Abstract
This study examines cognates for “immature animal” and “puppy” in the Atayalic languages (Atayal and Seediq) of the Austronesian language family, and reconstructs the Proto-Atayalic forms as *giqas and *uruq. In Atayal, uyuq changed its meaning from “puppy” to “immature animal,” and then giqas changed its meaning from “immature animal” to “new.” This suggests semantic relationships between “immature animal” and “new” in Atayal. Next, this study examines cognates for “piglet” in the Atayalic languages and reconstructs the Proto-Atayalic as *bəru. This form is proposed to be a cognate of the Proto-Austronesian *baqəRu “new, bachelor.” This paper modifies the Proto-Austronesian form to *bəRu through reexamination of cognates in other Austronesian languages such as baqlu in Bunun and faʔloh in Amis. Consonant clusters in these forms can be seen as the fortition of the word-medial *R following an accented schwa. In addition, most cognates indicate the Proto-Austronesian form consisted of two syllables. The original meaning of the Proto-Austronesian *bəRu was likely “piglet” as it means this in the Atayalic languages. Later, *bəRu shifted its semantic domain from animal to human, meaning “bachelor,” and then gained the meaning “new” as this shift is suggested by the parallel example of giqas in Atayal.
