In Atayal (an Austronesian language of Taiwan), a prefixed p- can have five distinct functions: verbalizer, causativizer, reciprocal marker, irrealis marker, and agentive nominalizer. Homophonous words prefixed with p- seem confusingly ambiguous, yet they can be differentiated in context by examining syntactic distribution, co-occurring nominal argument, and case marking. The paper further examines co-occurrence patterns and constraints of p-prefixation.

泰雅語; 南島語; 同音詞; 前綴; 動詞化; 使役詞; 相互詞; 未實現貌; 名物化

Atayal; Austronesian; homophonous; prefix; verbalizer; causativizer; reciprocal marker; irrealis marker; nominalizer