Thao Loans from Bunun

Thao has extensive lexical and phonological, though not morphosyntactic, borrowing from Bunun. There are hundreds of Thao loanwords from Bunun. The consonants /b, d, l, ?, h/ have acquired phonemic status in Thao due to the great number of loans from Bunun. Linguistic evidence indicates that there are different periods of borrowing. Phonological and morphological adaptation of the forms is made for some lexical items. The problem of determining from which dialect(s) borrowing occurred is discussed in some detail, and so is the problem of some irregular forms. A list of Thao loanwords from Bunun is given in the appendix.