CHAPTER 2

UNDERSTANDING
LANGUAGE
 INTRODUCTION

The Philippines is a multilingual society with more that 180

distinct native languages. Most Filipinos are bilingual,
trilingual, or quadrilngual and beyond. Filipinos that are
monolingual, i.e. can only use one language, are very rare.
With the passage of the Republic Act 10533, also known as
the “Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013” or the K to 12
Law, these languages are given the opportunity to be utilized
and developed as media of instruction and languages of
literacy by their users and speakers, alongside English and
Filipino.
 Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTBMLE)

MTBMLE 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, 2008)

It involves learning to read and write and think in one’s

first language or L1 (Cebuano, Tagalog, Ilocano, Waray, etc.),
and also teaching mathematics, Science, Health and Social
Studies in the said L1 (Nicolas, 2008).
 This chapter will help readers learn about the
salient features of Philippine languages, such as
their grammar, so that they can develop a firmer
and deeper understanding of their mother tongue
and other languages.

This chapter also discuss how many Philippine

languages exist, how they are classified with
respect to all the world’s language, how they can be
further sub classified into smaller groups, and what
languages in the Philippines are endangered.
 1 NATURE OF HUMAN LANGUAGE

Language is defining feature that distinguishes

human beings among other species.

Language plays a vital role in the human

existence as a primary medium for communication
and interaction and is an integral part in the
development of cultures and societies, language, a
distinctly human trait, is embedded into human being’s
physiology, cognition and thought processes.
 Linguistic – the scientific study of language, deals with
the description of different but interrelated phenomena
involved with language; its structure and use.

Linguist - who mainly study this highly sophisticated

phenomenon in the existence of humanity, differ in their
approaches and understandings of this concept and often
offer different and incompatible definitions.
They view language as: A Social Fact (Saussure 1969), a
mental entity (Pinker, 1995), a set of structures ( Chomsky,
1957), a systems (Meillet, 1903 in Baucer, 2007), or a tool for
communication (Buhler, 1934).
 Chomsky argued for a Universal Grammar, an
innate ability of the human brain to acquire language and
proposed that there exist a “linguistic acquisition device”
which supplies the child with the basic principles of
grammar.

In contrast with the formalist approaches proposed by

Chomsky and his followers, the functional theories of
grammar, views language as “product of more cognitive
abilities that are also used in non-linguistic activities” and
not just as product of a specialized mental device
(Bybee, 1998)
 Table 1: Eight Design Features of Languages ( Brown et al, 2014)

Double Articulation Language uses a small number of sounds(less than 50 in

most languages) that are combined to produce a large,
but infinite number of sentences.
Productivity Language can produce novel sentences that have never
been uttered before.
Arbitrariness There is no necessary connection between sound and
meaning: the meaning dog and the English word dog are
connected arbitrarily as proven by the existence of the
word chien in French, which roughly expresses the same
meaning.
Interchangeability An individual can both be a speaker and a hearer.
Displacement The differences between language units are of an all or
nothing kind; a sound cannot be heard as something in
between a b or p sound.
Specialization Speaking requires only limited part of the speaker’s
behavior/ attention and is independent of its context.
Cultural Not all aspects of language are innate; some are taught
transmission after birth and differ according to the culture the chid is
reared in.
1.1 Languages of the World and their Classification

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 stand out
as the major language families, comprising the 5% of the world
languages (Ethnologue, 2015).

Table 2: Six Major Language families of the world (Ethnologue, 2015)

Language Family Living Language 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
 2 The Study of Human Language

Linguistics deals with the human language, including deaf sign languages.
It is a “highly diverse and interdisciplinary field” dealing with the “concrete details of
physical acoustics to abstract logical argument, from concise grammatical structure to
rich observation on culture and society” (Genetti & Adelman, 2014)

ELEMENTS OF LANGUAGE

1. Phonetics – the study of how sound are made, how they are classified, how they are
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 or words into sentences and how they sentences are
understood.
5. Semantics – the study or meaning of language

6. Pragmatics – the study of meaning and how it can be interpreted in

context.

2.2 Defining Grammar

Grammar – In linguistic, the word grammar means (i) the mental grammar that
a speakers have in their brains and (ii) the Model or description of this
mental grammar.
Two Types of Grammar

Descriptive Grammar – describe the basic linguistic knowledge of a

speaker/ hearer, how language is used and not how it should be used.

