Northern Formosan languages

The Northern Formosan languages is a proposed grouping of Formosan languages that includes the Atayalic languages, the Western Plains languages (Papora, Hoanya, Babuza, and Taokas), and the Northwest Formosan languages (Pazeh and Saisiyat; Li places Western Plains with this grouping).

Northern Formosan
Geographic
distribution		Taiwan
Linguistic classificationAustronesian
Glottologwest2572  (Western Plains)[1]
nort2899  (Northwestern)[2]
(orange) Li's Northern Formosan

The Northern Formosan subgroup was first proposed by Paul Jen-kuei Li in 1985.[3] Blust (1999) rejects the unity of the proposed Northern Formosan branch. A 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, however, supports the unity of the Northern Formosan branch with a 97% confidence level (see Austronesian languages#Classification).

Evidence

The following sound changes from Proto-Austronesian occurred in the Northern Formosan languages (Li 2008:215).[4]

Also, Pazeh, Saisiyat, and Thao are only Formosan languages that allow for SVO constructions, although this may be due to intensive contact with Taiwanese.[5]

Also, the Atayal, Seediq, and Pazeh languages have devoiced final consonants that were present in the Proto-Austronesian (Blust 2009:616).

Northwestern Formosan

Li (2003) considers six western Plains languages to have split off from Proto-Northwestern Formosan. The classification is as follows.

Northwestern
 

Pazih

 
 
 

Thao

 
 
 

Hoanya

 
 
 

Papora

 
 
 

Babuza

 
 

Taokas

 
 
 
 
 
 

The four coastal languages of Taokas, Babuza, Papora, and Hoanya share the following innovations (Li 2003).

  1. Loss of *k
  2. Loss of *-y
  3. Merger of *s and *t in non-final position
  4. Complete merger of *ŋ and *n

Thao shares the following innovations with the four coastal languages (Li 2003).

  1. Merger of *s and *t
  2. Merger of *ŋ and *n

Pazih has undergone the following two sound changes.

  1. Merger of *j and *s as /z/
  2. Merger of *C and *S1 as /s/

Li (2003) does not consider Pazih to be very closely related to Saisiyat (Li 2003:946).

Notes
  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Western Plains Austronesian". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Northwest Formosan". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. Li, Paul Jen-kuei (1985). "The position of Atayal in the Austronesian family." In Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 2004. Selected Papers on Formosan Languages, vol. 2. Taipei, Taiwan: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.
  4. Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 2008. "Time perspective of Formosan Aborigines." In Sanchez-Mazas, Alicia ed. Past human migrations in East Asia: matching archaeology, linguistics and genetics. Taylor & Francis US.
  5. Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 1998. "台灣南島語言 [The Austronesian Languages of Taiwan]." In Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 2004. Selected Papers on Formosan Languages. Taipei, Taiwan: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.
gollark: Hmm. That actually sounds reasonable.
gollark: No, I mean what training data?
gollark: What are you training it on?
gollark: Per architecture.
gollark: Nope, pretty sure that's fixed.

References
  • Li, Paul Jen-kuei (2003). "The Internal Relationships of Six Western Plains Languages." In Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 2004. Selected Papers on Formosan Languages, vol. 2. Taipei, Taiwan: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.
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