Republic of the Philippines

BACOLOD CITY COLLEGE

Taculing Road, Bacolod City, 6100, Email:a.bacolodcitycollege@yahoo.com
Taculing Campus, (034)707-7469, Sum-ag Campus,(034) 704-5843,
Fortune Towne Campus,(034) 704-5844
Tel #: (034) 707-7469

TEACHER EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

Second Semester/A.Y. 2020-2021

COURSE SYLLABUS
(Second Module – Part 1)
Week 4 – Week 6

Course Code: MTB-MLE Instructor: Melito A. Samodio Jr, LPT, MEd RLL
Course Title: Content and Pedagogy for the Mother Tongue Class: BEED-2B, BEED-2A
Course Description: This course includes both the content and the pedagogy of the mother
tongue. The subject matter content includes the structure of the mother tongue as a language,
literature in the mother tongue, methods, and techniques of teaching the language, development
of instructional materials, and assessment.

I. Overview:
This learning material was designed and developed to assist pre-service teachers and students taking up Bachelor in Elementary Education and help them achieve the
specified standards set by Commission on Higher Education for them to become competent elementary social studies teachers. This material aims to help students achieve all
the competencies and standards at their own pace and time.
Most of the content was just borrowed from different books, materials and websites. They were adapted and compiled for educational purposes and the author of this
module doesn’t claim ownership over them.

II. Topic: Understanding Language and Multilingualism

General Objective: This module will define language, its origin and functions. It will provide information about the building blocks of grammar: phonology, morphology,
syntax, semantics and its example in Philippine setting. Characteristics of multilingualism; sociolinguistic features of Philippines will also be discussed in this module. It will
include an explanation of DepEd Order No. 16 s. 2012 in multilingual areas.
At the end of this module the students will be able to:
1. Manifest meaningful comprehensive pedagogical content knowledge of mother-tongue.
2. Demonstrate understanding and appreciation to the value of MTB-MLE to human lives and society.
3. Differentiate the basic concepts and terminologies relating to language and linguistics.
4. Identify the major subfields of linguistics.
5. Compare the multilingual context of the Philippines to other settings.
III. Discussion:
A. Understanding Language
The Philippines is a multilingual society with more than 180 distinct native languages. Most Filipinos are bilingual, trilingual, or quadrilingual and beyond.
Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) is the utilization of more than two languages for the purpose of literacy and instruction. It starts from
“where the learners are and from what they already know” (Nolasco, 2018). It involves learning to read and write and think in one’s first language or L1, and also teaching
Mathematics, Science, Health and Social Studies in the said L1.
The Nature of Human Language
 Human language is generative, which means that it can communicate an infinite number of ideas from a finite number of parts.
 Human language is recursive, which means that it can build upon itself without limits.
 Human language uses displacement, which means that it can refer to things that are not directly present.
 The origins of human language are disputed because there is a lack of direct evidence.
 Proto-Indo-European is the ancestor language of hundreds of languages today.
 Language is a defining feature that distinguishes human beings. Although other animals have their own way of communicating, our language is still more complex,
creative, and more advance.
 Communication in both animals and humans consists of signals. Signals are sounds or gestures that have meaning to those using them.
 Human communication consists of both signals and symbols. Symbols are sounds, gestures, material objects, or written words that have specific meaning to a group of
people.
 Key differences between human communication and that of other primates are that (1) humans have an open vocal system while other primates have a closed vocal
system, and (2) humans have a larger bank of symbols to use in communication.
 Language is the primary medium of human communication and interaction and is an integral part in the development of culture and societies.
 Language is a distinct human trait and is embedded into human being’s physiology, cognition and thought processes.
Linguistics, the scientific study of language deals with the description of different but interrelated phenomena involved with language: its structure and use. Linguists
are the persons who study this highly sophisticated phenomenon in the existence of humanity, differ in their approaches and understanding about language:
1. B. F. Skinner believed children learn language through operant conditioning —that children receive “rewards” for using language in a functional manner.
2. Noam Chomsky’s theory states that children have the innate biological ability to learn language; however, his theory has not been supported by genetic or
neurological studies.
3. Jean Piaget’s theory of language development suggests that children use both assimilation and accommodation to learn language.
4. Lev Vygotsky’s theory of language development focused on social learning and the zone of proximal development (ZPD).
Damage to any of the areas of the brain involved in language development, such as through illness or stroke, can result in problems with language and comprehension.
 Formalist like Chomsky argued for a Universal Grammar or the innate ability of the brain to acquire the language and proposed that there exist a “linguistic acquisition
device” which supplies the child with the basic principles of grammar. Grammatical structure of language reflects constraints on use and needs of users. Functionalist theories
of grammar view language as a “product of more cognitive abilities that are also used in non-linguistic activities” and just as a product of a specialized mental device.
In 1960, the linguistic anthropologist Charles Francis Hockett conducted a pioneering featural study of language. In the study, he listed 13 design features that he
deemed to be universal across the world’s languages. More importantly, these features distinguished human language from animal communication. While the first 9 features
could also match primate communications, the last 4 were solely reserved for human language. Later on, Hockett added another 3 features that he saw as unique to human
language. Thus, it can be said that human language share a general set of features that help set it apart from communication among animals.

1. Vocal-Auditory Channel
With the exception of signed languages, natural language is vocally transmitted by speakers as speech sounds and auditorily received by listeners as speech waves.
Although writing and sign language both utilize the manual-visual channel, the expression of human language primarily occurs in the vocal-auditory channel.
2. Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception
Language signals (i.e. speech sounds) are emitted as waveforms, which are projected in all directions (‘broadcasted into auditory space’), but are perceived by receiving
listeners as emanating from a particular direction and point of origin (the vocalising speaker).
3. Transitoriness
Language signals are considered temporal as sound waves rapidly fade after they are uttered; this characteristic is also known as rapid fading. In other words, this
temporal nature of language signals requires humans to receive and interpret speech sounds at their time of utterance, since they are not subsequently recoverable.
4. Interchangeability
Humans can transmit and receive identical linguistic signals, and so are able to reproduce any linguistic message they understand. This allows for the interlocutory roles
of ‘speaker’ and ‘listener’ to alternate between the conversation’s participants via turn taking within the context of linguistic communication.
5. Total Feedback
Humans have an ability to perceive the linguistic signals they transmit i.e. they have understanding of what they are communicating to others. This allows them to
continuously monitor their actions and output to ensure they are relaying what they are trying to express.
6. Specialization
Language signals are emitted for the sole purpose of communication, and not any other biological functions such as eating. In other words, language signals are
intentional, and not just a side effect of another behaviour.
Contrasting example: Biological functions which may have a communicative side effect: such as a panting dog which hangs out its tongue to cool off (biological), may
simultaneously indicate to its owner that it is feeling hot or thirsty (communicative).
7. Semanticity
Specific language signals represent specific meanings; the associations are ‘relatively fixed’. An example is how a single object is represented by different language
signals i.e. words in different languages. In French, the word sel represents a white, crystalline substance consisting of sodium and chlorine atoms. Yet in English, this same
substance is represented by the word salt.
Likewise, the crying of babies may, depending on circumstance, convey to its parent that it requires milk, rest or a change of clothes.
8. Arbitrariness
There is no intrinsic or logical connection between the form of specific language signals and the nature of the specific meanings they represent. Instead, the signal and
the meaning are linked by either convention or instinct.
Contrasting example: Conveyance of aggression in crabs – strongly threatened crabs express their potential intention to fight by raising their front claw, which is partially iconic
given that crabs use their craw pincers to attack prey and defend against predators.
9. Discreteness
Language signals are composed of basic units and are perceived as distinct and individuated. These units may be further classified into distinct categories. These basic
units can be put in varying order to represent different meanings. The change in meaning is abrupt, and rarely continuous.
10. Displacement
Displacement also includes prevarication, which is the ability to lie or produce utterances which do not correspond with reality. Language signals may be used to
convey ideas about things not physically or temporally present at the time of the communicative event such as a topic that is linked to the past or future.
11. Productivity
Productivity is also called openness or creativity. It entails reflexiveness, the ability of language to be used to talk about language. Humans can use language to
understand and produce an indefinite number of novel utterances.
12. Cultural Transmission
Although humans are born with the innate ability to learn language, they learn (a) particular linguistic system(s) as their native language(s) from elders in their
community. In other words, language is socially transmitted from one generation to the next, and a child reared in isolation does not acquire language.
13. Duality of Patterning
The discrete speech sounds of a language combine to form discrete morphological units, which do not have meaning in itself. These morphemes have to be further
combine to form meaningful words and sentences.

Languages of the World and their Classification

Ethnologue, 16th edition listed 7, 102 living languages spoken by around 7 billion people in the world (Ethnologue, 2015). There are 141 different language families and six
of these standout as the major language families, comprising the 5% of the worlds languages. The table below shows the six major language families of the world.

Language Family Living Languages Number of Speakers

Afro-Asiatic 366 380, 821, 999
Austronesian 1, 223 323, 456, 908
Indo-European 1, 524 436, 814, 956
Sino-Tibetan 453 1, 268, 181, 584
Trans-New Guinea 476 3, 540, 024
Total 4, 479 5, 326, 390, 851
The Study of Human Language
Linguistics deals with human language, including deaf sign-languages. It is “highly diverse and interdisciplinary field” dealing with the concrete “details of physical
acoustics to abstract logical argument, from concise grammatical structure to rich observations on culture and society.” As a field of study, it has different subfields, each of
which is concerned with particular elements of language.
1. Phonetics, the study of how sounds are made, how they are classified, how they combine and interact with each other, and how they are perceived.
2. Phonology, the study of organization and structure of sounds, their distribution and conventions.
3. Morphology, the study of how words are formed.
 4. Syntax, the study of organization of words into sentences and how these sentences are understood.
5. Semantics, the study of meaning of language.
6. Pragmatics, the study of meaning and how it can be interpreted in context.

Defining Grammar
Grammar means:
a. The mental grammar that speakers have in their brains.
b. The model or description of this mental grammar.
To say that a sentence is grammatical means that it follows the rules of both grammars; conversely, an ungrammatical sentence does not conform to these rules.
There are two (2) types of grammar.
1. Descriptive grammar describes the basic linguistic knowledge of a speaker/hearer, how language is used and not how it should be used. It is the aim of
linguistics to provide a formal statement (theory) of the speaker’s grammar.
2. Prescriptive grammar describes how a language should or ought to be used. It tells the speakers how they should speak and what rules should they follow i.e.
English’s Don’t split infinitives, Tagalog d and r alternation, etc. From a linguistic point of view, this type of grammar is bound to fail; language is constantly
changing. Writing, however, is a different case it t follows certain prescriptive rules of grammar, usage and style that do not apply to spoken language.

Describing Speech Sounds

Phonetics deals with the sounds of the spoken language. It is the study of the physical production of speech. When describing speech sounds, the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a standardized set of phonetic symbols designed to represent the speech sounds of oral language is used. The use of standard symbol is crucial
because spelling systems of most languages are ambiguous and inconsistent in the depiction of identical sounds.
 Articulatory phonetics describes mechanisms involved in the production of sounds, the organs involved in producing different speech sounds and the classification of
sounds articulated by human beings. Speech sounds can be classified into two major categories: consonants and vowels.
Consonants are described in terms of three dimensions; the place where the sound is articulated, the manner of that is produced, and the voicing. Voicing is
determined by the vibration of the vocal folds. Speech sounds are voiced if they are produced when the vocal folds are vibrating and voiceless when the vocal folds are
apart. For example, the [b] sound is voiced while the [p] sound is voiceless.

The place of articulation refers to a point where an articulator (usually some part of the tongue and lips) comes in contact with a location (typically part of the vocal
tract).

Places of Articulation
1. Bilabial – sounds are produced by the narrowing or complete closure of the lips. Example [p, b, m, f, v, w].
2. Labiodental – sounds involve the upper teeth and the lower lip. Example [f, v]
3. Interdental – sounds are made by sticking the tip of the tongue between the upper and the lower teeth. Example th in thin, and th in the.
4. Alveolar – sounds are produced when the front of the tongue is raised to the alveolar ridge. Example [t, d, n, s, z]
5. Post-alveolar/Alveopalatal – sounds which involve the area just behind the alveolar ridge. Example sh in ship, and s in pleasure.
6. Retroflex – sounds are made by curling the tongue tip backward, and touching the area behind the alveolar ridge. Example r in red
7. Palatal – sounds involve the contact with the roof of the mouth in the center of the hard palate. Example, the Tagalog y in yelo.
8. Velar – sounds are produced by the contact of the tongue and the soft palate or velum. Example, in Hiligaynon [k, g] and ng in kasing-kasing.
9. Uvular – sounds are made by moving the tongue straight back to touch the uvula and some part of the palate. Example is the “r” sound in French.
10. Pharyngeal – sounds are produced by moving the tongue down back into the pharynx. Example is the glottal stop represented by the dash in pag-ibig and h in himala.
11. Glottal – sounds involve only the larynx.

Manner of Articulation
1. Stop – complete closure of the vocal tract. Example [p, b, t, d, k, g] and the glottal stop.
2. Fricative – a constriction is made, tight enough to let the air pass through the mouth. Example [f, v] and th in thin, and th in the.
3. Sibilant Fricative – involves more complex mechanism of production: a stream of air is directed at the upper teeth creating noisy turbulent flow. Example sh in ship,
and s in pleasure and the letters [s, z].
4. Nasal – the airflow through the mouth is blocked, allowing air to escape through the nose. Example [m, n, m, ŋ].
5. Affricate – consist of a stop followed by a fricative, produced in rapid succession that it results in a typical duration of single speech sound. Example, the ch in church
and j in judge.
6. Tap or Flap – the tongue makes a rapid brush against a place of articulation; it is a flap if the motion of articulation is forward while it is a tap if the motion is
backward. Example is the tt in butter and d in rider.
7. Approximant – the constriction is fairly wide so the air passes through without creating turbulence or trilling.
8. Lateral Approximants – the air passes through the sides of the tongue. Example, in Tagalog/Masbatenyo [ l ] as in lipad/lupad.
9. Central Approximants – the flow is through a gap in the center. Example, the letter y in youth, w in win and r in ray.

Approximants are sometimes classified differently, according to their characteristic acoustic quality. The l-like and r-like sounds are called liquids while w and y are
referred as glides or semivowels.
 Vowels have no points of articulation; it is the whole vocal tract that serves as resonating chamber. When describing vowels, three modifications to vocal tract are to be
considered:
1. Rounding of lips [u and o are rounded vowels while i is unrounded.]
2. Height which refers to the widening or narrowing of the mouth. Vowels are classified as high, mid or low. They are also sometimes categorized as closed and open
vowels.
3. Frontness or backness, wherein the body of the tongue is placed towards the front of the mouth or towards the back.

Dipthongs
It is a sequence of two sounds: a vowel and a glide. Dipthongs occur in many languages, including the Philippine languages. The dipthongs in Tagalog are: [aw] in sabaw,
[iw] in agiw, [aj] in bahay, and [ʊj] or [ͻj] in baboy.

Suprasegmentals
Phonetic properties above the level of individual sounds (otherwise known as segments) are called suprasegmentals. This includes syllable, tone and intonation.

1. Syllable is defined as a linguistic grouping of segments that consist of a nucleus (or a peak), an onset, or a coda. The nucleus is the most prominent part of the syllable.
Consonants preceding the nucleus are called the onset within the syllable while consonants following the nucleus are called the coda. The most common syllable
patterns in Philippine languages are CV (open syllable) and CVC (closed syllable).
2. Stress can be defined as the relative prominence of different syllables in a word. It is characterized by duration (length), frequency (pitch) and intensity (loudness). In
Philippine languages, length is found to be the most consistent determinant of stress.
3. Tone, which is characterized by fundamental frequency (pitch), rather than stress, plays a more important role in distinguishing meaning between words. Tone
languages include: Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Hopi and Cherokee in North America among others.
4. Intonation refers to the changes in fundamental frequency that occurs in a phrase or utterance. Changes in intonation convey different meaning as in the case of
declarative and interrogative sentences.

The Study of Sound Patterns

Phonology is the study of the patterns of sounds in a language and across languages. Put more formally, phonology is the study of the categorical organization of speech
sounds in languages; how speech sounds are organized in the mind and used to convey meaning. Phonology can be related to many linguistic disciplines, including
psycholinguistics, cognitive science, sociolinguistics and language acquisition. Principles of phonology can also be applied to treatments of speech pathologies and innovations
in technology.
Phonology is concerned with the abstract, whereas phonetics is concerned with the physical properties of sounds. In phonetics we can see infinite realizations, for example
every time you say a ‘p’ it will slightly differ than the other times you’ve said it. However, in phonology all productions are the same sound within the language’s phoneme
inventory, therefore even though every ‘p’ is produced slightly different every time, the actual sound is the same. This highlights a key difference between phonetic and
phonology as even though no two ‘p’s are the same, they represent the same sound in the language.

Phonemes are the meaningfully different sound units in a language (the smallest units of sound). For example, ‘pat’ and ‘bat’ differ in their first phoneme: the “p” and “b”.
Vowels are also phonemes, so “pat” and “pet” differ by a phoneme, too (But phonemes don’t always match up with spelling!). When two words differ by a single phoneme they
are known as a minimal pair.
 Allophones are different ways to pronounce a phoneme based on its environment in a word. For example, the two allophones of /l/ in “little” are actually produced slightly
differently, and the second one sounds slightly deeper. This different “l” s always occur in different environments in words, which is known as “complementary distribution”.

Phonological Processes
Different phonological processes usually trigger allophonic and allomorphic variation. Below are some common phonological processes in spoken languages:

1. Assimilation, when one sound becomes like that of another sound. Example:
Pang + paaralan = pampaaralan sing + dumi = sindumi
2. Palatalization, a subtype of assimilation in which a velar or alveolar consonants is pronounced in the palatal region when adjacent to a high vowel, e.g.
bet you as betcha, did you as didja.
3. Dissimilation occurs when a sound become less like another sound e.g. English February as Feb [j] uary.
4. Metathesis, when two sounds are reordered.Example [ -in- + lipad = nilipad ] [ -in- + yaya = niyaya]
5. Deletion, the loss of sound, e.g. the loss of final /n/ in hymn.
6. Insertion (or Epenthesis), occurs when a vowel is inserted between two consonants, e.g. in the formation of past tense and plural forms in English bat >
batted, glass > glasses.
7. Fortition, the strengthening of a sound, e.g. flapping of English /t/ and /d/.
8. Vowel reduction, conversion of unstressed vowels to more schwa-like allophones, e.g. second vowel in emphasis.
9. Gemination, occurs when the consonant sound is doubled, e.g. quiz+s = quizzes.
Speech Sounds in Philippine Languages
Most Philippine languages have fewer than 18 consonants and have three to four native vowels. The most common consonant sounds are [p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, ŋ, l, r, w,
s, h, Ɂ]. The most common inventory of vowels in Philippine languages are [a, i, ʊ, ǝ]. Consonant clusters are non-native to Philippine phonology and are found mostly in
loan words.
Speech Rhythm
One of the most notable characteristics that differs Philippine languages from English is the speech rhythm. English is a stress-timed language, wherein intervals
between stresses are said to be of equal length. On the contrary, Tagalog and other Philippine languages, is syllable-timed in which successive syllables are of near-equal
length.
Orthography
Every language has its own: a) set of segmental sounds (vowels and consonants); b) non-segmental features (e.g. pitch, loudness, length); c) syllable structure; d) sound
distribution constraints. A writing system, called orthography, is needed to represent a sound system in order to allow readers or speakers of the language to reconstruct
linguistic messages on the basis of written signs. Most Philippine languages employs alphabetical writing system in which basic units are letters which corresponds to the
phonemes of the language. Nolasco (2012) noted that a working orthography is not the standardized version of the language rather the embodiment of all spelling
conventions used and decided on by language users for official and academic purposes.

The Morphosyntax of Philippine Languages

 Morphology is the sub-branch of linguistics that deals with the description of how words are formed and the principles governing the way words are put together.
Syntax, on the other hand, is the study of organization of words into sentences and how these sentences are understood. The study of grammar is the combination of
morphology and syntax, also known as morphosyntax.
The Morphosyntax of World’s Languages
The letters S, A and O are used by linguistics to identify core grammatical relations. The term “argument” is used to refer to the participants and their semantic
roles/relations that are normally associated with a given verb or predicate. It is a term for nouns that linguists use in describing morphosyntax.
S refers to the only core nominal argument of a clause with only one argument (also called intransitive) clause. A is defined as the most agentive argument (the entity
that is the source of the action expressed by the verb) of a clause with more than one arguments (also referred to as transitive) clause. O is the most patientive argument (the
entity that is most affected by the action) of the transitive clause. The alignment of S, A and O in basic sentence types is useful in determining the fundamental difference
between two major language patterns.
In accusative/nominative system, S and A are marked the same and O is marked differently while in ergative/absolutive system, it is the S and O that receives similar
case marking and A is marked differently. De Guzman (1988) and Nolasco (2003) proposed that Philippine languages can be classified as an ergative language. In contrast,
English is an accusative language.
The Internal Structure of the Word
Morpheme is considered the smallest unit that expresses meaning. Morphemes combine to form a word. A morpheme can be classified as a “bound morpheme” which
must be attached to some other morpheme in order to be integrated into discourse and “free morpheme” like the root word does not need to be attached to some other form
to express their meaning, e.g. Bicolano ma- + diklom (darkness) = madiklom (dark). In the example ma- is the bound morpheme and diklom is the free morpheme. A word
in Philippine languages may consist of or can be:
(a) a root, e.g. Surigaonon daya ‘to bring,’ Ilocano bigat ‘morning.’
(b) a stem, a root with one or more affixes; e.g. Masbatenyo maraut ‘ugly’, Waray maupay ‘good’
(c) a particle, e.g. Romblomanon agod ‘so that’

Deriving New Words

New words can be derived through the process of inflection and derivation. Inflection is the process of making new words through affixation or adding an affix to a
root word to express grammatical contrast. Derivation is the process that derives a new category from the original form. Philippine languages employ the following
operations in deriving new words:
1. Affixation, is when an affix is attached to a root or an intermediate stem; e.g. Masbatenyo sugba + -in > sinugba ‘smoked fish’
2. Reduplication, repetition of word or part of word to form new word; e.g., Masbatenyo baruto + PWr reduplication > baru-baruto ‘mini boat’
3. Stress shift, e.g., Masbatenyo báyad ‘pay’ > bayád ‘paid’
Grammatical Categories in Philippine Languages
Words can be categorized as lexical (content) words and non-lexical (function) words. They are further categorized in terms of their membership to grammatical categories,
also known as word classes. In Philippine languages, the major grammatical categories are nouns, verbs, modifiers (adjectives and adverbs), determiners, linkers, and
conjunctions.
1. Nouns and Noun Phrases
Noun conveys ideas of referents, e.g., people, object, abstractions. A noun can be simple or derived. It is simple or unmarked if it is only composed of root and
derived if it consists of a root plus affixes. Nouns can also be classified as proper nouns, which are used to address and identify particular person or places and common
nouns, which are used to refer general things, concept, class or entity. Nouns also distinguish themselves because of the roles they play in relations to action or activity.
These roles are called semantic roles and they are as follows:
 Nouns are easily identifiable because they are usually accompanied by grammatical markers, called determiners. Their functions in Philippine languages differ from
that of English whose function is restricted to indicating whether an entity is definite or indefinite. Philippine determiners function to instantiate noun and establish them
as referential.
2. Verbs
Verbs are words that refer to events to which ideas of referents participate. In Philippine languages, verbs can be described as “dynamic verb” which expresses a
wide range of actions which may be physical (to run), mental (to ponder) or perceptual (to see), whereas a stative verb which purely expresses a state in which there is
no obvious action (to know, to believe, suppose etc.)
3. Modifiers
School grammar teaches us that words that modify nouns are called adjectives and those that modify verbs and non-nouns are called adverbs. English adverbs are
noted for their –ly affix. In Philippine languages, “adjectives” and “adverbs” are similar in form. Thus, the analysis followed here is to treat them as one word class,
called modifiers. Philippine modifiers can be bare or un affixed, e.g. Masbatenyo daan ‘old,’ Cebuano gamay ‘small or derived, e.g. Maguindanao malemeg ‘tall.
Philippine modifiers are inflected by means of affixes for four degrees of intensity: Maganda (basic), Mas maganda (comparative), Pinakamaganda (superlative) and
Napakaganda (intensive).
Adverbial properties in Masbatenyo are rather expressed by clitic particles such as na ‘already’, pa ‘still’, ngani ‘really’, etc.
4. Pronouns
In Philippine languages, pronoun replaces the full noun phrases in a clause. There are five important pronouns in Philippine languages: (1) personal pronouns
which refer to entities already mentioned in the discourse or known to the hearer; (2) demonstrative pronoun refer to entities in relation to distance, and space and also
refer to their location on a time line. They sometimes take the place of third personal pronouns; (3) interrogative pronouns are those that take place of the nouns in
questions; (4) indefinite pronouns refer to entities, persons, places or times which cannot be clearly established; (5) reflexive pronouns are used when a person or thing
is referring to the same person or thing. They usually end in –self or –selves.
5. Clitic Particles
Clitic particles constitute a group that adds meaning to the predicate or a part of the sentence. The example of clitics and their classifications in Tagalog are as
follows:
 Class 1: na ‘already,’ pa ‘still’
 Class 2: man ‘even’
 Class 3a: ba ‘question marker,’ din ‘too,’ kasi ‘because,’ ho/po ‘politeness marker,’ lamang ‘only,’ nga ‘really,’
 Class 3b: daw ‘reportedly,’ muna ‘for a while,’ naman ‘instead,’
 Class 4: kaya ‘speculation marker,’ pala ‘surprise marker,’ sana ‘hopefully,’ tuloy ‘as a result,’ yata ‘uncertainty marker,’
6. Linkers
Linkers are words which connects words, phrases and sentences into larger constructions. The linkers in Philippine languages usually are: na/nga/a, which is used to
connect words, phrases and clauses while ka, which is used in some languages to connect numerical expressions to the entity it modifies.
7. Conjunctions
Conjunctions are connector words such as at ‘and,’ ngunit ‘but,’ kung ‘if,’ kahit ‘even,’ upang/para ‘in order to,’ which can also be considered as linkers in the
sense that they link one clause to another. There are two major classifications of conjoining: coordination and subordination conjunctions. Coordination is a process
which combines similar types of constructions into larger units and still has the same semantic relations with other surrounding elements. Subordination connects two
unequal clauses which involve part-whole relationship.
8. Clause Structure
 A clause is the basic unit in discourse for accomplishing the ends of communication. It consists of at least a predicate (usually a verb) and an entity (noun). Unmarked
clauses are simple declarative clauses that the sole function is to state an idea or transmit information. Marked clauses are used in specialized contexts. They may exhibit
variant intonation (as in questions), word order (as in focus or cleft constructions), or clause structure (as in relative clauses).
Philippine languages are typically predicate-initial, as opposed to the predicate-medial basic word order of English. That is, in pragmatically neutral declarative clauses,
the verb appear first, followed by nominal arguments (nouns or pronouns). For example:
Kakain ako (Tagalog) I will eat (English)

