Ergative Analyis of Masbatenyo

Ergativity of Philippine Languages

Ergative Analysis of Masbatenyo

Michael Wilson I. Rosero Linguistics 140

2008


2008

I. Introduction

The issue regarding the typology of the Philippine languages still remains problematic in the field of linguistic research. Over the years, there are several attempts to clarify the issue which up to the present times continues to be controversial. Various claims have been proposed to classify the Philippine languages as either ergative or accusative or neither of the two types. Prior to the employment of the ergative analysis, Philippine languages have been always described using the traditional analysis that was started by the Spanish friars and was maintained by modern linguists in the present times. The tendency to define transitivity in terms of the existence of an ‘object’ or of the number of syntactic arguments in the clause has been the characteristics of the older tradition of linguistics. The idea that it is the voice-affix that identifies the semantic role of the topic nominal (as actor, goal, instrument, beneficiary, etc) also comes with it (Nolasco, 2006). In past analyses, as represented by Bloomfield (1917) and Blake (1925), the different topic constructions were treated in terms of voice variation; that is, actor-topic sentence was identified as active voice and goal-topic sentence as the passive voice (Shibatani, 1988). In this kind of analysis, Philippine languages were treated like English, an accusative language, in which the active voice is basic and the passive voice is a marked and non-basic category (Shibatani, 1988). Philippine languages have been always described under the mold of nominativeaccusative, patterned to that of English. However, recent studies have shown, as pioneered by Cena (1977), De Guzman (1979) and Starosta (1982), that Philippine languages favor the patient orientation, as seen in Tagalog basic constructions. In their studies, Starosta, Pawley and Reid (1980) claimed that Proto-Austronesian, to which Philippine languages belong, is a mixed


2008

ergative language, in the sense of the patient being the primary choice for the unmarked and syntactically prominent position. The third view claims that Philippine languages are neither ergative nor accusative. Shibatani (1988) proposed that Philippine languages, having the characteristics of both ergative and accusative, should be treated as a separate type of language. Having shown the long history of controversy that the Philippine linguistic had in the past years, this paper will now further examine the ergative analysis. This paper will attempt to prove, using data from Masbatenyo, a Philippine language, that ergative analysis is a much better approach to Philippine languages. The discussion will be organized as follows. First, a short history of the past analyses in Philippine languages will be discussed in the introduction. A brief overview of the ergative analysis will be presented after. Then, we will introduce Masbatenyo. After which, we will employ the ergative analysis on the language. The last section will conclude this study.

II. Philippine Ergativity

The following Tagalog sentences illustrate how the focus system works in Philippine languages: Actor umakbo ang weyter. (1) T um `The waiter ran.’ Actor (2) ` Magtakbo ka nga ng tubig sa table no. 5 ’ `Please bring (or rush) some water to table no. 5’ Goal (theme) takbo mo ang tubig (na ito) sa table no. 5.’ (3) `I takbo `Bring (or rush) this water to table no. 5.


2008

Goal (beneficiary) I ( pag pag)takbo mo nga ng Marlboro sa tindahan ang table no. 5.’ (4) ` I `Please run to the store and get the customer at table no. 5 some Marlboro cigarettes.’ Goal (patient) (5) `Takbu hin mo siya.’ (siya=customer at table no. 5) Goal (direction or location) l ocation) (6) Tinakbuh an ka ng table no. 5 . Goal (instrument) . (7) Ipinangtakbo niya sa maraton ang aking Reebok

The accepted view is that the so-called ‘focus’ affixes identify the semantic relation of the ‘focused item’ as shown in the sentences above (Nolasco, 2005). As previous studies have shown, and Nolasco (2006) reiterated, Philippine morphosyntax have been analyzed to be: a. nominative-accusative 

active-passive dichotomy: all goal-topic (goal focus) constructions are ‘passives’ derived from active, which is the actor-topic (actor focus)



the ‘ang’ marked entity is the ‘subject’ or what is talked about’

b. ergative-absolutive 

‘goal’ constructions are basic



‘agent’ is marked by ergative marker ‘ng’ and ‘patient’ is marked by absolutive ‘ang’



no. 2 is antipassive

c. neither accusative nor ergative, but belong to a separate type of language 

actor focus construction (no. 2) and goal focus constructions are transitive



‘ang’-marked entity is ‘topic’


