Formosan Languages and Linguistic Typology

There is quite a longstanding convention whereby Formosan languages (the Austronesian languages of Taiwan) are described using a framework and terminology developed by linguists working on the Austronesian languages of the Philippines. Linguists using this terminology talk, for example, about the ‘focus system’ of verbal constructions and about the ‘topic’ of the clause. Because this terminology is (i) unfamiliar to linguists working outside Taiwan and the Philippines and (ii) deficient in certain respects (it is often unclear, for example, what the function of the ‘topic’ is), descriptions of Formosan and Philippine languages using this terminology are sometimes somewhat opaque and rather difficult for other linguists to read. In this paper we attempt to re-frame the description of certain aspects of the morphosyntax of Formosan languages in terms more familiar to typologists and to linguists working in other parts of the world. Among other things, the notion of ‘topic’ is re-examined, and the ‘focus system’ is reformulated in a framework derived from the work of the typologist William Croft. A re-framing of this kind should lead to two main benefits: increased comprehensibility and increased differentiation among the descriptions of Formosan languages (which are sometimes treated as being more similar to each other than they appear to be).