Adverbs in the Austronesian languages of Taiwan

Abstract

This is a study of adverbs in nine typologically divergent Austronesian languages of Taiwan, Atayal, Bunun, Favorlang, Kavalan, Puyuma, Rukai, Saisiyat, Thao, and Tsou. There are only a few adverbs in each of these languages. The form of an adverb is usually invariant and its position in a sentence is relatively free. On the contrary, the form of a verb usually varies and its position in the sentence is usually fixed. Since the function of an adverb is to modify a verb, it may not occur without a verb in a sentence, whereas a true verb may occur without any other verb. Many adverbial concepts in Chinese and English, such as ‘all’, ‘only’, ‘often’, and ‘again’, are expressed using verbs that manifest different foci and take aspect markers. When these words function as the main verb in the sentence, they may attract bound personal pronouns in many Austronesian languages of Taiwan. However, there are a few genuine adverbs in each of these languages. It varies from language to language whether a certain lexical item functions as a verb or adverb.