2008

In the previous analysis, Nolasco (2006) concludes that the commonalities can be found in the main function of the ‘focus’ affix, which is to identify the semantic role of the ‘focused’ element and the function of ‘ang’, which marked the privileged syntactic argument. Dixon (1979, 1994) proposes that the fundamental difference between accusative and ergative languages is the way in which primitive grammatical roles are aligned with respect to certain morphological and syntactic characteristics. The primitives Dixon identifies are: transitive subject (A), transitive object (O), and intransitive subject (S). S is the sole argument of an intransitive construction and the most affected entity while A is the source of action and O is the most affected entity in a transitive construction (Nolasco, 2006). In an ergative language, the case marker that appears with the subject (S) of an intransitive verb is the same as that which marks the object (O) of a transitive verb. With this characterization, De Guzman (1988) claimed that the host of Philippine languages qualifies as such a type of language. For traditional linguists, (1) is an intransitive construction while (2) to (5) are all transitive constructions. They also consider (1) and (2) as active voice and the rest as passive voice. However, as Shibatani (1988) has shown, the analogy of the topic construction to the voice system in other languages is eminently possible only if the topic in Philippine language is interpreted as subject. Shibatani (1988) also differentiates passivization from topicalization, which is a more appropriate term for the wide applicability of promotion in Philippine languages. He has also shown that goal (patient) construction is functionally different from passive construction in terms of agent defocusing. In most languages, passive does not permit or generally avoid the mention


2008

of the agent. However, in Philippine languages, actor is not normally deleted in goal-topic and non-actor-topic constructions (Shibatani, 1988). High frequency of patient-oriented constructions is another general characterization of ergative languages. Cena (1978) gives ample evidence from Tagalog, both syntactic and morphological and even psychological, that strongly supports the patient orientation of Philippine languages. In the following section, we will introduce Masbatenyo, a Central Philippine language and then we will prove that such language, which is similar to Tagalog, is also an ergative language.

III. Masbatenyo: A Philippine Language

Masbatenyo is the name used by the speakers of the language and for themselves, although the term ‘Minasbate’ is sometimes also used to distinguish the language from the people. Masbatenyo is a member of Central Philippines family of languages, spoken in Masbate and some parts of Sorsogon. It is most closely related to Sorsoganon; the language of Sorsogon. This is because Masbate was a part of Sorsogon Province and was governed from Sorsogon City until 1920s. Masbatenyo is also closely related to Tagalog, the basis of the national language, and to Hiligaynon and Cebuano. Though Sorsogon (the southernmost province of Bicol) and Masbate are very much closer to Bicol Peninsula, Sorsoganon and Masbatenyo shared the same grammatical systems which are close to that of Hiligaynon, the trade language of Panay Island rather than that of Bicol.


2008

There are three major dialects of Masbatenyo: the western dialect centered around the town of Balud on the western coast which is close to Capiz, the southern dialect centered about the town of Cataingan in the southeastern part of Masbate and the northern dialect covering the whole northern half of Masbate and centered on Masbate City, capital. In the far southern and southwestern parts of Masbate Island, Cebuano is spoken as the home language. There are several lesser dialects spoken in the small towns on the island of Ticao. In Burias, most of the speakers are Cebuano who migrated from Cebu. The presence of competing grammatical and lexical subsystems in the language is the striking characteristics of the language. This has probably been brought on by the influx of settlers from surrounding major language groups who mixed in elements of their language with and alongside of the Masbatenyo. This results to a number of semantic concepts that can be expressed by from two to five alternate and different words for a single concept. Masbatenyo is so unique in the sense of its being a mixed-up language. Speakers of the languages often thought that their language is just a mixture of its neighboring languages which are Bikol, Waray-Waray, Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Tagalog.

