Siraya: Retrieving the Phonology, Grammar and Lexicon of a Dormant Formosan Language

Description

Siraya is a Formosan language once spoken around Tainan City in southwest Taiwan. This comprehensive study is based on an analysis of the language of the Siraya Gospel of St. Matthew, which was translated from the Dutch in 1661. It contains a grammar, lexicon and extensive text with interlinear glossing as well as an introduction with detailed background information. Siraya has many unique linguistic features, which are of great interest to the study of linguistic typology in general. They include various reduplication patterns, orientation prefixes (adding the notions of motion, location or comitation to a verb) and anticipating sequences. The latter are (usually) formal elements of the lexical verb, such as a first consonant or a first syllable, which are prefixed to the auxiliary. Siraya is also of crucial importance for the prehistory of Taiwan because it is one of the first languages to branch off from the Austronesian language family, which has more than 1200 members. The volume is a major contribution to the Siraya people who are keen to rehabilitate Siraya culture heritage and are endeavouring to learn their lost language again. It is a unique achievement in the endeavour to revitalise the traditional languages of Taiwan. Acknowledgements Conventions List of abbreviations Part A: Introduction 1. General 2. Siraya primary sources and linguistic literature 3. Dialect variation 4. Some observations about authorship and spelling 5. Formosan languages: numbers of speakers and vitality 6. The linguistic classification of Formosan languages 7. Aboriginal Taiwan and Austronesian prehistory 8. The Dutch occupation of West Taiwan: historical setting 9. The Siraya people: some historical and ethnographic data 10. The Austronesian ethnic groups in the Taiwanese nationalist debate 11. A probable cause of the extinction of Siraya 12. Attempts at reviving Siraya Part B: A grammatical sketch of Siraya 1. A near-phonemic orthography 1.1. Symbols in the Siraya 17th century materials that were maintained 1.2. Overview of changes made to the 17th century orthography 1.3. æ is a palatal ä 1.4. Siraya must have had a schwa 1.5. e stands for e, ə, a, ä or i 1.6. A re-definition of i, j and y according to the syllabic length that they indicate 1.6.1. y stands for a short high front vowel ĭ 1.6.2. i stands for a long high front vowel i except base-finally after e, where it stands for a palatal semivowel 1.6.3. j stands for a palatal semivowel y and (sometimes) for a high front vowel i 1.7. ou and o stand for respectively u and o 1.8. ou and oe represent the same phoneme u 1.9. u 1.10. w 1.11. k and q refer to one single phoneme k 1.12. c preceding i or y is a sibilant or affricate; c preceding o stands for k 1.13. ng¯ 1.14. z 1.15. g, gh, hg, ch, and (sometimes) h or ø, stand for a velar fricative x 1.16. h stands for h, x or 0 1.16.1. h is not phonemic in subjunctive markers, in the pronominal suffix -koh, and before voiceless stops 1.16.2. Other instances of h represent phonemic h 1.17. No geminate consonants 1.18. Diacritics 1.18.1. Apostrophe indicates the (synchronic) deletion or (diachronic) loss of a phoneme 1.18.2. Dieresis indicates palatal ä 1.18.3. No circumflex 1.18.4. Hyphens occur on morpheme boundaries 2. Siraya phonemics 2.1. “Phoneme” inventory 2.2. Discussion of phonemes and phonemic features 2.2.1. The alternation between initial [b] and [v], and between [d] and [r] 2.2.2. The alternation between x and h 2.2.3. Palatalisation 2.2.4. Metathesis 2.2.5. Vowel reduction 3. Reduplication 3.1. (Historical) monosyllabic root reduplication 3.1.1. Simple monosyllabic root reduplication 3.1.2. Monosyllabic root reduplication with ‹ar› or ‹al› infixation 3.1.3. Monosyllabic root reduplication with linking i 3.2. Disyllabic root reduplication 3.2.1. CVCVC-roots → CVCV-CVCVC 3.2.2. (C)VCV-roots → (C)VCV-(C)VCV 3.2.3. VCVC-roots → VC-VCVC 3.3. Rightward Reduplication 3.4. First syllable reduplication 3.5. CA-reduplication 3.6. Irregular reduplication patterns 4. The clause 4.1. Clause structure 4.1.1. Verbal clauses 4.1.1.1. Simple verbal clauses 4.1.1.2. Complex verbal clauses 4.1.1.3. Existential clauses 4.1.2. Nominal clauses 4.1.2.1. Equational clauses 4.1.2.2. Cleft constructions 4.2. Case 4.2.1. Case categories 4.2.2. The case markers 4.3. The linker ka 4.4. Prepositions 4.5. The personal article ti 4.6. Deictics 4.7. Personal pronouns 4.8. Questions 4.9. Possession 4.10. Negation 5. Verbs 5.1. Verb classes 5.2. Voice 5.2.1. The voice system 5.2.2. Unexplained variation between voice suffixes 5.2.3. The suffixes -an and -aney highlighting a non-core argument? 5.3. Tense, mood and aspect 5.3.1. Present tense verbs 5.3.2. Past tense verbs 5.3.3. Progressive verbs 5.3.4. Subjunctive verbs 5.3.5. Imperative verbs 5.3.6. Some sporadic derivations 5.4. Causatives 5.5. Inchoative prefixes 5.6. The suffixes -ən, -ing or -an denoting a physical affliction 5.7. The ‘transformative’ prefix paha- 5.8. The inversive prefix aäw- (/ääw-) 5.9. Less common affixes 5.10. The ‘perfective’ clitic =ato 5.11. The additive clitic =ăpa 5.12. The adversative clitic =da (/=ra) 5.13. Bound verbs 5.14. Siraya Orientation prefixes 5.15. Complex verb phrases 5.16. Anticipating sequences 5.17. From anticipating sequences to bound verbs: a historical explanation 5.18. Deictic verbs also function as prepositions 6. Quantifiers 6.1. Numerals 6.1.1. Underived numerals 6.1.2. Cardinal numbers 6.1.3. Ordinal numbers 6.1.4. Numerals for counting occurrences 6.2. Indefinite quantifiers 7. Nouns 7.1. Root nouns 7.2. Nouns derived from nouns 7.3. Nominalisation of verbal bases 7.4. Nominalisation of derived verbs 7.5. Personal names Part C: Text Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Part D: Lexicon References Index