明？ shei xihuan xiaoming? who like Xiaoming ‘Who likes Xiaoming?’ 小明喜歡誰？ xiaoming xihuan shei? Xiaoming like who ‘Who does Xiaoming like?’. In fronting languages like English, interrogative words are fronted obligatorily to 42.

(43) sentence-initial position.. In optional-fronting languages like Tagalog, question. words referring to the subject have to be fronted, but those serving as objects may stay in-situ.. In Mandarin Chinese, an in-situ language, question words always remain. in-situ irrespective of their syntactic functions as subject or object. Ultan (1978) demonstrates that 73.4% of 53 sample languages show a strong tendency to front question words to sentence-initial position, and only 25% are in-situ languages.. Such a preference is accounted for by the fact that when occurring. sentence-initially, words draw the most attention, emphasis and focus (Ultan 1978:223). Thus, even interrogative words can remain in-situ, they may also be fronted sentence-initially to draw emphasis, which, however, usually results in change of syntactic structures and/or verbal morphology. (3.15). Consider (3.15).. Bahasa Indonesia (from Saddy 1990, adopted from Chang 2000:8). a.. sally men-cintai siapa? Sally pre-loves who ‘Who does Sally love?’. b.. siapa yang sally who that Sally ‘Who does Sally love?’. cintai? loves. In (3.15a), the question word siapa ‘who’ remains in-situ, i.e. in sentence-final position; when it is fronted as in (3.15b), the remaining clause will be headed by yang and the prefix men- of the verb is deleted as well. 3.1.3 Functions of interrogative constructions In addition to asking questions, as discussed in § 3.1.1, interrogative sentences may be used non-canonically in three conditions. First, in Mandarin Chinese, for instance, when interrogative words co-occur with a question particle, they are usually interpreted as indefinites, as illustrated in (3.16).. 43.

(44) (3.16). Mandarin Chinese 你想吃什麼. 嗎？. ni xiang chi sheme ma? you want eat what QP ‘Do you want to eat something?’ * ‘What do you want to eat?’ Second, question words used in sentences that are not syntactically qualified as an interrogative construction usually display different functions. Consider (3.17). (3.17) a.. b.. c. d.. Non-interrogative constructions Echo question A: I’ve seen a ghost. B: You’ve seen what? Exclamation (i) What a beautiful girl! (ii) How tall the building is! Relative sentence I knew the man who you saw yesterday. Indefinite Wherever you go, I will go.. In (3.17aB), the interrogative word what remains in-situ and forms an echo question that is used when speakers feel surprised or miss certain information given by addressees. In (3.17b), neither of the sentences are interrogative constructions; they are used to express exclamation rather than to seek for information. As for (3.17c-d), it has been observed that question words can be sources of the derivation of relative pronouns and indefinites (Ultan 1978, Siemund 2001).. In. (3.17c), who is used as a relative pronoun that initiates a relative clause. In (3.17d), wherever is interpreted as indefinite via the affixation of -ever.. Haspelmath (1997). has mentioned that interrogative words are interpreted as indefinites only when they occur in contexts where they are interpreted non-specifically, such as yes-no questions,. 44.

(45) conditionals, negative sentences, imperatives, future/irrealis clauses and non-factive statements.. Tsai (1997) also shows how interrogative words are used as indefinites. in donkey sentences. Finally, interrogative constructions may also exhibit speech acts other than to ask question when they are used in certain communicational contexts, as shown in (3.18). (3.18) a. b. c.. In specific communicational contexts Directive speech act Could you pass the salt? Rhetorical question Who cares, anyway? Greeting How are you?. In (3.18a), the yes-no question serves as a polite request. Sentence (3.18b) is a rhetorical question, i.e. an interrogative sentence that contains the answer to the question asked (Siemund 2001:1026); thus, by uttering (3.18b), the speaker actually means that “no one will care”. It is also common for interrogative sentences to be used as greetings as in (3.18c) because addressees are expected to respond to questions, which enables speakers to express concern or show interests in their whereabouts through the following conversations. 3.2 Interrogative constructions in Formosan languages The review of formation and function of interrogative constructions in Formosan languages are based on the following studies: Huang et al. (1999) deals with a typological survey, Huang (1996) focuses on Mayrinax Atayal, Chang (1996) on Paran Seediq, Tan (1997) on Puyuma, Chang (1998) and (2000) on Tsou, Chen (1999) and (2002) on Kucapungan Rukai, Lin (2005) on Squliq Atayal and Zeitoun (2007) on Mantauran Rukai.. 45.