IV. Masbatenyo as an Ergative Language

The language data used in this analysis are gathered from the only published literature on the Masbatenyo language, the two editions of the English-Masbatenyo dictionary. Data are also gathered from personal communication with other native speakers of Masbatenyo. This paper will examine the language in comparison to Tagalog to which Masbatenyo is closely related.


2008

A. Case Marking

Pronouns

Masbatenyo abs

erg

obl

si

ni

sinda

ninda kanda

Tagalog abs

erg

si

ni

Cebuano

obl

abs erg

obl

Personal

Common nonspec

kan

ni

kay

kina sila

nila

kanila

ng

sa

ug

ug

ng

sa

ang ng

sa

sina nina

kay

si

spec

an

sin

sa

san

sa

ang

The table shows that basically, Masbatenyo employs the case marking system similar to that of Tagalog and Cebuano. Similar to the analysis of Nolasco (2005), case, as used in this study, pertains to how the arguments of a predicate are formally encoded to distinguish between S, A, P and obliques. S, A, and P may be referred to as the core cases, while any other argument which is not an A, an S or a P is an oblique. The following examples illustrate the similarity of the case marking system of Tagalog and Masbatenyo. Masbatenyo ‘ an’ is the same with the Tagalog ‘ ang’ that marks the privileged syntactic argument of the sentence. It marks the only nominal of (8) which is an intransitive construction and the patient or object of (9) which is considered as transitive construction. This clearly indicates that Masbatenyo, like Tagalog and other Philippine languages, also shows an ergative tendency.


2008

(8) Nagsurmaton an babayi Nagsalita ang babae spoke S woman ‘The woman spoke.’ (9) Lulutuon Lulutuin will cook

san babayi ng babae A woman erg ‘The woman will cook the chicken’

(10) Magaluto Magluluto will cook

an babayi ang babae A woman abs ‘The woman will cook the chicken.’

an ang O abs

manok manok chicken

san ng O gen

manok. manok. chicken

B. Voice System

Philippine languages are verb initial and nominal forms are generally marked by prepositional particles. Verbal predicates involve various kinds of affixes. The feature of voice is marked by the affixes in a verb and indicates the grammatical and semantic relations between the topic nominal and the verbal predicate. In Masbatenyo, verbs marked by the ag- class of affixes (ag-, -u-, ang, aki-) is ‘actor focus’, verbs marked by –on and –a is ‘goal focus’. The affixes iand iga- indicates that the nominal is the instrument of the action (instrumental focus). In other cases, i- is also use to indicate the beneficiary of the action. Meanwhile, –an and –i are directional that indicate the place toward which or from which the verb action occurs. Nolasco (2005) proposes a new analysis which summarizes the voice forms of Philippine languages into those which marks the intransitive (-um-, m-) and those that marks the transitive (-in, -an, i-).

The following sentences illustrate the voice system of Masbatenyo.


2008

(11) Sumulod sa iya isip na kadtuon niya si Juan sa Manila Pumasok sa kanyang isip na puntahan niya si Juan sa Manila ‘It entered her mind that she should go to Juan in Manila’

(12) Ginkaon san miya an isda na nakabutang sa plato Kinain ng pusa ang isda na nakalagay sa plato. ‘The cat ate the fish that was in the plate’ (13) Inabangan kami sin dako na miya pagpauli namon Inabangan kami ng malaking pusa pag-uwi naming ‘We were blocked by a big cat on our way home.’ (14) Iutod mo sa kahoy ini na sundang Ipamputol mo ng kahoy ang itak na ito. ‘Cut the tree down with this bolo.’

