*t   

*tabi plough

Note:   Possibly a loan distribution, as ploughing by Formosan aborigines probably was first acquired after contact with the Chinese. However, a loan source is yet to be identified, and Kavalan and Seediq, although geographically not distant from one another, had very little known contact during historical times.

*tadaw kind of large knife

*takis sword

Note:   Taokas material in Tsuchida (1982) is drawn from several sources, each of which is carefully labeled. The form takish was recorded by the pioneering Formosanist Naoyoshi Ogawa in 1901. Since the few relevant examples from the same source suggest that Taokas reflects *s as h before a vowel and as zero word-finally (*susu > huhu ‘breast’, *timus > timu ‘salt’), the implied change *-s > -sh in this form may indicate that it is a loan distribution, although the languages in which it is found have not been in contact within the historical period and the transfer between languages would have to have taken place before *s > -t in Paiwan.

*tanaq a plant: Aralia decaisneana (Hance)

Note:   Also Atayal (Mayrinax), Bunun (Takituduh) tanaʔ ‘a plant: Aralia decaisneana (Hance)’. This comparison was first noted by Li (1994).

*tanayan bamboo sp.

*taNah red

Note:   Possibly an Atayalic loanword in the now extinct Taokas. Weighing against this interpretation is the observation that Atayalic languages seem to have been moving northward from central Taiwan (present Nantou county) during the past several centuries, indicating that there probably was greater distance between them and the Taokas during the time period when borrowing might have occurred.

*taRuqan field hut; temporary shelter used when working for extended periods in fields far from the village

Note:   Also Amis talokan ‘a chicken coop’. Throughout that part of the Austronesian world in which grain crops are grown it is common for workers to sleep overnight in fieldhuts when engaged in agricultural work at some distance from the home village. No equivalent of this term has been found in Malayo-Polynesian languages, although the practice of using field huts is common in areas such as Borneo or Sumatra.

*tatak hoe

Note:   Kavalan normally reflects *k as /q/, but Li and Tsuchida (2006:7) observe that *k sometimes became /k/ in words that do not appear to be borrowed, as in *likud ‘back’ > ku-rikuz ‘follow’ or *siku > siku ‘elbow’.

*tenem sea, ocean

Note:   This term was replaced in PMP by *tasik ‘sea, saltwater’.

*teñeb dive, submerge

Note:   Also Puyuma (Tamalakaw) tenep ‘submerge’, Ilokano táneb ‘submerge partly, immerse in part’, ma-tnéb ‘to sink’. With root *-ñeb ‘dive, submerge’.

*timu salt

Note:   This is a frustrating comparison. First, although *timu appears to be assignable to PAn in the meaning ‘salt’, it is in competition with *qasiRa for this meaning, and the latter form has a far stronger pedigree throughout Austronesian. Second, PAn *timu shows an apparently greater than chance similarity with PWMP *timus, yet no Formosan language reflects *-s. Tentatively, then, PAn *timu and PWMP *timus are treated as chance resemblances, and the semantic distinction between PAn *timu and *qasiRa or PWMP *timus and *qasiRa remains unclear.

*timuRmuR rinse the mouth

Note:   With root *-muR ‘gargle, rinse the mouth’.

*tumaNa to hear, listen

Note:   Also Bunun (Ferrell 1969) taʔaza ‘to hear’, Saaroa timalha to hear. This is the only known PAn trisyllable which contains the base-internal sequence *um following an initial consonant. It was thus vulnerable to misanalysis as a disyllabic base *taNa, although this type of change evidently was rare (the only known reflex in which the base may have been interpreted as containing the actor voice infix * is Bunun tanʔa (Jeng 1971) ‘to hear’, which is doubly irregular in also containing postconsonantal glottal stop, and so may be a chance resemblance.

*t<um>imaNa to hear, listen

*tuquN an evergreen tree, probably Acacia confusa

Note:   The gloss for Pazeh tul ~ tun is clearly underspecified. However, since PAn *saleŋ meant ‘pine tree’, the best alternative gloss for *tuquN must be the acacia, which as an evergreen, might easily be mislabeled as a pine.

*tuRukuk chicken

Note:   Also Tsou troʔua, Kanakanabu tarukúuka, Saaroa tarukuuka, Proto-Rukai *tarokoko, Kavalan traquq ‘chicken’. This word undoubtedly is onomatopoetic, and so could have arisen independently through sound-imitation. However, convergent results of onomatopoeia in related languages rarely exhibit regular sound correspondences as in the present case, and a reconstruction therefore appears justified. It is possible that PAn *tuRukuk referred only to roosters.