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Word Order and Word Classes in Atayal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Søren Egerod
Søren Egerod*
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
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Extract

The Atayal sentence in its minimal form consists of a nuclear construct. It may further contain one or more postcentral complements, and one or more units in precentrai EXPOSURE.

The construct most often consists of a VERB (a conjugatable word) which may be accompanied by one or more PRONOUNS (declinable words). In rare cases the construct (or rather QUASI CONSTRUCT) consists of a noun and a pronoun, or two nouns.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 42 , Issue 2: April-June , June 1966, pp. 346 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © 1966 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 The Atayal language is spoken by some 36,000 people in Northern Taiwan. See my publications: ‘A statement on Atayal phonology’, Artibus Asiae (Felicitation volume for the seventy-fifth birthday of Prof. G. H. Luce, vol. 1, 1966); ‘Verb inflexion in Atayal’, Lingua 15.251–82 (1965); ‘An English-Atayal word list’, Acta Orientalia 19.203–20 (1965). I gratefully acknowledge a substantial grant from the Carlsberg Foundation, Copenhagen, which enabled me to carry out research in Taiwan during 1961 and 1962.

2 I adhere to the traditional terminology according to which pronouns are defined as words replacing nouns, even though in the case of Atayal I define the construct primarily in terms of verbs and pronouns and only arrive at nouns in a subsequent operation. A better terminology would be ‘declinables’ for pronouns and ‘quasi declinables’ for nouns.

3 For details see my paper ‘Verb inflexion in Ataval’.

4 See also Ogawa Naoyoshi, The myths and traditions of the Formosan native tribes 29–30 (Taihoku, 1935), where a definition of the passives according to class of subject is set forth.

5 Verbs are given in three forms: active imperative, active indicative (in -m- or m-), first passive indicative (if this form is not found, another first or second passive form).