Abstract
Kaxabu, one of extant Formosan languages, still unofficially recognized by the government, is located in four villages of Shou-Cheng (守城), Wu-Gong-Lun (蜈蚣崙), Da-Nan (大湳), and Niu-Mian-Shan (牛眠山) in Puli Township, Nantou County, Taiwan. The aim of this thesis is to provide a thorough description and analysis of the phonemic inventory and stress system in contemporary Kaxabu. I discuss whether the glottal stop, glides, and mid vowels are phonemes in Kaxabu or not. I collected data from different consultants in four villages to show sound differences. The main sound changes in Kaxabu is flap loss. Flap loss affect other segments, syllables, and pitch. The Kaxabu pitch system is particular. There are four pitches in initial syllable, (low, mid, high, raising), and three pitches in final syllable (high, mid, falling), whereby the high pitch corresponds to stress in Kaxabu. Three factors are responsible for the use of a different pitch in initial syllable, (i) syllable weight, (ii) numbers of syllables, (iii) flap loss. Low, mid, and high pitches are in complementary distribution. Only raising and high are contrastive. I also found pitch change from falling to high in Kaxabu. Though most of my consultants speak with a high pitch, my oldest consultant has a falling pitch in the same environment. There are two types of pitch in Kaxabu. “Initial syllable low” type, whereby the first syllable is low: two syllables [L.H], three syllables [L.M.H], four syllables [L.H.L.H], five syllables [L.H.L.M.H] and “initial syllable high” type, whereby the first syllable is high: two syllables [H.H], three syllables [H.L.H], four syllables [H.L.M.H], five syllables [H.L.H.L.H]. To solve the problems encountered with the distribution of pitch in different syllable types, I adopt the Optimality Theory framework. The observed surface forms arise from the interaction between conflicting constraints. By ranking different universal constraints, we can capture the position of stress of in the two types of pitch patterns in Kaxabu.