1. Introduction

Tsou is an Austronesian language spoken in the southwest highlands of Táiwān. It has a population of around 6,705 people. Tsou has three extant dialects: Tapangʉ, Tfuya, and Luhtu. The first two dialects are mainly spoken in Alishan 阿里山 township, Chiayi 嘉義 county and the third one spoken in Hsin-yi 信義 township, Nantou 南投 county. The three dialects differ only in their lexicon and phon…