Reconstruction of Proto-Tsouic phonology By Shigeru Tsuchida (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS205 have wished, however, for a more even-handed assessment of the facts, along the lines of Dixon's recent survey, distinguishing processes which are universally subject-oriented for semantic reasons from those which are languagespecifically accusative (Dixon, 101-18). Chung has also provided an interesting new hypothesis about the evolution of these systems, with some evidence which cannot be easily dismissed. She handles an impressive amount of data from several languages with great facility. (I noted only a very few inconsequential errors in the examples and glosses.) Furthermore, in search of support for her hypotheses, she has uncovered a wealth of hitherto unnoticed or unappreciated facts about these languages. REFERENCES Biggs, Bruce. 1974. Some problems of Polynesian grammar. Journal of the Polynesian Society 83.401-26. Chung, Sandra. 1976. Case marking and grammatical relations in Polynesian. Harvard dissertation. Churchward, Spencer. 1928. On the origin of the Polynesian passive. Journal of the Polynesian Society 37.300-305. Clark, Ross. 1973. Transitivity and case in Eastern Oceanic languages. Oceanic Linguistics 12.559-605. -----. 1980. Eastern Polynesian borrowings in Pukapukan. Journal of the Polynesian Society 89:2. Dixon, R. M. VV. 1979. Ergativity. Lg. 55.59-138. Hohepa, Patrick VV. 1969. The accusative-to-ergative drift in Polynesian languages. Journal of the Polynesian Society 78.297-329. Kiparsky, Paul. 1973. Phonological representations. Three dimensions of linguistic theory, ed. by Osamu Fujimura, 1-136. Tokyo: TEC. Williams, H. W. 1928. Some observations on Polynesian verbs. Journal of the Polynesian Society 37.306-17. [Received 2 April 1980.] Reconstruction of Proto-Tsouic phonology. By Shigeru Tsuchida. (Studies of languages and cultures of Asia and Africa, Monograph series, 5.) Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1976. xxx, 329 pp. Reviewed by R. A. Blust, University ofLeiden The Tsouic languages (Tsou, Saaroa, Kanakanabu) are spoken by an estimated 4,000 persons in the mountains of south-central Formosa (Taiwan). Like other aboriginal languages of Formosa, they belong to the great Austronesian language family, which dominates the island world of the tropics from Madagascar to Easter Island. Thanks principally to Tung 1964, Tsou (roughly 3,400 speakers) is reasonably well-known. Much less has been published on the Southern Tsouic languages; but Tsuchida, drawing on his own carefully transcribed fieldnotes, makes an important descriptive contribution in this work. During the brief occupation of Formosa by the Dutch East Indies Company (1624-61), relatively extensive materials were published for Favorlang (Happart 1650) and for Siraya (Gravius 1661) as a by-product of missionary activity. 206LANGUAGE, VOLUME 57, NUMBER 1 (1981) Following the expulsion of the Dutch, interest in the languages of the native population waned, and it was not until the 19th century (Klaproth 1822) that the Austronesian affinity of any Formosan language was recognized in print. Further descriptive studies did not appear until the 1870's, and it was more than half a century later before short comparative vocabularies finally were made available for most of the 21 or 22 languages of the island, together with a provisional internal subgrouping (Ogawa & Asai 1935). Since the early 1960's, interest has dramatically revived in this long-neglected area, as witnessed in part by the book under review. T's study, which began as a doctoral dissertation at Yale University, contains six chapters: 1, 'The position of the Formosan languages in the Austronesian language family'; 2, Outline of grammar of Tsouic languages'; 3, 'Proto-Austronesian phonemes'; 4, 'Reconstruction of Proto-Tsouic phonology and Proto-Tsouic reflexes of Proto-Austronesian phonemes'; 5, 'Tsou reflexes of Proto-Tsouic phonemes'; and 6, 'Proto-Southern-Tsouic reflexes of Proto-Tsouic phonemes, and Kanakanabu and Saaroa reflexes of Proto-Southern-Tsouic phonemes'. There are two appendices: 'Reflexes of Proto-Austronesian phonemes in the Formosan languages' and 'Index of reconstructions'. A loose page of 'Corrigenda and addenda' is appended, but it unfortunately includes only a portion of the typographical errors which the reader will encounter.1 Chap. 1 is a discussion of genetic relationships intended to place the Tsouic languages in a wider comparative context. Apart from its general usefulness as background information, there is a practical reason for this chapter. T sensibly recognizes that the reconstruction of a...