Jonathan Strandh: A Study of the Spatial Domain in Folktale Collections of Three Formosan Languages

The study of the spatial domain within the field of semantic typology has seen more and more research activity since its inception. Still, more research is needed in order to uncover more of the linguistic variation of spatial language. As such, the present study examined, compared, and typologically classified three spatial subfields – basic locative constructions (BLC), frames of reference (FoR), and motion events – between three Austronesian, Formosan languages – Puyuma, Saaroa, and Paiwan – of which the spatial domain has not been comprehensively studied as of yet. The study analyzed examples collected from corpora of transcribed, glossed, and translated folktales by way of a list of search terms. The results show that the Formosan languages employ morphosyntactically different, but semantically similar, BLCs, make use of an intrinsic FoR and absolute FoR that grammaticalizes salient landmarks, and serial verb constructions with complex path verbs alongside manner verbs, which defies the Talmyian dichotomy between verb-framed and satellite-framed languages. Finally, the present study discusses the usefulness of the corpora for, and proposes future avenues of, further research into Formosan spatial language based on the results.