國立清華大學語言學研究所新067次專題演講公告
講者：鄭奕揚博士候選人 (PhD candidate, University of California, Santa Barbara)
講題：Clause Combining in Matu’uwal (Mayrinax Atayal) Grammar and Discourse: The Case of Linkers ru’ and ga’
時間：2019年11月8日(星期五) 12:30-14:00 地點：人社院 B305 室
摘要：Matu’uwal (more commonly known as Mayrinax Atayal in the Formosan literature) is an Atayal language spoken in three (清安 Chingan, 錦水 Chinshui, and 八卦 Bagua) villages of Tai’an Township (泰安鄉) of Miaoli in north-central Taiwan. The total number of indigenous people from the township who identify as Matu’uwal is currently around 500. However, there are only around 50 speakers left who use the language on a daily basis.
The present talk aims to present a hypothesis about the origin of clause linkers ru’ and ga’ in Matu’uwal through examining usage patterns observed in natural discourse. The two linkers have been examined extensively in the literature, where they have been analyzed as participating in different clause-combining strategies (Huang 1995, Liu 2010, Wu 2013, Cheng 2018, among others). Data from natural discourse, nevertheless, are found to indicate much richer functional spectrums exhibited by both linkers, which extend far beyond clause linkage to cover different types of discourse-unit linkage as well. Through examination of the rich polyfunctionality patterns in the Matu’uwal speakers’ usage of the two linkers, the clause-combining functions of the two linkers discussed in the literature are hypothesized to be properties emergent from a pathway of change where discourse markers meaning ‘and’ and ‘but’ gradually become more prosodically and grammatically dependent on preceding units in discourse. This hypothesis sheds light on explaining why ru’ and ga’ have been analyzed as both coordinating and subordinating conjunctions by drawing on the literature on the evolutionary patterns of discourse markers meaning ‘and’ and ‘but’ into clause linkers; it also calls for a discourse-based typology of clause linkers across Atayal(ic) languages.
The findings presented in this study were made possible through the documentary work in collaboration with Matu’uwal language activist Mr. Lawsing na’ Yangah (劉仁善) in constructing an audio-visual corpus of the language. The work is part of a long-term community-based cultural-linguistic documentation project that benefit both community language preservation/revitalization endeavors and linguistic research on Matu’uwal grammar through examining natural discourse data.

References
Cheng, Yi-Yang. 2018. Epistemic complementizers in Mayrinax Atayal and typology of modal complementation. Paper presented at the 92nd Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America. Salt Lake City: Grand America Hotel, January 4-7, 2018.
Huang, Lillian M. 1995. A study of Mayrinax syntax. Taipei: Crane Publishing.
Liu, Dorinda, C. 2010. Complementation in three Formosan languages—Amis, Mayrinax Atayal and Tsou.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Hawai’i.
Wu, Chunming. 2013. The syntax of linking constructions in Mayrinax Atayal and Sinvaudjan Paiwan.
Doctoral Dissertation, National Tsing Hua University.