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Bunun language

The Bunun language (Chinese: 布農語) is spoken by the Bunun people of Taiwan. It is one of the Formosan languages, a geographic group of Austronesian languages, and is subdivided in five dialects: Isbukun, Takbunuaz, Takivatan, Takibaka and Takituduh. Isbukun, the dominant dialect, is mainly spoken in the south of Taiwan. Takbunuaz and Takivatan are mainly spoken in the center of the country. Takibaka and Takituduh both are northern dialects. A sixth dialect, Takipulan, became extinct in the 1970s.

The Saaroa and Kanakanavu, two smaller minority groups who share their territory with an Isbukun Bunun group, have also adopted Bunun as their vernacular.

Name

The name Bunun literally means "human" or "man".

Dialects

Bunun is currently subdivided into five dialects: Isbukun, Takbunuaz, Takivatan, Takibaka and Takituduh. Li (1988) splits these dialects into three main branches — Northern, Central, and Isbukun (also classified as Southern Bunun).[2] Takipulan, a sixth dialect, became extinct in the 1970s. Isbukun, the prestige dialect, is also the most divergent dialect. The most conservative dialects are in the Northern branch.

Bunun was originally spoken in and around Sinyi Township (Xinyi) in Nantou County.[3] From the 17th century onwards, the Bunun people expanded towards the south and east, absorbing other ethnic groups such as the Saaroa, Kanakanavu, and Thao. Bunun is spoken in an area stretching from Ren-ai Township in Nantou in the north to Yan-ping Township in Taitung in the south. Isbukun is distributed throughout Nantou, Taitung, and Kaohsiung. Takbanuaz is spoken in Nantou and southern Hualien County. Takivatan is spoken in Nantou and central Hualien. Both Takituduh and Takibakha are spoken in Nantou.

Proto-Bunun

Shibata (2020) has a reconstruction of Proto-Bunun.[4]

Phonology

Consonants

Orthographic notes:

Notes:

Vowels

Notes:

Grammar

Overview

Bunun is a verb-initial language and has an Austronesian alignment system or focus system. This means that Bunun clauses do not have a nominative–accusative or absolutive–ergative alignment, but that arguments of a clause are ordered according to which participant in the event described by the verb is 'in focus'. In Bunun, three distinct roles can be in focus:

Which argument is in focus is indicated on the verb by a combination of prefixes and suffixes.[7]

Many other languages with a focus system have different marking for patients, instruments and beneficiaries,[citation needed] but this is not the case in Bunun. The focussed argument in a Bunun clause will normally always occur immediately after the verb (e.g. in an actor-focus clause, the agent will appear before any other participant) and is in the Isbukun dialect marked with a post-nominal marker a.[7]

Bunun has a very large class of auxiliary verbs. Concepts that are expressed by auxiliaries include:

In fact, Bunun auxiliaries express all sorts of concepts that in English would be expressed by adverbial phrases, with the exception of time and place, which are normally expressed [clarification needed] with adverbial phrases.

Word classes

Takivatan Bunun has the following word classes (De Busser 2009:189). (Note: Words in open classes can be compounded, whereas those in closed classes cannot.)

Open classes
  1. Nouns
  2. Verbs
  3. Adjectives
Closed classes
  1. Demonstratives
  2. Anaphoric pronouns
  3. Personal pronouns
  4. Numerals
  5. Place words
  6. Time words
  7. Manner words
  8. Question words
  9. Auxiliaries

Affixes

Bunun is morphologically agglutinative language and has a very elaborate set of derivational affixes (more than 200, which are mostly prefixes), most of which derive verbs from other word classes.[8] Some of these prefixes are special in that they do not only occur in the verb they derive, but are also foreshadowed on a preceding auxiliary. These are called lexical prefixes[9] or anticipatory prefixes[10] and only occur in Bunun and a small number of other Formosan languages.

Below are some Takivatan Bunun verbal prefixes from De Busser (2009).

In short:

A more complete list of Bunun affixes from De Busser (2009) is given below.

Focus
Tense-aspect-mood (TAM) affixes
Participant cross-reference
Locative prefixes
Event-type prefixes
Causative
Classification of events
Patient-incorporating prefixes
Verbalizers

Pronouns

Takivatan Bunun personal pronoun roots are (De Busser 2009:453):

The tables of Takivatan Bunun personal pronouns below are sourced from De Busser (2009:441).

Iskubun Bunun personal pronouns are somewhat different (De Busser 2009:454).

Demonstratives

Takivatan Bunun has the following demonstrative roots and affixes (De Busser 2009:454):

Demonstrative suffixes
  1. Proximal: -i
  2. Medial: -un
  3. Distal: -a
Demonstrative roots
  1. aip-: singular
  2. aiŋk-: vague plural
  3. aint-: paucal
  4. ait-: inclusive generic
Demonstrative prefixes
  1. Ø-: visible
  2. n-: not visible
Place words
  1. ʔiti here
  2. ʔitun there (medial)
  3. ʔita there (distal)

Function words

Takivatan Bunun also has definitive markers.

Notes

  1. ^ Bunun at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Li, Paul Jen-kuei. 1988. A Comparative Study of Bunun Dialects. In Li, Paul Jen-kuei, 2004, Selected Papers on Formosan Languages. Taipei, Taiwan: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.
  3. ^ De Busser (2009), p. 63
  4. ^ Shibata, Kye (2020). A Reconstruction of Proto-Bunun Phonology and Lexicon (M.A. dissertation). Hsinchu: National Tsing Hua University.
  5. ^ De Busser, Rik (14 May 2011). Introduction to the Bunun language (PDF). Languages of Taiwan, 2011. pp. 7–8.
  6. ^ see Schachter & Otanes (1972) for a discussion of location in Tagalog
  7. ^ a b Zeitoun (2000)
  8. ^ Lin et al. (2001)
  9. ^ Nojima (1996)
  10. ^ Adelaar (2004)

References

External links

Bunun language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator