THE GRAMMAR OF THE PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE

Learning to speak the Filipino language of Tagalog is a good idea for many people. It is a
popular language in the United States, and many travel to the Philippines for business
and recreation. Of course, you want to make sure that you are speaking correctly, and
that means that you have to pay attention to Filipino grammar. Even though the subject
of proper grammar is enough to make many eyes roll, it is not as difficult to learn as you
might think. By taking small steps toward learning grammar, it is going to make
understanding and speaking the language correctly all that easier.

 Evidence from Philippine languages suggests a number of modifications in the theory of case
grammar.
 It is well known that these languages and adjacent related languages mark the case
relationship between the verb and one noun phrase in the sentence by a particle on the NP
and an affix on the verb. In recent studies this has been called focus.
 In The Case for Case Fillmore incorporated focusing into his general theory of case grammar.
In discussing Maranao (spoken in the southern Philippines) he states the following:

"One NP is chosen as topic for every sentence, and this choice is recorded in the following way: its
original case preposition (in Fillmore its sense) is replaced by (the focusing marker), and an affix is
inserted into the verb which indicates the case category of the chosen NP.

 The focused NP is definite. Pronouns have their own focused forms, and personal names have
a special focusing particle. Some languages, such as Tagalog, haves, single focusing particle for
all other nouns. Other languages, such as Bikol, have two focusing particles for other nouns;
one definite and the other anaphoric.

Let us start by looking at sentences in which the focused NP is the agent. Other case relations are
typically handled by two other particles or markers, one for objects and adnominal functions, and the
other for all other case relations; dative, instrumental, etc. though there are Philippine languages
which split up the latter cases. Pronouns and personal names cannot be objects of agentive verbs;
they are always in a dative relationship to these verbs.

 In the examples to be given below, the verb will be perfective aspect unless otherwise noted.
The focused NP will be underlined.

In Tagalog, the objects of agentive verbs are indefinite.

TAG

1.) B-um-ili sya nang damit.

Buy-A F,A O-clothing
‘ He bought some clothing’.
The non-focus, non-objective cases are handled by sa or a phrase containing sa.

TAG

2.) sa akin ‘from me’.

Para sa akin ‘for me.’

In some other languages, non-focus object particles: indefinite and definite

 Non-focus object particles – occurring in subordinate clauses may follow various particles or
occur sentence initially without a preceding particle.
 Indefinite – a pronoun which does not have special familiar ferment.
 Definite – evidence or information is true, rather than being someone opinion or guess.

WARAY

3.) P-um-alit hiya hin bugas.

Buy-A F,A O- rice
‘He bought some rice.’
4.) P-um-alit hiya han bugas.
‘He bought the rice.’

Bikol appears to have three such objective particles: 'indefinite',definite' and 'anaphoric'.

 ANAPHORIC- a word or phrase that refers to an earlier word or phrase.

Philippine languages have three other types of focus. The agents of all such sentences are identical in
form to adnominal or genitive forms.

The first type largely focuses on Fillmore's objective and Factitive. I will call these all 0 below. In the
UCLA-Integration of Transformational Theories of English Syntax3 this is called NEUTRAL: The case
associated most closely with the verb itself, and least interpretable independently of the verb.

TAGALOG

5.) B – in – ili nya ang damit.

Buy-A -F,A F- clothing

‘He bought the clothing.’

BIKOL

6.) Pig-bakal nya ang batag.

He bought the banana
7.) Pig-bakal nya si batag.
Id (anaphoric)

In addition to such obvious objective cases. This focus also occurs for the end point of a motion.

BIK

8.) luwas -un mu sya.

 Imp-go out- O -F,A F-he

‘Go out to him’.

9.)abut-un mu yan.

Imp-reach-O -F,A F-that ‘Reach out for that’

The agent of the embedded verb in a causative sentence is also focused on with the objective focus
since it is the object of the higher verb-- the causative.

BIKOL

10.)-pa-kakan ku siya kan batag.

