Perceptual Grammar: Structured Sensory Coordination in Her-itage Transmission—Evidence from Bunun Pasibutbut

This preprint introduces the concept of perceptual grammar as a transmission-critical operational structure in collective embodied heritage practice. Drawing on a field-grounded conceptual analysis of Bunun pasibutbut, a ritual polyphonic chant of the Bunun people of Taiwan, the article examines how participants continuously monitor relational coordination, detect misalignment, and collectively recognize successful enactment in real time without reliance on fixed external referents. The article argues that existing heritage discussions of embodied transmission often acknowledge tacit and bodily dimensions of practice without sufficiently specifying the operational sensory structures through which collective enactment remains recognizable across transmission. Perceptual grammar is proposed as one operational dimension within a broader architecture of embodied heritage transmission. The analysis further considers the implications of perceptual grammar for heritage safeguarding, particularly the distinction between preserving representational outputs and sustaining the operational conditions through which collective embodied practices remain enactable among practitioners.