(46) 3.2.1 Yes-no questions Yes-no questions in Formosan languages may be formed by means of contour modification, question particle and verbal inflection. Phonologically, intonation contours of yes-no questions may be final-rising as in Paiwan (3.19a), final-falling as in Labuan Rukai (3.19b), level-rising-falling as in Puyuma (3.19c) or leveling as in Maga Rukai (3.19d), as illustrated below. (3.19). Intonation contours of yes-no questions (Huang et al. 1999: 642-643) a. Paiwan ti palang Nom Palang ‘Is he Palang?’. timadju? 3S.Nom. b. Labuan Rukai masipepelenge=su? tired:already=2S.Nom ‘Are you tired?’ c. Puyuma nu-pakan-ay la na 2S.Gen-feed-PF Part Nom ‘Did you feed the child?’. walak? child. d. Maga Rukai u-tubi musuu? Act.Rea-cry 2S.Nom ‘Have you cried? / Did you cry?’ In addition to contour modification, stress shift and vowel lengthening are detected. In Paiwan, stress shifts from the penultimate syllable of a declarative. 46.

(47) sentence to the final syllable of a yes-no question, while in Puyuma, stress shifts from final to penultimate syllable, as italicized above. In Maga Rukai, the last vowel in an open syllable in a yes-no questions is lengthened, as shown in (3.19d). The use of question particle, e.g. quw in Mayrinax Atayal, and verbal inflection, e.g. -ka in Mantauran Rukai, are illustrated in (3.20). (3.20). a. Mayrinax Atayal (Huang 1996:265) m-a’usa’=si’ m-aniq quw? AF-go=2S.Nom AF-eat QP ‘Are you going to eat?’ b. Mantauran Rukai (Zeitoun 2007:356) ’oponoho-ka-’o? 16 Mantauran-Neg-2S.Gen ‘Are you Mantauran?’. Notice that question particles in different Formosan languages may occur in different positions. (3.21). Consider (3.21). a. Mayrinax Atayal (Huang 1996:265) m-a’usa’=si’ m-aniq quw? AF-go=2S.Nom AF-eat QP ‘Are you going to eat?’ b. Paran Seediq (Chang 1996:66) yee t<m>atak sudu QP cut<AF>cut grass ‘Is Father cutting grass?’. ka Nom. 16. tama? father. In Mantauran Rukai (Zeitoun 2007:356), the affix -ka is used to form yes-no questions as in (a), but when the free morpheme ka occurs in the same sentence, the affix -ka functions as a negator as in (b): (a) ’oponoho-ka-’o? Mantauran-Neg-2S.Gen ‘Are you Mantauran?’ (b) ka ’oponoho-ka-li. Neg Mantauran-Neg-1S.Gen ‘No, I am not Mantauran.’ 47.

(48) c. Saisiyat (Huang et al. 1999:646) So’o rengreng ay komita’ 2S.Nom often QP see.AF ‘Do you often see ’Obay?’. hi Acc. ’obay? ’obay. As shown in (3.21), the question particle of Mayrinax Atayal quw occurs sentence-finally; in Paran Seediq, yee has to occur sentence-initially; in Saisiyat, ay may occur in middle position and bears a rising-falling intonation contour as in (3.21c) or sentence-finally with a final-rising contour. Chiang (1996) has carefully studied the intonation of yes-no questions in Atayal and Seediq spoken in Nantou. This study will be reviewed in Chapter 5. In most Formosan languages, yes-no questions are answered with morphemes meaning “yes” and “no”, such as aw and iyat in Squliq Atayal, as in (3.22). (3.22) Q:. Squliq Atayal (CIP) wagiq balay qu watan ga? tall very Nom Watan QP ’Is Watan tall?’ A: aw, wagiq balay qu watan. yes tall very Nom Watan ’Yes, Watan is very tall.’ A’: iyat, rroq balay qu watan. No short very Nom Watan ‘No, Watan is very short.’. 3.2.2 Alternative questions Alternative questions in most Formosan languages are also analyzed as the coordination of two yes-no questions. (3.23). a.. Consider (3.23).. Labuan Rukai (Huang et al. 1999:651) ay-ungulu=su ku acilay ay-kane=su Irr-drink=2S.Nom Obl water Irr-eat=2S.Nom ‘Will you drink water or eat rice?’. 48. ku aga? Obl rice.

