A Grammatical Typology of Formosan Languages

A Grammatical Typology of Formosan Languages

本文以「詞格文法」的理論觀點綜觀屬於南島語系（Austronesian）的臺灣高山族語的句法和構詞類型。文章分成兩個部分：第一部分討論文法上及物性的概念及如何從語義，語法和構詞等各方面給這種特性下一個定義，從而決定一種語言在格的標記模式中是屬於賓格語言或主動格語言。若以此作為考慮的因素，我們發現絕大多數的高山族語和一些相關的菲律賓語相似，就格的標記模式而言，必須歸入主動格語言，而非賓格語言。在所調查的語言中，大多數的動詞都是前置的，同時，也容許有主題前置的現象。研究的動詞包括狀態動詞和主動動詞，以及及物和非及物動詞，透過「逆被動」構詞法，不及物動詞可由及物動詞衍生而來，而所謂的「焦點」可視為詞彙的衍生，由此產生的謂語名詞或謂語動詞可賦予受事主語新的詮釋。連續深層嵌入的不定互補結構亦十分普徧。在漢語或英語中被當成副詞的詞，在語法上往往屬於主要的動詞。助動詞在各種語言的語法上，屬於分句中的主要動詞。它們附帶了有關動作進行的狀態和否定的信息。它們也是接語代詞的主詞，標記出實動詞分句的施事者和（或）受事者。子句中含非動詞謂語亦十分普徧。這種結構是南島語系西部的典型代表。在構成疑問句及關係從句上扮演著重要的角色。除了出現在中心詞前的限定詞之外，名詞性詞組和子句相似，有著很強的向右分支的結構。在格形式上，限定詞也有和名詞性詞組不同的標記。中心名詞可由等式關係從句來加以修飾。在這些語言中，形容詞在語法上也往往屬於名詞。

This paper is a an overview of the syntactic and morphological typology of the Austronesian languages of Taiwan, as seen from a lexicase point of view. It is divided into two sections, the first on predicating constructions and the second on nominal constructions. The first section begins with a discussion of the concept of grammatical transitivity and the ways in which this property can be defined semantically, grammatically, and morphologically, and used to determine whether a language is accusative or ergative. Based on these considerations, it is shown that most or all of the Formosan languages, like the related languages in the Philippines, must be regarded as ergative rather than accusative in their case-marking patterns. Most of the languages surveyed are verb-initial, but all allow for pre-posed topics. Verbs are stative or active and transitive or intransitive. Intransitive verbs may be derived from transitives by a process of anti-passive derivation, and 'focus' is analyzed as a matter of lexical derivation producing predicate nouns and verbs which impose new interpretations on their Patient subjects. Fairly deep infinitival complementation is common, and words which translate as adverbs in Chinese or English are often grammatically main verbs. In all the languages, auxiliary verbs are grammatically the main verbs of their clauses, and carry information on aspect and negation as well as serving as hosts for clitic pronouns marking the actor and/or Patient of the full-verb clause embedded immediately below the auxiliary. Clauses with non-verbal predicates are also common, and as is typical in western Austronesian languages, they play an important role in the formation of content interrogatives and relative clauses. Noun Phrases, like clauses, have a strongly right-branching structure, except for the determiners, which occur before the head noun and are typically differentiated for case form. Head nouns may be modified by equational relative clauses, and words which translate as adjectives are grammatically nouns.