Pazeh (also spelled Pazih, Pazéh) and Kaxabu are dialects of a partially extinct language of the Pazeh and Kaxabu, neighboring Taiwanese indigenous peoples. The language was Formosan, of the Austronesian language family. The last remaining native speaker of the Pazeh dialect died in 2010.

Classification

Pazeh is classified as a Formosan language of the Austronesian language family.

History

Due to prejudice faced by the Pazeh, as well as other indigenous groups of Taiwan, Hoklo Taiwanese came to displace Pazeh. The last remaining native speaker of the Pazeh dialect, Pan Jin-yu, died in 2010 at the age of 96. Before her death, she offered Pazeh classes to about 200 regular students in Puli and a small number of students in Miaoli and Taichung. However, there are still efforts in revival of the language after her death.

Phonology

Pazeh has 17 consonants, 4 vowels, and 4 diphthongs (-ay, -aw, -uy, -iw). Although Pazeh contrasts voiced and voiceless obstruents, this contrast is neutralized in final position for labial and velar stops, where only and occur respectively ( is also devoiced but a contrast is maintained). and are also neutralized to the latter. Voiceless stops are unreleased in final position. Mid vowels ( and ) are allophones of close vowels ( and respectively). is somewhat advanced and raised when adjacent to. Prevocally, high vowels are semivocalized. Most coronal consonants block this, although it still occurs after. Semivowels also appear post-vocally.

Phonotactics

The most common morpheme structure is CVCVC where C is any consonant and V is any vowel. Consonant clusters are rare and consist only of a nasal plus a homorganic obstruent or the glide element of a diphthong. Intervocalic voiceless stops are voiced before a morpheme boundary (but not following one). Stress falls on the ultimate syllable.

Sound changes

The Pazih language merged the following Proto-Austronesian phonemes (Li 2001:7). Pazih also split some Proto-Austronesian phonemes:

Grammar

Like Bunun, Seediq, Squliq Atayal, Mantauran Rukai, and the Tsouic languages, Pazeh does not distinguish between common nouns and personal names, whereas Saisiyat does (Li 2000). Although closely related to Saisiyat, the Pazeh language does not have the infix -um- that is present in Saisiyat.

Morphology

Pazeh makes ready use of affixes, infixes, suffixes, and circumfixes, as well as reduplication. Pazeh also has "focus-marking" in its verbal morphology. In addition, verbs can be either stative or dynamic. There are four types of focus in Pazeh (Li 2000). The following affixes are used in Pazeh verbs (Li 2000). The following are also used to mark aspect (Li 2000).

Affixes

The Pazih affixes below are from Li (2001:10–19).

Syntax

Although originally a verb-initial language, Pazeh often uses SVO (verb-medial) sentence constructions due to influence from Chinese. There are four case markers in Pazeh (Li 2000). Pazeh has the following negators (Li 2001:46).

Pronouns

The Pazeh personal pronouns below are from Li (2000). (Note: vis. = visible, prox. = proximal)

Vocabulary

Numerals

Pazeh and Saisiyat are the only Formosan languages that do not have a bipartite numerical system consisting of both human and non-human numerals (Li 2006). Pazeh is also the only language that forms the numerals 6 to 9 by addition (However, Saisiyat, which is closely related to Pazeh, expresses the number 7 as 6 + 1, and 9 as 10 − 1.) The number "five" in Pazeh, xasep, is similar to Saisiyat Laseb, Taokas hasap, Babuza nahup, and Hoanya hasip (Li 2006). Li (2006) believes that the similarity is more likely because of borrowing rather than common origin. Laurent Sagart considers these numerals to be ancient retentions from Proto-Austronesian, but Paul Jen-kuei Li considers them to be local innovations. Unlike Pazeh, these Plains indigenous languages as well as the Atayalic languages use 2 × 4 to express the number 8. (The Atayalic languages as well as Thao also use 2 × 3 to express the number 6.) Saisiyat, Thao, Taokas, and Babuza use 10 − 1 to express 9, whereas Saisiyat uses 5 + 1 to express 6 as Pazeh does. The Ilongot language of the Philippines also derives numerals in the same manner as Pazeh does (Blust 2009:273). Furthermore, numerals can function as both nouns and verbs in all Formosan languages, including Pazeh.

General references