C. Transitivity In his works, Nolasco proposes that transitivity is a central concept in the organization of clauses in Philippine languages (Nolasco, 2003, 2004, 2005). In the older traditions, sentences like (11) is considered as intransitive, having only one argument which is the source of action, the experiencer and also the most affected entity. Sentences like (12) to (14) are treated as transitive constructions. In other traditional analyses, (11) which is actor focus is considered as active sentence while the rest, which are goal (patient) focus, are considered as passives. However, recent studies have shown that traditional analyses have failed to recognize the differences that outweigh the similarities between the Philippine topic construction and the passive construction in English. Passivization involves agent defocusing which has two consequences; namely that passive does not normally encode an agent syntactically and that in a passive construction, a non-


agentive nominal is promoted promoted to grammatically prominent position.

2008

However, as Shibatani

(1988) has shown this is not the case of the ‘passives’ in Philippine languages. Unlike the passive, actor is not normally deleted in the Philippine non-actor topic construction. Moreover, not only goal (patient) nominals, but also other nominal adjuncts can be placed in topic position. Cena (1978) presents grammatical as well as psychological evidence to support this claim. Shibatani uses the term topicalization for the wide applicability of promotion in Philippine languages (Shibatani, 1988). The transitivity and intransitivity in Philippine languages is illustrated in the morphology and the case marking of the nominal phrase. In a transitive construction, the verb is marked by any of the transitive affixes -in, -an, i-. In the case of Masbatenyo, they are –on, -an, i-. The source of action (A) is marked by an ergative case, ng in Tagalog and san in Masbatenyo, while the most affected entity is marked by an absolutive case, the Tagalog ang and its Masbatenyo equivalent an. The sole argument (S), which is the source of action and the most affected entity as well of an intransitive construction is marked by the absolutive case (ang/an), similar to that of O of an intransitive construction. This clearly shows that the pattern of intransitive and transitive constructions in Philippine languages follow is the ergative-absolutive (Nolasco, 2006).

V. Conclusion

This paper attempts to further support the claim that the host of Philippine languages qualifies as ergative language using data from Masbatenyo. It is shown that like Tagalog, Masbatenyo possesses the characteristics of an ergative language. As presented in this paper, the language shows enough evidence to support the claim. However, some important entries or


2008

information may have been missed due to time limitations and the lack of references on Masbatenyo language. Though generalized as closely related to Tagalog, Masbatenyo still has the presence of competing grammatical and lexical subsystems that needs further discussion. This is due to the fact that Masbate has been inhabited by the people from the surrounding provinces who speak the major language groups and that elements have mixed in with and alongside of the Masbatenyo. It is also on this purpose that this paper is written. The fact that there is no published literature in Masbatenyo language to refer to is a manifestation that this language needs to be addressed. This paper, together with the first two editions of English-Masbatenyo dictionary hopes to promote Masbatenyo as a language and that it will make a linguistic contribution to the study and maintenance of Philippine languages.


2008

References:

Aldridge, Edith. 2004. Ergativity and word order in Austronesian languages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University dissertation.

___________. General Approaches to Ergativity.

Cena, Resty. 1978. Patient Primacy in Tagalog. Paper presented at the LSA Winter Meeting. Chicago. De Guzman, Videa P. 1988. Ergative Analysis for Philippine languages: An Analysis. In McGinn (ed.). Dixon, R. M. W. 1979. Ergativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nolasco, Ricardo Ma. 2003. Ang Pagkatransitibo at Ikinergatibo ng mga Wikang Pilipino. Ph.D Dissertation. University of the Philippines- Diliman Nolasco, Ricardo. 2005. What Philippine Ergativity Really Means. Paper presented at TaiwanJapan Joint Workshop on Austronesian Languages, Taiwan: National Taiwan University. Schachter, Paul and Fe Otanes. 1972. Tagalog reference Grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press. Shibatani, Masayoshi, ed. 1988. Passive and voice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ergative Analyis of Masbatenyo

Recommend Documents