Language Change
Language change gradually. Certain changes may be introduced first as an optional rule (e.g. colloquial terms, coinage, word manufacturer, etc.) by any speaker of the
language and spread gradually through an entire speech community. A basic cause of language change is the way children acquire the language. Each child constructs a
personal grammar on his/her own, which he/she derives from a diverse linguistic input. Another possible source is assimilation, a process of ease of articulation, in which one
sound influences the articulation of the nearby sound. Economy of memory, also called analogic change, which results in a reduction of irregular morphemes that must be
learned also contributes to language change. Other factor includes: simplification of grammar, elaboration to maintain intelligibility, borrowing, etc.

The Philippine Linguistic Situation

The term “Philippine language” has been used ambiguously in literature. It is used to refer either to “any language native to the Philippines, without regard to its genetic
affiliation” or to “any member of a putative subgroup of Austronesian languages located in the Philippine islands.” Philippine language belongs to the Western Malayo-
Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, the largest existing language family in terms of the number of its member languages. Philippine languages can be
further classified into microgroups: Bashiic, Cordilleran, Central Luzon, Inati, Kalamian, Bilic, South Mangyan, Palawanic, Central Philippines, Manobo, Danaw, Subanun,
Sangiric, Minahasan, Gorontalo-Mongondow. Our language Hiligaynon belongs to the Bisayan Complex under the Central Philippines group.

Language versus Dialect

Language, a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed), or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its
culture, express themselves. It is purely human and no. instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires. Dialect, on the other hand, is a form of a language
which is peculiar to a specific region or social group. There are two kinds of criteria that are used to distinguish language from dialects. Generally, a language is written as well
as spoken, while dialects are mostly spoken, unofficial, and associated with groups lacking in prestige.
Linguists, however, use different criteria. If speakers of two speech varieties can have a conversation and understand each other, they are using “dialects” of a single
language. In contrast, if speakers of the two speech varieties converse and do not understand each other; they are using two distinct languages. This criterion is called mutual
intelligibility. Another measure for distinguishing a language from a dialect is grammar. If the speech variety has different grammar, then it is different language. There are
186 distinct living languages in the Philippines, including the Filipino Sign Language (SFL), according to the latest edition of Ethnologue (2015). Of these, 182 are living and 4
are extinct. Of the living languages, 41 are institutional, 72 are developing, 46 are vigorous, 13 are in trouble, and 10 are dying.

V. Assessment/Self-check Test

Direction: Write a paragraph in response to the following questions. Your answer can be written in English, Filipino, or your mother tongue (optional). Write your
answer in a short size bond paper.
 1. In your opinion, is Linguistics as a field of study relevant in solving the pertinent issues in the country? Why? Why not?
2. How can the scientific study of language help promote and advance the use of the Philippine languages in education, business and mass media?
3. What are the benefits/advantages of knowing the details of linguistic structures and understanding the nature of human language?
4. There are still some unresolved issues in the field of linguistics. Please identify some of these issues and suggest ways to address them

VII. References
Young, C., et al., (2016). Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education: Guide for Teacher Educators and Students. Quezon City, Metro Manila. Lorimar Publishing,
Inc.

http://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/phonology/#:~:text=Phonology%20is%20the%20study%20of,and%20used%20to%20convey
%20meaning.
https://linguistics.ucsc.edu/about/what-is-linguistics.html
https://ielanguages.com/what-is-linguistics.html#:~:text=Every%20human%20knows%20at%20least,finite%2C%20but%20sentences%20are%20not.&text=When%20you
%20know%20a%20language,are%20related%20to%20specific%20meanings.