Difference between revisions of "Mchalfo1/Final Project"

Revision as of 17:44, 6 May 2023

My final project for Ling073 is beginning the development of a Paiwan transducer.

Paiwan

Paiwan is a Formosan language spoken by the Paiwan people of Taiwan. As of a 2008 Unesco survey there were approx. 15,000 speakers of Paiwan.

Paiwan is a predicate-initial, polysynthetic language. There are many affixes, some with multiple forms; pronouns which may be free or bound; and nouns, adjectives, and adverbs which may act in similar ways to verbs. Paiwan is written using the latin script.

There are many resources for Paiwan, including linguistic publications, textbooks, dictionaries, and websites, though most are in Chinese (not particularly accessible to me, who cannot speak or really read the language).

Difficulties

Any work with languages will face difficulties. Below are some of the difficulties I am dealing with:

Language and Resources

Much of the documentation and primary resources are in Chinese (a language I do not speak or read) Resources that are available have issues such as non copyable (makes problems for compiling corpus), not in a language I can read, have lots of Chinese or English spread throughout, are from linguistics publications and have

Dialects

many dialects with varied ways of grouping and naming

Orthography

Different orthography and spelling depending on dialect and author

Affixes

Lots of affixes, sometimes with multiple forms infixes are not a simple process with Apertium

Technology

I do not have a computer science background, which makes fixing certain issues difficult, and I cannot automate certain tasks.

Next Steps

Although I am about to graduate, I do not plan on letting go of this project once I leave Haverford (and the TriCo).

• Focus in on one dialect
• Research morphology deeper
• Expand corpus
  • textbooks
  • linguistic publications
  • www.Klokah.tw dictionary and resources
• Expand Lexicon
• Add twol and rlx rules

Grammar

Sentence Structure

Paiwan is a predicate initial language. The predicate, often but not always a verb, will be the first word in the sentence. The ambiguity this causes for the role of nouns in the sentence is solved by case markers, which mark case as well as plurality.

Verbs

Voice

In Paiwan there are four voices, separated into two categories. The two categories are Active Voice (AV) and Non-Active Voice (NAV), with NAV being further separated into Goal Voice, Instrument Voice, and Locative Voice (not to be confused with the Locative Prefix).

Personal Pronouns

In Paiwan, personal pronouns may be free or bound. these pronouns have number and person, but not gender. The first person pronouns also have separate categories for inclusive and exclusive. The free pronouns have different prefixes corresponding to the three cases, nominative, genitive, and oblique.

The bound pronouns fall into two categories depending on case (there are no oblique bound pronouns). There are also no third person bound pronouns. The nonimative bound pronouns are suffxes, while the genitive bound pronouns are prefixes. The genitive bound pronouns can also be used to mark possession.

Case Markers

Case markers are words which mark the case of associated words, especially nouns. For predicate-initial languages this is important for clarifying the roles of the predicate's arguments.

Transducer

Total Corpus

These numbers are as of 5/5/2023

• Coverage: 54.6%
• Ambiguity: ~1.06

Number of tokens:

• Full Corpus: 128648
• wiki: 122527
• Genesis: 2441
• Textbook: 9106

Lexicon Counts

• Lexicons: 37
• Lexicon entries: 370
• Patterns: 12
• Pattern entries: 24

Root Lexicons:

• NounRoot: 107
• ProperNounRoot: 149
• VerbRoot: 14
• NumberRoot: 10
• PronounRoot: 7
• NomCliticPronoun: 5
• GenCliticPronoun: 5
• AdverbRoot: 2
• CaseMarkerRoot: 5
• PrepositionRoot: 1
• Tens: 1
• NumberAnd: 1
• SayRoot: 1
• BeHaveRoot: 1
• Link: 1

Morphology Lexicons:

• MarkerCase: 3
• VerbPrefix: 4
• VerbSuffix: 2
• Infix: 2
• ConjuntionPrefix: 1
• PronounCase: 3
• LocativeAffix: 1

Developed Resources

• Paiwan Transducer: https://github.com/erchalfoun/ling073-pwn
• Spreadsheet of Paiwan words by dialect from Klokah (in progress, very preliminary): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16waihA1bvzvOVU87oQg3XJUs-58o1DVCFpZX_W4odGY/edit?usp=sharing

External Resources

Primary Sources, Dictionaries, Textbooks, etc.

• Paiwan Wikipedia: https://pwn.wikipedia.org/wiki/sitjumaq_na_sapitj
• Paiwan Textbook Ebooks: https://alilin.cip.gov.tw/tw/ebooks?tag=610&search_type=3&home_cat=0&button=&keyword=&cat=&zone=&city=0&area=
• Paiwan Genesis Chapters 1-3: https://archive.org/details/rosettaproject_pwn_gen-1
• Ferrell, Raleigh. 1982. Paiwan Dictionary. Canberra A.C.T. Australia: Dept. of Linguistics Research School of Pacific Studies Australian National University. [1]
• 鄭仲樺, 曹永春編著 鄭仲樺 editor and 曹永春 曹永春. 2019. 排灣語丹路方言分類詞彙手冊 = Binutangluan a Kai : A Handbook of Classified Vocabulary of Paiwan Butanglu Dialect. Chu ban ed. Pingdong Shi: 屏東縣政府.[2]
• 鄭仲樺, 洪阿蘭 et al. 2019. 排灣語筏灣方言分類詞彙手冊 = Pinaiwanan Nua Sepaiwan a Kai a Pinapapangapangaljan a Sunatj : A Handbook of Classified Vocabulary of Paiwan Kapaiwanan Dialect. Chu ban ed. Pingdong Shi: 屏東縣政府.[3]
• Early, Robert, John Whitehorn and Australian National University. 2003. One Hundred Paiwan Texts. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Australian National University.
• https://abvd.eva.mpg.de/austronesian/language.php?id=177

Linguistics Writings & Publications

• Chang Anna Hsiou-chuan. 2006. “A Reference Grammar of Paiwan.” dissertation.
• Hsieh Fuhui. 2016. “On the Development of the Lexeme Aya in Paiwan.” Oceanic Linguistics 225–45.
• Tsai Wei-Tien Dylan and Chun-Ming Wu. 2012. “Conjunctive Reduction Revisited: Evidence from Mayrinax Atayal and Southern Paiwan.” Oceanic Linguistics 160–81.
• Hsieh Fuhui. 2011. “The Conceptualization of Emotion Events in Three Formosan Languages: Kavalan Paiwan and Saisiyat.” Oceanic Linguistics 65–92.
• Lee Amy Pei-jung. 2011. “Metaphorical Euphemisms of Relationship and Death in Kavalan Paiwan and Seediq.” Oceanic Linguistics 351–79.
• Zeitoun, Elizabeth, Lillian M. Huang, Marie M. Yeh, Anna H. Chang, and Joy J. Wu. 1996. “The Temporal Aspectual and Modal Systems of Some Formosan Languages: A Typological Perspective.” Oceanic Linguistics 21–56.
• http://www.sil.org/resources/archives/26100
• Tryon Darrell T. 2011. Comparative Austronesian Dictionary : An Introduction to Austronesian Studies. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Retrieved May 6 2023 (https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110884012).

Other

• http://www.language-archives.org/language/pwn
• https://www.ethnologue.com/language/pwn/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paiwan_language