The Bunun language is spoken by the Bunun people

Bunun People

The Bunun , also historically known as the Vonum, are a tribe of Taiwanese aborigines and are best known for their sophisticated polyphonic vocal music. They speak the Bunun language. Unlike other aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, the Bunun are widely dispersed across the island. In the year 2000 the...

 of Taiwan. It is one of the Formosan languages

Formosan languages

The Formosan languages are the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Taiwanese aborigines currently comprise about 2% of the island's population. However, far fewer can still speak their ancestral language, after centuries of language shift...

, a geographic group of Austronesian languages

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

, and is subdivided in five dialect

Dialect

The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

s: Isbukun, Takbunuaz, Takivatan, Takibaka and Takituduh. Isbukun, the dominant dialect, is mainly spoken in the south of Taiwan. Takbunuaz and Takivatan are mainly spoken in the center of the country. Takibaka and Takituduh both are northern dialects. A sixth dialect, Takipulan, became extinct in the 1970s.

The Saaroa and Kanakanabu, two smaller minority groups who share their territory with an Isbukun Bunun group, have also adopted Bunun as their vernacular.

Classification

Li (1988) splits the Bunun dialects into 3 main branches — Northern, Central, and Isbukun. Isbukun, the prestige dialect, is also the most divergent dialect. The most conservative dialects are spoken in the north.

• Proto-Bunun
  • Isbukun
  • North-Central
    • Northern
      • Takituduh
      • Takibakha
    • Central
      • Takbanuað
      • Takivatan

Bunun was originally spoken in and around Sinyi Township (Xinyi, 信義鄉) in Nantou County

Nantou County

Nantou County is the second largest county of Taiwan. It is also the only landlocked county in Taiwan. Its name derives from the Hoanya Taiwanese aboriginal word Ramtau. Nantou County is officially administered as a county of Taiwan....

 (De Busser 2009:63). From the 17th century onwards, the Bunun people expanded towards the south and east, absorbing other ethnic groups such as the Saaroa, Kanakanabu, and Thao.

Overview

Bunun is a verb-initial language and has an Austronesian alignment

Austronesian alignment

Austronesian alignment, commonly known as the Philippine- or Austronesian-type voice system, is a typologically unusual morphosyntactic alignment that combines features of ergative and accusative languages...

 system or focus system. This means that Bunun clauses do not have a nominative–accusative or absolutive–ergative alignment, but that arguments of a clause are ordered according to which participant in the event described by the verb is 'in focus'. In Bunun, four distinct roles can be in focus:

• the agent: the person or thing that is doing the action or achieving/maintaining a state;
• the undergoer: the person or thing that is somehow participating in the action without being an agent; there are three kinds of undergoers:
  • patients: persons or things to whom an action is done or an event happens
  • instruments: things (sometimes persons) which are used to perform an action
  • beneficiaries (also called recipients): the persons (sometimes things) for whom an action is done or for whom an event happens
• the locative participant: the location where an action takes place; in languages with a Philippine-style voice system, spatial location is often at the same level in a clause as agents and patients, rather than being an adverbial clause
  Adverbial clause
  An adverbial clause is a dependent clause that functions as an adverb. In other words, it contains a subject and a predicate, and it modifies a verb.*I saw Joe when I went to the store....
  
  , like in English (see for a discussion of location in Tagalog
  Tagalog language
  Tagalog is an Austronesian language spoken as a first language by a third of the population of the Philippines and as a second language by most of the rest. It is the first language of the Philippine region IV and of Metro Manila...
  
  ).

Which argument is in focus is indicated on the verb by a combination of prefixes and suffixes .

• a verb in agent focus is often unmarked, but can get the prefix ma- or - more rarely - pa- or ka-
• a verb in undergoer focus gets a suffix -un
• a verb locative focus gets a suffix -an

Many other languages with a focus system have different marking for patients, instruments and beneficiaries, but this is not the case in Bunun. The focussed argument in a Bunun clause will normally always occur immediately after the verb (e.g. in an actor-focus clause, the agent will appear before any other participant) and is in the Isbukun dialect marked with a post-nominal marker a.

Bunun has a very large class of auxiliary verbs. Concepts that are expressed by auxiliaries include:

• negation (ni 'be not' and uka 'have not')
• modality and volition (e.g. maqtu 'can, be allowed')
• relative time (e.g. ngausang 'first, beforehand', qanaqtung 'be finished')
• comparison (maszang 'the same, similarly')
• question words (e.g. via 'why?')
• sometimes numerals (e.g. tatini '(be) alone, (be) only one')

In fact, Bunun auxiliaries express all sorts of concepts that in English would be expressed by adverbial phrases, with the exception of time and place, which are normally expressed with adverbial phrases.

Word classes

Takivatan Bunun has the following word classes (De Busser 2009:189). (Note: Words in open classes can be compounded, where as those in closed classes cannot.)

Open classes

1. Nouns
2. Verbs
3. Adjectives

Closed classes

1. Demonstratives
2. Anaphoric pronouns
3. Personal pronouns
4. Numerals
5. Place words
6. Time words
7. Manner words
8. Question words
9. Auxiliaries

Affixes

Bunun is morphologically agglutinative language and has a very elaborate set of derivational affixes (more than 200, which are mostly prefixes), most of which derive verbs from other word classes. Some of these prefixes are special in that they do not only occur in the verb they derive, but are also foreshadowed on a preceding auxiliary. These are called lexical prefixes or anticipatory prefixes and only occur in Bunun and a small number of other Formosan languages.

Below are some Takivatan Bunun verbal prefixes from De Busser (2009).