Prescriptive Grammar – describes how a language should or ought to be

used. It tells the speakers how they should speak and what rules they
should follow.
 3. The Grammar Of Philippine Languages

3.1 Describing Speech Sounds

Phonetics – deals with the sounds of spoken language. It is the study

of how speech sounds are made, classified, combined with each other,
interact with each other when combined, and how they are perceived.

Articulatory Phonetics - describes mechanism involved in the

production of sounds, the organs involved in producing speech sounds
and the classifications of sounds articulated by human beings.
3.1.1 Consonant and Vowels

Consonants – are describe 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 sound are voiced if they are produced when the vocal folds are
vibrating and voiceless if they are produced when vocal folds are apart.
The [b] sound is voiced while [p] sound is voiceless.

Place of Articulation – refers to a point where an

articulation(usually some part of the tongue and lips) comes in contact
with a location (typically a part of the vocal tract).

Manner of Articulation – refers to the difference in the narrowness

of construction in the vocal tract, which affects the airflow, thus
producing different speech sound
 Table 4. Places of Articulation

Places of Description Examples

Articulation
Skip Complete closure of the vocal tract [p, b, t, d, k, g] and the
glottal stop
Fricative A constriction is made, tight enough to let the air English [f, v] th (IPA [O]) in
pass through the mouth thin, and th (IPA [O]) in the
Sibilant Fricative Involve more complex mechanism of production, a S, z]s, sh (IPA[J]) in ship,
stream of air is directed at the upper teeth, creating and s (IPA [3]) in pleasure
noisy turbulent flow

Nasal The airflow through the mouth is blocked, allowing air [m, n, m, n]
to escape through the nose
Affricate Consist of a stop followed by a fricative, produced in English ch (IPA[tɾɿ) in
rapid succession that it results in a typical duration of church and j (IPA[d3]) in
single speech sound judge

Tap or Flap The tongue makes a rapid brush against a place of English tt (IPA [r]) in butter
articulation; it is flap if the motion of articulation is and d in rider
forward while it is a tap if the motion is backward

Approximant The constriction is fairly wide so the air passes

through without creating turbulence or trilling
Lateral approximants The air passes through the sides of the tongue Tagalog/ masbatenyo [l] as
in lipad/lupad ‘to fly’
Central approximants The flow is through a gap in the center English y [j] in youth, w [w]
in win, ang r [ɻ] in ray
 Vowels- the whole vocal tract that serves a resonating chamber. When
describing vowels three modifications to the vocal tract are to be
considered:

 Rounding of lips – Tagalog [ʊ] and [ɔ] are rounded vowels while i [ɪ] is
unrounded
 Height – which refers to the widening or narrowing of the mouth.
Vowels are classified as high, mid or low, close and open vowels
 Frontness or backness – where in the body of the tongue is placed
towards the back.

3.1.2 Diphthongs

Diphthong – is a sequence of two sounds; a vowel and a glide

Diphthongs occur in many languages including
Philippine languages. ex. aw, iw
3.1.3 Suprasegmentals
Phonetic properties above the level of individual sounds are
called suprasegmentals. This include the syllable, stress, tone and
intonation.

Syllable – defined as a linguistic grouping of segments that

consist of a nucleus (or peak), an onset, or a coda.
Most languages make distinction of stress. 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 some language, tone which is characterized by fundamental
frequency (pitch) plays more important role in distinguishing meaning
between words. Tone languages include : Mandarin, Cantonese,
every other Chinese language, Thai… etc.
 Another suprasegmental which is present in all languages is the
intonation. Intonation refers to the changes in fundamental
frequency that occur in a phrase or utterance. Changes in intonation
convey different meaning as in the case of declarative and
interrogative sentences.

3.2 The Study of Sound Patterns

Phonology focuses more on the systematic organization of sounds in

a particular language.

Minimal pairs – important concept in phonology

- refers to two words consist which have different meanings and
differ only in one sound occurring in the same position or environment. Ex.
English words Spill and Still
Tagalog words Basa (wet) and Pasa (bruise)
 Minimal pairs are helpful in determining sounds that are used to
contrast words with different meanings; these sound are called
phonemes. Sound that has their own phonemic status produce entirely
different words. These sounds are in contrastive distribution, meaning
they can occur in the same environment in words with different meanings.

The Phoneme associated with the allophones is often termed the

underlying phoneme, while the other is allophones linked to the phoneme
are often called the surface allophones.

3.2.1 Phonological Processes

Some common phonological processes in spoken languages:

1. Assimilation –one sound becomes like that of another sound.

2. Palatalization – a subtype of assimilation in which a velar or
alveolar consonant is pronounced in the palatal
region when adjacent to a high vowel, e.g “bet
you” as “Betcha” and “Did you” as “Didja”
3. Dissimilation – occurs when a sound become less like
another sound, e.g. English Februay as Feb[j]
aury
4. Metathesis – when two sounds are recorded, e.g. English iron
[‘aɪ.ɘrn]
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. word-initial in
aspiration in English.
8. Lenition - the weakening of a sound, e.g. flapping of English /t/
and /d/
9. Vowel reduction - the conversion of unstressed vowels to more
schwa-like allophones, e.g. the second vowel
in emphasis.
10. Gemination – occurs when the consonant sound is doubled,
e.g. Ilokano kan + perfect aspect >kinnan “ate”

3.2.1.1 Writing Phonological Rules

Linguist use certain rules when they want to write down the
phonological patterns of language, e.g. the allophonic relation of
Tagalog [d] and [r]. In tagalog, [d] changes into[r] when it occurs
between vowels.
3.2.2 Speech in Philippine Languages

Most Philippine languages have fewer than 18 consonant

and have three to four native vowels. Most common consonant
sounds are [p, t, k, b, d, g, m, n, ŋ, l, r, w, j, s, h, ].

3.2.3 Speech Rhythm

One of the most notable characteristics that differs Philippine
languages from English in the speech rhythm.

3.2.4 Orthography
A writing System and 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.
(Himmelman, 2006)
3.3 The Morphosyntax of the Philippine Language

Morphology – the sub-branch of linguistic that deals with the

description of how words are formed and the principles
governing the way words are put together.

Syntax – the study of organization of words into sentences

and how they sentences are understood.

Morphosyntax – the study of grammar and

combination of morphology and syntax.
3.3.1 The Morphosyntax of World’s Languages
The letter S, A and O are used by linguistic to identify core
grammatical relations(Dixon, 1979).

Argument - It is a term for nouns the linguist use in describing

morphosyntax.

S – refers to the only core nominal argument of a clause with

only one argument (also called “Intransitive”) clause.

A – defined as the most agentive argument (or the entity that is

the source of the action expressed by the verb) of a clause with
more than one arguments(also reffered to as “transitive”) clause