Caus-eat-O -F,A F-me O-banana
‘I had him eat the banana.
11.) Nag-pa-kakan aku kan batag saiya.
Caus-eat-A F O-banana b-him
‘ I had him eat the banana.’

TAGALOG

12.) I-p-in-utul nya nang kahoy ang kampit.

Cut-I/B -F,A O-wood F-axe
‘He cut wood with the axe.

BIKOL

13.) I-pig-surat nya an lapis na iyan.

Write-I/B F-pencil that
‘He wrote with that pencil.

WARAY

14.) P-in-alit ku hiya hin bagas

Buy-I/B -F,A F,A O-rice
‘I bought some rice for him.’

TAGALOG

15.) I-p-in-utul nya ako nang tubo.

Cut-I/B -F,A F-me O- s-c
He cut some sugar cane for me.

The third type of non-agentive focus covers a wide variety of locative and dative relations as well as
other types to be discussed below.

BIKOL

16.)T-in-aqw-an nya aku ng libro.

He gave me a book.
To some extent there are universal verb classes in terms of which cases they occur with. Another
underlying case, associative, is suggested, but it maybe entirely predictable from these verb classes
and other grammatical categories much causative.

 'In the spelling of Philippine words in this paper, k is used instead

of the older c and qu; g instead of gu before i, e; w instead of consonantal u before a vowel; i for
initial y before a consonant; but with these exceptions it has seemed best to retain the traditional
orthography. As in most of the languages the accent of words is not given, the accent marks have
been omitted throughout, except where they indicate a deference in meaning, and in the case of
A and ' in Tagalog, which indicate a final glottal catch (cf. below, p. 335). For the reformed
spelling in Tagalog, cf. the foot-notes to my paper, The Expression Case by the Verb in Tagalog,
in this volume of the Journal. The languages of the Negritos, the diminutive black people who
live in scattered tribes in the interior mountain ranges of the larger islands, and who are probably
the remnant of the aborigines of the Archipelago, are said by certain Spanish authorities (cf. El
Archipelago Filipino, Washington, 1900, vol, 1, p.229;Lacalle y Sanchez, razes del archipelago
Filipino, Manila, 1886, p. 246) to be entirely different from those of the other inhabitants of the
islands. These authorities stat furthermore that the idioms of all the Negritos practically
constitute one language, and that this language is of monosyllabic structure as opposed to the
dissyllabic structure of the Malay tongues How- ever true this may have been originally, at the
present day it is certain that those Negritoes dialects about which anything is known are very
similar in vocabulary and grammatical structure to the other Philip-
pine languages. It is probable. however, that the Negritos have in such
cases more or less completely adopted the languages of the neighboring
Malay tribes (cf. A. B. Meyer, Die Philippine, II. Negritos, Dresden,
1893 (Kbnigl. ethnogr. Museum zu Dresden.

Sentence Structure

A simple sentence in the language is going to have at least a subject and a verb. You will
find that the sentence structure is opposite from what you would find in English. In the
Filipino language, the verb or predicate actually comes after the subject. For example,
the phrase Sheila is you, or Si Sheila ka, is correct. The predicate could be a verb,
adjective, noun, or prepositional phrase.

When you write Filipino sentences, you will find that the pattern becomes subject and
then predicate instead. You will use this most often in formal writing, and one can use it
when speaking. This is an inverted form, but many who are learning the language find
that it is useful because it is more similar to English. This is also a formal way of
speaking in the language, and it is a correct form of Filipino grammar.
Tenses and Verbs

Speakers will soon find that tenses and Filipino verbs are very important to the language,
and it is important to make sure that you know the different tenses and how to use the
verbs correctly with different tenses. You will have present, past, and future tenses, and
variations based on different situations just as you would with other languages.

Filipino grammar does not have to be as difficult as some make it out to be.
Taking your learning slowly and finding ways to compare and contrast the
differences with English can help you learn and gain knowledge so you can speak
the language fluently.

REPORTED BY:
TOCA, MARIA FE B.