Thao is the language of the native Thao people residing in Taiwan's central region, and belongs to the Austronesian family of languages. In 2001 the Thao people were officially recognized by the Taiwanese government as the `tenth aborigine' in Taiwan. Their traditional language is one of the `languages on the verge of extinction (endangered languages)'with extremely few speakers. This paper is concerned with particles in the Thao language.I have analyzed the function of four particles,ti,a,tu, and sa, through the handwritten folk tales in Thao language that the speaker personally recorded by using Japanese Kana. Particle `ti' is placed on a personal noun. It shows respect to the person. Particle`a' connects multiple nouns. It is approximate to Japanese particle `の' in the usage. The particle `a' shows several relationships between the two words. Some of the relationships include possession, belonging, restriction of place or kind , producer and product, and kinship. In addition, the particle connects verb and noun, adjective and noun, demonstrative and noun, and quantifier and noun. In the case of connecting verb and noun, the relationship is that of subject and predicate or object and predicate. In the case of connecting adjective and noun, it shows attribution to a thing or a person. Particle `sa' precedes a material noun. It marks subject, object, and existence. Particle `tu' was analyzed as an accusative case marker or marker of the nominalized clause in preceding studies.. But it marks also sentence outside the nominative clause. Furthermore, there are various sentence structures in which `tu' co-occurs with negative words. In those cases, the negative words modify the sentence which is marked with `tu' . In addition, `tu' precedes time words or place words, which modify the sentence which is marked with `tu' . Essentially, `tu' marks sentence, clause, and phrase.
雑誌名
長崎外大論叢
雑誌名(英)
The Journal of Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies
サオ語の小辞について
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