O - is the most patientive argument (the entity that is most

affected by the action) of the transitive clause.
3.3.2 The Internal Structure of the Word
In describing the internal structure of the word the Morpheme is
consider the minimal unit that expresses the meaning. Morphemes
combine to form a word e.g. Ifugao gatut ‘hundred’ + -in-> ginatut
“hundreds” (Hohulin and Burquest, 2011), Bicolano ma- + diklom
‘darkness’ >madiklom ‘dark’, etc
Morpheme Classified as a bound morpheme or free morpheme. The
affixes –in- and ma- are bound morphemes which must be attatched
to some other morphemes in order to be intergrated into discourse.
A word in Philippine language 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. Ifugao ot ‘and/the’, Romblomanon agod ‘so that’
3.3.3 Deriving New Words
New words can be derived (e.g. made) through the process of inflection
and derivation. Inflection is the process by which variation in the form
of a word are derived through affixation to express a grammatical
contrast, such as aspect, person, number and gender. In Tagalog, the
reduplicative affix –ga- in the stem magaganda is an example of
inflectional operation that signifies plurality. In contrast, derivation is
the process that derives a new category from the original form.
Philippine language employ the ff. operation in deriving new words:
a. afflixation-process to which an affix is attached to a root or an
intermediate stem; Masbatenyo kara ut + m- > mara ut ‘ugly’, kanam +
-an > kanaman ‘toy’, sugba + -in- > sinugba ‘smoke dished’
B. Reduplication, the repetition of word or part of word to form a new
word; e.g. Masbatenyo baruto + PWr reduplication> baru-baruto ‘mini
boat’; Masbatenyo tawo + RWr reduplication >tawo-tawo ‘toy man’;
Masbatenyo bakalon
3.3.4 Grammatical Categories in Philippine Languages
Words can be categories as lexical (or content) words and
non lexical (or function) words.
Grammatical categories also known as word classes (i.e.
noun, verb, determiner, etc)
Some language categorization of word classes can be
difficult, specially at their boundaries. Philippine languages
analyze as pre-categorical or neutral and also the major
categories are noun, verb, modifiers (adjectives and
adverb),determiners, linkers and conjunctions. Their part of
speech membership is much clear when affixes are attached
to them or when they use in phrases or sentences. However,
word classes are structured around prototypes and their core
notions can be easily identified; some word are more
prototypical than the others.
Grammatical categorization also be established according to
how a form varies when use in discourse (Hopper and
3.3.4.1 Nouns and Nouns Phrases
 Nouns convey ideas of referents, e.g. people, object,
abstractions(Mithun and Chafe, 1999). Tese ideas was characterized
by persistence is active consciousness, expressing most time-stable
concepts thet are not vary appreciably over time (Givon 1984)
 A noun can be simple or derived. It is simple or unmarked if it is
composed only of root, e.g. kapampangan biga ‘sky,’ Asi ragat ‘ocean’
it is derived if it is consists of a root plus affixes, e.g. Masbatenyo
parahubog ‘drunkard’ Ilokano panangisuro ‘teaching’
 Noun can be classified as proper noun, which are used to address and
identify particular person or culturally significant personages or
places and common nouns, which are used to refer general names of
things, concepts or a class of entities. Proper and common noun are
distinguishable from each other because they have their respective
determiners. In tagalog, common nouns are marked by ang, ng, sa
while proper nouns are marked by si/sina, ni/nina and kay/kina.
Nouns also distinguish themselves from other grammatical
categories because of the roles they play in relation to an
activity or action. These roles are called semantic roles and
they are as follows:
>Agent – typical animate instigator of the action
>Force- an entity that instigates an action indirectly
>Experiencer- an entity which neither controls nor is
visibly affected by an action.
>Recipient- the typically animate destination of some
moving object
>Patient- an entity that does not act with volition,
instigate an event, receive something or
experience a sensory impression.
Another level of structures associated with nouns is called
grammatical relations. Grammatical relations identify who does
what to whom. These relation signified by the letter S,A, and O.
Nouns are easily identifiable because they are usually
accompanied by grammatical markers, called
determiners. Determiners in Philippines differ from that
of English whose function is restricted to indicating
whether an entity is define (e.g. the ball) or indefinite (e.g.
a ball). And also determiners function to instantiate ( or
make instance of) nouns and establish them as referential
(Nolasco,2011). Referentiality pertains to entity exist as a
“bounded, individuated entity in the message world” or it
has something to do with continuing importance over a
portion of a text. In other words, a noun phrase is
referential when it is used to refer to “ an object which has
a continuous identity over time.” (Du Bois, 1980)
Another property of noun is possessability.
Possession is a relation between possessor and possessum
wherein the possessor asserts control over the possessum
(Levin and Hovay, 2011).
Two grammatical distinct possession strategies; (1)alienable
versus are those which have direct relation to the possessor
(i.e. body parts, kinship terms) while inalienable possession
are those which have ‘distance’ from the
possessor(Haspelmath, 2008).
Three types of possessor strategies:
(a) possessive clauses (using existential terms and oblique
phrases sa/kan)
(b) lexical noun phrases (ni and san/sin constructions)
(c) genitive case pronoun (personal and demonstrative
pronouns)
3.3.4.2 Verbs
Verbs are words that refer to events to which ideas of referents (nouns)
participate.
In Philippine verb describe as dynamic or stative.
Dynamic verb expresses a wide range of actions which may be physical (to
run), mental (to ponder) or perceptual (to see).
Stative verb expresses a state in which there is no obvious action (to know,
believe, suppose etc)
Verb marked for their voice (or focus), aspect, modality.

