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SORSOGON STATE COLLEGE

Magallanes Campus
Magallanes, Sorsogon

MC MTB MLE

CONTENT AND PEADGOGY FOR THE MOTHER TONGUE MCJL

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Week 12

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this module, the learner should be able to:

1. Describe the syntactic features of mother tongue.
2. Design an instructional materials for mother tongue.

Morphology & Syntax

Morphology refers to the structure of words: specifically, how words are constructed and how they are
distinguished from other words. Relevant to this topic are the boundaries between prefixes, suffixes, and infixes
in relation to root words, and the boundaries between words themselves.
Syntax refers to the structure of sentences, such as the arrangement of words and their inter-relationships
(Aitchison, 2010).
“Philippine-type” languages are generally predicate-initial languages with complex, headmarking, highly
affixing morphologies. Many derivations of root words can therefore be made with the addition of prefixes, infixes,
suffixes and circumfixes, to create new semantic forms; roots themselves also exhibit reduplication patterns. In
Ilokano, for example, the root turog means “sleep” (n), which can be transformed into maturog “to sleep”,
makaturog “to be able to sleep”, makapaturog “sleep-inducing”, pagturogan “sleeping place”, katurog “sleeping
companion”, mannaturog “good sleeper”, agpaturog “to put to sleep”, tuturogan “the desire to sleep,” pannakiturog
“the act of joining someone in sleep”, etc.
Prefixes are the most abundant affixes.
Philippine languages have been described by linguists as morphologically ergative-absolutive (Aldridge,
2002; De Guzman,1988; Gerdts, 1988; Reid & Liao, 2004). That is, the argument (i.e. agent) of an intransitive verb
behaves like the object (i.e. patient) of a transitive verb. This contrasts with most Indo-European languages,
including English, which are nominative accusative languages. In English, for example the argument of an
intransitive verb takes the same nominative case as the agent of a transitive verb. Hence, the nominative form
“She” is used for the subject of both an intransitive clause (e.g. “She sleeps”) and a transitive clause (e.g. “She fed
her”). The object of a transitive clause, on the other hand, takes a different case: the accusative case. Hence, the
accusative form “her” is used as the object of the verb “fed” in the given English example.
Philippine languages can differ in the average number of morphemes per word. Those languages with more
morphemes/word will tend to have longer words. This has several implications to reading. Early readers may be
intimidated by longer words and may struggle to read them with speed and accuracy, hampering understanding.
Conversely, Gonzalez (1980) notes that the extensive reduplication in Philippine languages can be a boon to
beginning reading. While sometimes long, words can be easily broken down into digestible and often repetitious
components. Nevertheless, the variety in word length must be considered in the assessment of reading skills,
particularly the fluency measure.
Besides word length, Philippine languages exhibit a range of other syntactic differences. They may have
different sets of determiners (articles, demonstratives, etc.) that convey information about their associated nouns
(or noun phrases), including case, number, definiteness, personal vs. impersonal, specificity, and spatial reference
(Reid & Liao 2004). Tagalog has three main case-markers for impersonal nouns (ang, ng, and sa), Cebuano also
three (ang, ug, and sa), Hiligaynon has four (ang, sing, sang, sa), and Central Bikol has five (an, su, ki, kan, and sa).
The particle mga is used alongside these to express plurality.
Each of these languages also has a set of case markers for personal nouns. Some languages have
determiners that indicate several attributes of the nouns to which they refer, simultaneously. The Ilokano
determiner kadagidiay, for instance, expresses plurality, distal location, and the oblique case (e.g. kadagidiay lugan
= “to those vehicles”). The most diverse determiner systems are found among northern Philippine languages and
CONTENT AND PEADGOGY FOR THE MOTHER TONGUE MCJL
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some Negrito languages, while the simplest are found in the south, such as Cotabato Manobo, Tboli, and Blaan
(Reid & Liao 2004). Commonalities and differences among Philippine languages are exhibited in many more
features of their syntax. See Reid & Liao (2004) and their follow-up monograph for a thorough characterization of
Philippine verb clauses (transitive and intransitive), verbal complementation structures, existential verbal
structures, causative structures, topicalized constructions, noun phrase structure, clause combinations, negation
systems, and more. In the introduction of the 2004 paper, the authors comment, “despite considerable overlap in
syntax and morphology, there is a wide range of typological variety found among the more than one hundred
Philippine languages.”

Learning Activity

1.Write a short essay in MT (you can choose your on topic)

References

F:/MTB%20SOURCES%20FROM%20DOC%20RICKY/PhilEdData_Languages%20and%20Literacy%20%20Report%20(1).pdf

CONTENT AND PEADGOGY FOR THE MOTHER TONGUE MCJL