Puyuma language

Puyuma
卑南語
Native to Taiwan
Ethnicity Puyuma people
Native speakers
 8,500  (2002)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 pyu
Glottolog puyu1239[2]

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(red) Puyuma

The Puyuma language or Pinuyumayan (Chinese: 卑南語; pinyin: Pēinán Yǔ) 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.

Dialects

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 plosives and syncrets case.

Puyuma-speaking villages are:[3]

Puyuma cluster ('born of the bamboo')
Katipul cluster ('born of a stone')

Phonology

Puyuma has 18 consonants and 4 vowels:

Puyuma Consonants[4]
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[4]
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid ə
Open a

Grammar

Morphology

Puyuma verbs have four types of focus:[5]

  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:[5]

  1. Perfect
  2. Imperfect
  3. Future

There are two modes:[5]

  1. Imperative
  2. Hortative future

Affixes include:[5]

Syntax

Puyuma has a verb-initial word order.

Articles include:[6]

Pronouns

The Puyuma personal pronouns are:[7]

Puyuma Personal Pronouns (Free)
Type of
Pronoun		 Nominative[8] 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 are:[9]

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

Notes

  1. ↑ Puyuma at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Puyuma". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ↑ Zeitoun & Cauquelin (2006), p. 655.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Teng (2008), pp. 11, 18.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Cauquelin (2004), p. 25–26.
  6. ↑ Cauquelin (1991), p. 27.
  7. ↑ Teng (2008), p. 61–64.
  8. ↑ Possessor of subject
  9. ↑ Teng (2008), p. 282-285.

References