Paiwan language


Paiwan is a native language of Taiwan, spoken by the Paiwan, a Taiwanese indigenous people. Paiwan is a Formosan language of the Austronesian language family. It is also one of the national languages of Taiwan.

Dialects

Paiwan variants can be divided into the following dialect zones.
This classification were though be corrected by Cheng 2016 as below:
Note: A village unnoted of Vuculj/Ravar is by default placed under Vuculj here.
Kuljaljau Paiwan has 23–24 consonants and 4 vowels. Unlike many other Formosan languages that have merged many Proto-Austronesian phonemes, Paiwan preserves most Proto-Austronesian phonemes and is thus highly important for reconstruction purposes.
The four Paiwan vowels are. is written e in the literature.
labialalveolarretroflexpalatalvelaruvularglottal
nasal
plosive
affricate
fricative
trill
approximant

In Northern Paiwan the palatal consonants have been lost, though this is recent and a few conservative speakers maintain them as allophonic variants. is robust, unlike in other Paiwan dialects where its status is uncertain, as it derives from *q.
labialalveolarretroflexpalatalvelarglottal
nasal
plosive
affricate
fricative
trill~
fricative
approximant

labialalveolarretroflexpalatalvelaruvularglottal
nasal
plosive
affricate
fricative
approximant

Younger speakers tend to pronounce as. Fricative is characteristic of Mudan village; elsewhere is Southern Paiwan it tends to be a trill, though it still varies. Word-initial *k has become.

Grammar

Pronouns

The Paiwan personal pronouns below are from Ferrell.
Type of
Pronoun		EquationalGenitiveNon-Eq., Non-Gen.
1s.-aken, ti-akenku-, ni-akentjanu-aken
2s.-sun, ti-sunsu-, ni-suntjanu-sun
3s.ti-madjuni-madjutjai-madju
1p. -itjen, ti-tjentja-, ni-tjentjanu-itjen
1p. -amen, ti-amennia-, ni-amentjanu-amen
2p.-mun, t-munnu-, ni-muntjanu-mun
3p.ti-a-madjuni-a-madjutjai-a-madju

Function words

Paiwan has 3 construction markers, which are also known as relational particles.
  1. a – shows equational relationship; personal sing. = ti, personal plural = tia
  2. nua – shows genitive / partitive relationship; personal sing. = ni, personal plural = nia
  3. tua – shows that the relationship is neither equational nor genitive; personal sing. = tjai, personal plural = tjaia
Other words include:
Affixed adverbials include :
Interjections include :
Paiwan verbs have 4 types of focus.
  1. Agent/Actor
  2. Object/Goal/Patient
  3. Referent: spatial/temporal locus, indirect object, beneficiary
  4. Instrument/Cause/Motivation/Origin
The following verbal affixes are used to express varying degrees of volition or intent, and are arranged below from highest to lowest intention.
  1. ki-
  2. pa-
  3. -m-
  4. si-
  5. ma-
  6. se-
Paiwan verbs can also take on the following non-derivational suffixes.
The Paiwan affixes below are from the Kulalao dialect unless stated otherwise, and are sourced from Ferrell.
;Prefixes
;Infixes
;Suffixes
The following affixes are from the Tjuabar dialect of Paiwan, spoken in the northwest areas of Paiwan-occupied territory.
;Nouns
;Verbs
;Adjectives