Reconstruction of Atayalic Demonstratives and Beyond

This paper reconstructs Proto-Atayalic (Austronesian) distal demonstratives based on the data from two Atayalic languages, Atayal and Seediq. The distal demonstratives are also used as third-person pronouns in these languages. Two types of distal demonstratives are observed depending on the vowel of the first syllable. In one type, the vowel of the first syllable appeared as i as seen in Seediq hiya “there” and Atayal hiya “third-person singular pronoun”. In the other type, the vowel of the first syllable appeared as a as seen in Atayal haga “third-person plural pronoun” and Seediq haya “that”. The first type is reconstructed in Proto-Atayalic as *haja “that/there” and the second type as *hija “that/there”. Based on a small data set of near-cognates in other Formosan languages, these proto-forms could be distinct in their distance to the referred object: *haja could refer to a thing/place farther away than *hija. As for the Proto-Atayalic *hija, there are cognates in other Formosan languages such as hiza “that” in Saisiyat, ziza “there” in Pazih, and sia “third-person singular pronoun” in Bunun. Proto-Austronesian could be reconstructed as *siya based on these forms. Proximal demonstratives in Atayalic languages are Atayal nuni “here”, qani “this”, and Seediq hini “here”. Although these are not perfect cognates, Saisiyat and Pazih share cognates with Seediq: hini “this” in Saisiyat and dini “here” in Pazih (the initial consonant d seems to alternate with z, the proper reflex of *s). Based on these, the Proto-Atayalic form could be reconstructed as *hini “this/here”, and the Proto-Austronesian could be reconstructed as *sini. Then, applying analogical inference, *saja could also be reconstructed in Proto-Austronesian. In sum, ProtoAtayalic *hini, *hija, and *haja could potentially correspond to the Proto-Austronesian forms *sini, *sija, and *saja.