Pazeh
Spoken in	Taiwan
Total speakers	1[1]
Language family	Austronesian Northern Formosan Pazeh
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2	map
ISO 639-3	uun
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Pazeh (Pazih) is the language of the Pazeh, a tribe of indigenous people on Taiwan (see Taiwanese aborigines). It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian languages language family. Kulun was a dialect. As there is only one speaker of Pazeh proper, 95-year-old Pan Jin-yu, the language is moribund.^[2]

Contents 1 Phonology 2 Phonotactics 3 Morphology 4 References 5 Bibliography 6 Further reading

[edit] Phonology

Consonants^[3]

	Labial	Coronal1	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Stop	p b	t d		k ɡ3	(ʔ)2
Fricative		s z4		x	h5
Rhotic		ɾ
Approximant		l	j	w

1. /t/ and /d/ do not actually share the same place of articulation; /d/ is alveolar or prealveolar and /t/ (as well as /n/) is interdental. Other coronal consonants tend to be prealveolar or post-dental.
2. The distribution for the glottal stop is allophonic, appearing only between like vowels, before initial vowels, and after final vowels. It is also largely absent in normal speech
3. /ɡ/ is spirantized intervocalically
4. /z/ is actually an alveolar/prealveolar affricate [dz] and only occurs as a syllable onset.^[4]
5. /h/ varies between glottal and pharyngeal realizations ([ħ]) and is sometimes difficult to distinguish from /x/

While Pazeh contrasts voiced and voiceless obstruents, this contrast is neutralized in final position for labial and velar plosives, where only /p/ and /k/ occur respectively (/d/ is also de-voiced but a contrast is maintained). /l/ and /n/ are also neutralized to the latter.^[5] Voiceless plosives are unreleased in final position.

Vowels^[6]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	(ɛ)	ə	(o)
Open		a

Mid vowels ([ɛ] and [o]) are allophones of close vowels (/i/ and /u/ respectively).

• Both lower when adjacent to /h/.
• /u/ lowers before /ŋ/. [u] and [o] are in free variation before /ɾ/
• Reduplicated morphemes carry the phonetic vowel even when the reduplicated vowel is not in the phonological context for lowering.
  • /mutapitapih/ → [mu.ta.pɛ.taˈpɛh] ('keep clapping').^[7]

/a/ is somewhat advanced and raised when adjacent to /i/. Prevocally, high vowels are semivocalized. Most coronal consonants block this, although it still occurs after /s/. Semivowels also appear post-vocally.^[8]

[edit] Phonotactics

The most common morpheme structure is CVCVC where C is any consonant and V is any vowel. Consonant clusters are rare and consist only of a nasal plus a homorganic obstruent or the glide element of a diphthong.^[5]

intervocalic voiceless stops are voiced before a morpheme boundary (but not following one) .^[9] Stress falls on the ultimate syllable.^[10]

[edit] Morphology

Pazeh makes ready use of affixes, infixes, suffixes, and circumfixes, as well as reduplication.^[11] Pazeh also has "focus-marking" in its verbal morphology. In addition, verbs can be either stative or dynamic.

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Blust, Robert (1999), "Notes on Pazeh Phonology and Morphology", Oceanic Linguistics 38(2): 321–365, doi:10.1353/ol.1999.0002 

[edit] Further reading

• Li, R., & Tsuchida, S. (2002). Pazih texts and songs. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics (Preparatory Office), Academia Sinica. ISBN 9576718880

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