3.3.4.2.1 Voice
Voice (often called “focus”) is a feature of the verb where a special noun is co-
indexed to an affix in the verb can be describe as the most affected entity.
Voice determine the transitivity of clauses. Transitivity is a central concept in
organization of clause in Philippine languages, e.g. arguments, grammatical
relations, and serve as the basis for the preference of one sentence
construction over the other . Transitivity propose by Nolasco (2003)
Notion of sources action and the most affected entity is important
in identifying clause transitivity in Philippine language.
Intransitive it contains only one argument (called the S) which is
the source of the action and also the most affected entity.
Transitive when the source of the action (A) is distinct and
separate from the most affected entity (0)
Example of different types of clause and the role as nouns play in
the Philippines.
 Tagalog
 Sumikat ang araw sa silangan
 rises sun east
 "The sun rises on the east"
 Masbatenyo
 Kumadto an bata sa pampang
 went The child to the shore
 "The child went to the shore"
3.3.8 Clitic Particles
 Constitute a group that adds meaning to the predicate or a part of the
sentence. And Clitic are also polysemous; in most instance, they need
to have a context to acquire meaning.

 Class 1: na ‘already,’ pa ‘still’

 Class 2: man ‘even’
 Class 3a: ba ‘question marker,’ din ‘too,’ kase ‘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 ‘uncertainly marker’
3.3.9 Linkers
 are words which connects words, phrases and sentences into large
construction . In the Philippine usually the linkers are: na/nga/a.
which used to connect words phrases and clauses, and ka, which
used in some languages to connect numerical expressions to the
entity it modifies.
3.3.10 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 link one clause to another.
 Two major classification of conjoining:
a. Coordination is process which combines similar types of
construction into large units and still has the same semantic relation
with other surrounding elements.
b. Subordinate, on the other hand, connects two unequal clauses which
involve part-whole relationship.
3.3.11 Clause Structure
Clause is basic unit in discourse for accomplishing the end of communication.
Consist of predicate (usually a verb) and a entity (noun).
Philippine languages are typically predicate-initial as opposed to the predicate-
medial basic word order of English. Ex. Tagalog one “kakain ako”, whereas in
English would say, “I will eat”. In Tagalog the verb is at the start of the sentence
whereas the English begins with a noun.
Non-verb constructions are simple clauses whose predicates are not verb.
Non- verbal constructions may be classified into:
a. Proper inclusion clauses, the entity being talked about belong to a class specified
in the predicate e.g. Magsasaka si Lolo ‘Lolo is a farmer’
b. Equative clauses, the entity being talked about the entity specified in the
predicate, e.g. Besfriend ko si Kym ‘Kym is my best friend’
c. Attributive clauses, specified in the predicate applies to the entity talked about,
e.g. Maganda si Benj ‘Benj is Beautiful’
d. Locative clause, the entity being talked about is in a cetain location or condition,
e.g. Nasa Korea si Jianne ‘Jianne is in Korea’
e. Existential or presentative clause, e.g. assert that the existence of some person or
things that is new, My boyfriend si Joni ‘ Joni has a boyfriend’
f. Possessive clause, assert that the possession of one things or things by another e.g.
Pumasa sa scholarship grant si kay ‘kay has qualified for a scholarship grant’
Pragmatically marked constructions are:
a. Exclamatory clauses, which express extreme emotions e.g. nasusunog ang
bahay! ‘the house burning!’
b. Questions, consists of two types: yes-no questions and questions-word
questions, e.g. pupunta ka ba ng Sweden, Christel? ‘Christel are you going to
Sweden? (yes-no), saan ka pupunta? ‘ where are you going? (question-word)
c. Relative clauses clauses that modify nominal, e.g. si Jean ang diwatang
sasagip sa buhay niya ‘Jean is the fairy who will save his life.
d. Imperative clauses express command or request
e. Complement clauses, which serve as one of the arguments, e.g. Sinabi niya
na matalino si Jezelle ‘she said that Jezelle is intelligent’
f. Proposed construction, one of the participants moved to the front of the
clause, ang kamay ko ang hinahawakan niya ‘(It is my hand that she held).
g. Negation clauses, assert that some event, condition, state or situation does
not hold, e.g. Tagalog Hindi tamad si Juan. ‘Juan is not lazy,’ Masbatenyo
Waran tawo sa balay ‘There’s no one in the house