(49) b.. Paiwan (Huang et al. 1999:652) uri semataihuku=sun manu uri sematakaw=sun? will go.Taipei=2S.Nom or will go.Kaohsiung=2S.Nom ‘Will you go to Taipei or Kaohsiung?’. c.. Mayrinax Atayal (Huang 1996:266) pa-qaniq=su’ quw ga’ Fut.AF-eat=2S.Nom QP Top ‘Will you eat or sleep?’. pa-qilaap=su’? Fut.AF-sleep=2S.Nom. As shown in (3.23), two yes-no questions are juxtaposed without any connector in Labuan Rukai, whereas in Paiwan, the disjunctive coordinator manu ‘or’ is used.. In. Mayrinax Atayal, however, it is the topic marker ga’ that connects the two yes-no questions. Note also that the question particle quw in the second clause is deleted. Identical parts in one of the two yes-no clauses in an alternative question are usually deleted to avoid redundancy. Consider the Mayrinax examples below. (3.24). Mayrinax Atayal (Huang 1996:267-8). a.. s<um>iuwaal=si’ cu’ pila’ like<AF>like=2S.Nom Obl money ‘Do you want money or life?’. quw ga’ kinkyanux? QP Top life. b.. ’i’ tali’ quw ga’ (’i’) yumin ku’ t<um>uting Neu Tali QP Top (Neu) Yumin Nom beat<AF>beat ‘Was it Tali’ or Yumin that beat Limuy?’. ’i’ limuy? Obl Limuy. Three points are worthy of notice from (3.24): (i) deletion may occur in the second clause of an alternative question, i.e. forward deletion, or in the first one, i.e. backward deletion, (ii) deleted parts can be a predicate as in (3.24a) or a subject (a nominalized verbal clause) as in (3.24b), and (iii) the first clause shows a rising contour on the topic maker ga’, and the second yes-no question retains the final-falling contour even without the occurrence of quw ‘QP’. 49.

(50) Alternative questions cannot be answered with “yes” or “no”, as shown in (3.25). (3.25). Mayrinax Atayal (Huang 1996:267). Q:. s<um>iuwaal=si’ cu’ pila’ like<AF>like=2S.Nom Obl money ‘Do you want money or life?’. quw ga’ kinkyanux? QP Top life. A:. (*iqaat,) s<um>iuwaal=ci’ cu’ kinkyanux. (*no) like<AF>like=1S.Nom Obl life ‘(*No,) I want life.’. 3.2.3 Information questions In nearly all Formosan languages investigated so far, interrogative words used to form information questions are free forms.. Morphologically, certain question word. in different Formosan languages seems to be cognates. For example, piya ‘how many’ in Seediq, pira in Mayrinax, pina in Amis and piza in Saisiyat all have similar forms and are cognates.. Others may show great cross-linguistic variation, such as. maanu ‘what’ in Seediq and cuma ‘what’ in Tsou. In terms of semantic distinctions, it is noted that most Formosan languages display the “when-past/when-future” distinction, such as kangida/nungida in Paiwan, nehomna/hohomna in Tsou, sknuwan/knuwan in Seediq and kuygane/luygane in Kucapungan Rukai.. Cross-linguistic variation, however, is still detected.. For. example, while Mayrinax Atayal exhibits a human/non-human distinction as in papiya’/piya’ ‘how many’, Saisiyat distinguishes piza ‘how many’ from koza ‘how much’ in terms of countability. In the following, we explore two other issues, parts of speech and distributional characteristics, of interrogative words in some Formosan languages. 3.2.3.1 Parts of speech of interrogative words As discussed in § 3.1, parts of speech of interrogative words are identical to those of the constituents they substitute for. That is, question words referring to 50.