Takivatan Bunun verbal prefixes

Type of prefix	Neutral	Causative	Accusative
Movement from	mu-	pu-	ku-
Dynamic event	ma-	pa-	ka-
Stative event	ma- / mi-	pi-	ka- / ki-
Inchoative event	min-	pin-	kin-

In short:

• Movement from: Cu-
• Dynamic event: Ca-
• Stative event: Ci-
• Inchoative event: Cin-
• Neutral: mV-
• Causative: pV-
• Accusative: kV-

A more complete list of Bunun affixes from De Busser (2009) is given below.
Focus

• agent focus (AF): -Ø
• undergoer focus (UF): -un (also used as a nominalizer)
• locative focus (LF): -an (also used as a nominalizer)

Tense-aspect-mood (TAM) affixes

• na- irrealis (futurity, consequence, volition, imperatives). This is also the least bound TAM prefix.
• -aŋ progressive (progressive aspect, simultaneity, expressing wishes/optative usage
• -in perfective (completion, resultative meaning, change of state, anteriority)
• -in- past/resultative (past, past/present contrast
• -i- past infix which occurs only occasionally

Participant cross-reference

• -Ø agent
• -un patient
• -an locative
• is- instrumental
• ki- beneficiary

Locative prefixes

• Stationary ‘at, in’: i-
• Itinerary ‘arrive at’: atan-, pan-, pana-
• Allative ‘to’: mu-, mun-
• Terminative ‘until’: sau-
• Directional ‘toward, in the direction of’: tan-, tana-
• Viative ‘along, following’: malan-
• Perlative ‘through, into’: tauna-, tuna-, tun-
• Ablative ‘from’: maisna-, maina-, maisi-, taka-

Event-type prefixes

• ma- Marks dynamic events
• ma- Marks stative events
• mi- Marks stative negative events
• a- Unproductive stative prefix
• paŋka- Marks material properties (stative)
• min- Marks result states (transformational)
• pain- Participatory; marks group actions

Causative

• pa- causative of dynamic verb
• pi- causative of stative verb
• pu- cause to go towards

Classification of events

• mis- burning events
• tin- shock events
• pala- splitting events
• pasi- separating events
• kat- grasping events

Patient-incorporating prefixes

• bit- 'lightning'
• kun- 'wear'
• malas- 'speak'
• maqu- 'use'
• muda- 'walk'
• pas- 'spit'
• qu- 'drink'
• sa- 'see'
• tal- 'wash'
• tapu- 'have trait'
• tastu- 'belong'
• taus-/tus- 'give birth'
• tin- 'harvest'
• tum- 'drive'

Verbalizers

• pu- verbalizer: 'to hunt for'
• maqu- verbalizer: 'to use'
• malas- verbalizer: 'to speak'

Pronouns

Takivatan Bunun personal pronoun roots are (De Busser 2009:453):

• 1s: -ak-
• 2s: -su-
• 3s: -is-
• 1p (incl.): -at-
• 1p (excl.): -ðam-
• 2p: -(a)mu-
• 3p: -in-

The tables of Takivatan Bunun personal pronouns below are sourced from De Busser (2009:441).

Takivatan Bunun Personal Pronouns

Type of Pronoun	Root	Foc. Agent (bound)	Non-Foc. Agent (bound)	Neutral	Foc. Agent	Locative	Possessive
1s.	-ak-	-(ʔ)ak	-(ʔ)uk	ðaku, nak	sak, saikin	ðakuʔan	inak, ainak, nak
2s.	-su-	-(ʔ)as	-	suʔu, su	-	suʔuʔan	isu, su
1p. (incl.)	-at-	-	-	mita	ʔata, inʔata	mitaʔan	imita
1p. (excl.)	-ðam-	-(ʔ)am	-	ðami, nam	ðamu, sam	ðamiʔan	inam, nam
2p.	-(a)mu-	-(ʔ)am	-	muʔu, mu	amu	muʔuʔan	imu, mu

Takivatan Bunun
Third-Person Personal Pronouns

	Singular	Plural
[Root]	-is-	-in-
Proximal	isti	inti
Medial	istun	intun
Distal	ista	inta

Iskubun Bunun personal pronouns are somewhat different (De Busser 2009:454).

Iskubun Bunun Personal Pronouns

Type of Pronoun	Agent	Undergoer	Possessive
1s.	saikin, -ik	ðaku, -ku	inak, nak
2s.	kasu, -as	su	isu, su
3s.	saia	saiʤa	isaiʤa, saiʤa
1p. (incl.)	kata, -ta	mita	imita
1p. (excl.)	kaimin, -im	ðami	inam
2p.	kamu, -am	mu	imu
3p.	naia	inaiʤa	naiʤa

Demonstratives

Takivatan Bunun has the following demonstrative roots and affixes (De Busser 2009:454):

Demonstrative suffixes

1. Proximal: -i
2. Medial: -un
3. Distal: -a

Demonstrative roots

1. aip-: singular
2. aiŋk-: vague plural
3. aint-: paucal
4. ait-: inclusive generic

Demonstrative prefixes

1. Ø-: visible
2. n-: not visible

Place words

1. ʔiti here
2. ʔitun there (medial)
3. ʔita there (distal)

Function words

• sia anaphoric marker, "aforementioned"; also used as a hesitation marker
• tu attributive marker
• duma "others"
• itu honorific marker

Takivatan Bunun also has definitive markers.

Takivatan Bunun
Definiteness Markers

	Singular	Plural
Proximal	-ti	-ki
Medial	-tun	-kun
Distal	-ta	-ka