Pazeh language

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Pazeh
Spoken in:	Taiwan
Total speakers:	1
Language family:	Austronesian Formosan Pazeh
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`–`
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. As there is only one speaker, the language is moribund^{[citation needed]}.

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

[edit] Phonology

Consonants^[1]
	Labial	Coronal¹	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Stop	p b	t d		k g³	(ʔ)²
Fricative		s z⁴		x	h⁵
Rhotic		ɾ
Approximant		l	j	w

/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.
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
/g/ is spirantized intervocalically
/z/ is actually an alveolar/prealveolar affricate [dz] and only occurs as a syllable onset.^[2]
/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.^[3] Voiceless plosives are unreleased in final position.

Vowels^[4]
	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').^[5]

/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.^[6]

[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.^[7]

intervocalic voiceless stops are voiced before a morpheme boundary (but not following one) .^[8] Stress falls on the ultimate syllable.^[9]

[edit] Morphology

Pazeh makes ready use of affixes, infixes, suffixes, and circumfixes, as well as reduplication.^[10] Pazeh also has "focus-marking" in its verbal morphology. In addition, verbs can be either stative or dynamic.