Puyuma language

Puyuma
Spoken in	Taiwan
Ethnicity	Puyuma people
Native speakers	fewer than 8,000  (date missing)
Language family	Austronesian Puyuma
Language codes
ISO 639-3	pyu
(red) Puyuma

The Puyuma language is the language of the Puyuma people, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). It is a divergent Formosan language of the Austronesian family. Most speakers are older adults.

Puyuma is one of the more divergent of the Austronesian languages, and falls outside reconstructions of Proto-Austronesian.

Internal classification

The internal classification of Puyuma dialects below is from Ting (1978). Nanwang is usually showed to be the relatively phonologically conservative dialect but grammatically innovative, as it preserves proto-puyuma voiced explosives and syncrets case.

• Proto-Puyuma
  • Nanwang
  • (Main branch)
    • Pinaski-Ulivelivek
    • Rikavung
    • Kasavakan-Katipul

Puyuma-speaking villages are (Zeitoun & Cauquelin 2006:655):

Puyuma cluster ('born of the bamboo')

• Puyuma (Chinese: Nanwang 南王)
• Apapolo (Chinese: Paosang 寶桑)

Katipul cluster ('born of a stone')

• Alipai (Chinese: Pinglang 蘋郎)
• Pinaski (Chinese: Hsia Pinglang 下蘋郎); 2 km north of Puyuma/Nanwang, and maintains close relations with it
• Bankiu (Chinese: Pankiu)
• Kasabakan (Chinese: Chienhe 建和)
• Katipul (Chinese: Chihpen 知本)
• Rikabung (Chinese: Lichia 利嘉)
• Tamalakaw (Chinese: Taian 泰安)
• Ulibulibuk (Chinese: Chulu 初鹿)

Phonology

Puyuma has 18 consonants and 4 vowels.

Puyuma Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Plosive	Voiceless	p	t	ʈ		k	ʔ
	Voiced	b	d	ɖ		ɡ
Fricative			s
Trill			r
Approximant			l	ɭ	j	w

Puyuma Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid		ə
Open		a

Grammar

Morphology

Puyuma verbs have four types of focus (Cauquelin 2004:25–26):

1. Actor focus: Ø (no mark), -em-, -en- (after labials), me-, meʔ-, ma-
2. Object focus: -aw
3. Referent focus: -ay
4. Instrumental focus: -anai

There are three verbal aspects (Cauquelin 2004:25–26):

1. Perfect
2. Imperfect
3. Future

There are two modes (Cauquelin 2004:25–26):

1. Imperative
2. Hortative future

Affixes include (Cauquelin 2004:25–26):

• Perfect: Ø (no mark)
• Imperfect: Reduplication; -a-
• Future: Reduplication, sometimes only -a-
• Hortative future: -a-
• Imperative mode: Ø (no mark)

Syntax

Puyuma has a verb-initial word order.

Articles include (Cauquelin 1991:27):

• i – singular personal
• a – singular non-personal
• na – plural (personal and non-personal)

Pronouns

The Puyuma personal pronouns below are from Teng (2008:61–64).

Puyuma Personal Pronouns (Free)

Type of Pronoun	Nominative	Oblique: Direct	Oblique: Indirect	Oblique: Non-Subject	Neutral
1s.	nanku	kanku, kananku	draku, drananku	kanku	kuiku
2s.	nanu	kanu, kananu	dranu, drananu	kanu	yuyu
3s.	nantu	kantu, kanantu	dratu, dranantu	kantaw	taytaw
1p. (incl.)	nanta	kanta, kananta	drata, drananta	kanta	taita
1p. (excl.)	naniam	kaniam, kananiam	draniam, drananiam	kaniam	mimi
2p.	nanemu	kanemu, kananemu	dranemu, drananemu	kanemu	muimu
3p.	nantu	kantu, kanantu	dratu, dranantu	kantaw	–

Puyuma Personal Pronouns (Bound)

Type of Pronoun	Nominative (Subject)	Nominative (Possessor of subject)	Genitive
1s.	=ku	ku=	ku=
2s.	=yu	nu=	nu=
3s.	–	tu=	tu=
1p. (incl.)	=ta	ta=	ta=
1p. (excl.)	=mi	niam=	mi=
2p.	=mu	mu=	mu=
3p.	–	tu=	tu=

Affixes

The Puyuma affixes below are from Teng (2008:282-285).

Prefixes

• ika-: the shape of; forming; shaping
• ka-: stative marker
• kara-: collective, to do something together
• kare-: the number of times
• ki-: to get something
• kir-: to go against (voluntarily)
• kitu-: to become
• kur-: be exposed to; be together (passively)
• m-, ma-: actor voice affix/intransitive affix
• maka-: along; to face against
• mara-: comparative/superlative marker
• mar(e)-: reciprocal; plurality of relations
• mi-: to have; to use
• mu-: anticausative marker
• mutu-: to become, to transform into
• pa-/p-: causative marker
• pu-: put
• puka-: ordinal numeral marker
• piya-: to face a certain direction
• si-: to pretend to
• tara-: to use (an instrument), to speak (a language)
• tinu-: to simulate
• tua-: to make, to form
• u-: to go
• ya-: to belong to; nominalizer

Suffixes

• -a: perfective marker; numeral classifier
• -an: nominalizer; collective/plural marker
• -anay: conveyance voice affix/transitive affix
• -aw: patient voice affix/transitive affix
• -ay: locative voice affix/transitive affix
• -i, -u: imperative transitive marker

Infixes

• -in-: perfective marker
• -em-: actor voice affix/intransitive affix

Circumfixes

• -in-anan: the members of
• ka- -an: a period of time
• muri- -an: the way one is doing something; the way something was done
• sa- -an: people doing things together
• sa- -enan: people belonging to the same community
• si- -an: nominalizer
• Ca- -an, CVCV- -an: collectivity, plurality

References

• Cauquelin, Josiane. 1991. Dictionnaire Puyuma–Français. Paris: Ecole française d'Extrême Orient.
• Cauquelin, Josiane. 2004. The aborigines of Taiwan: the Puyuma – from headhunting to the modern world. London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon.
• Teng, Stacy Fang-Ching (2008), A reference grammar of Puyuma, an Austronesian language of Taiwan, Pacific linguistics, 595, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University 
• Ting, Pang-hsin [丁邦新]. 1978. Reconstruction of Proto-Puyuma Phonology [古北南語的擬測]. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology [歷史語言研究所集刊], Academia Sinica, 49:321-391.