[An-lang] Possible influence of Chinese S-V-O order on Saisiyat, Thao, Puyuma, and Paiwan

[Loren Billings]

Dear Austronesianist colleagues,

In a recent conversation with a co-author, I wondered out loud what
the cause was of the order of clitic pronominal forms in Paiwan and
Puyuma transitive clauses. In only some dialects of each language, the
bound Actor pronoun immediately precedes the lexical verb, and the
bound Undergoer pronoun follows right after the same verb. (I leave
out details, such as the lack of overt forms in one of the paradigms.)
As it were, these bound pronouns sandwich the verb.

About as far as one can travel and still be on the island of Taiwan,
Saisiyat has free pronominal forms and subject-verb-object order. Now,
I don't think it's a stretch to consider contact with Chinese
languages (Southern Min, Hakka, or Mandarin) to be a possible source
of this change in Saisiyat's basic word order. It might also be that
contact with Chinese accounts for the sandwiching situation in Paiwan
and Puyuma. Here's what I have been able to dig up so far.

Zeitoun et al. (A Study of Saisiyat Morphology, 2015:62) report that
this language is perhaps most widely known for having S-V-O order
(unlike other Austronesian languages of Taiwan). Since this language's
pronouns are free, the pronominal ordering would merely be
epiphenomenal to its wider basic order.

Furthermore, Blust (The Austronesian Languages, 2009/2013:55) writes,
"The principal exceptions [to verb-initial order in Austronesian
languages of Taiwan/L.A.B.] are Saisiyat and Thao, which are SVO,
evidently as a result of intensive contact with SVO Taiwanese [also
known as Southern Min Chinese/L.A.B.] over much of the past century."
See also Blust's Thao Dictionary (2003:216). Wang (An Ergative View of
Thao Syntax, 2004:193) mentions that this language has only three
bound pronominal forms, not even a full paradigm.

Coming back to to the southeast coast of Taiwan, it occurred to me
that the Actor=verb=Undergoer sandwiching might also be due to contact
with one or more Chinese languages. If the pronouns in these languages
were already bound at the time of contact, then I can see how S-V-O
order would be carried over as Actor=verb=Undergoer sandwiching. I
have not found any mention of this idea in the literature and would
appreciate any suggestions of where to look.

Sincerely, --Loren A. Billings
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