Difficulty in Dealing With English and Filipino Verbs

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DIFFICULTY IN DEALING WITH ENGLISH AND FILIPINO VERBS

Abstract
The forms signaled by the inflectional verb endings {-
s},{-ed}, {-en}, and {-ing} in English, and categories
involving these forms, are either absent or reinterpreted
in Tagalog. The absence of obligatory distinctions of
number and person in Tagalog verbs gives rise to a
problem frequently observed even among highly
educated Tagalog speakers of English, that of failing to
mark consistently the third person singular verb. Voice
is reinterpreted in Tagalog by the focus system, and
English tense, with its multiple axes of orientation, by
the single-axis aspect system of Tagalog. The Tagalog
imperfective aspect includes English “simple present”
and all nonfuture {be + -ing} forms; the perfective
aspect, English “simple past” and all {have + -en}
forms. Furthermore, tense distinctions signaled by
inflectional endings in English, such as those between
past and non-past {have + -en} forms, are often
signaled in Tagalog only by non-verbal markers. The
interference problems traceable to this reinterpretation
of English tense distinctions are the Tagalog speaker's
inconsistent use of verbal markers to signal perfected
events, and his tendency to overlook distinctions
between past and non-past forms of auxiliaries and
between different {have + -en) and {be + -ing} forms.
English and Tagalog Comparisons English TagalogPresent, past, future tense, Almost all verbs are
regularand there are several tense.different forms of thesetensesEnglish has linking verbs No
auxiliary or linking verblike: am, is, are, was, wereEnglish words are not Highly phonetic
language,always pronounced the same most words are spelled likeway it is spelled. they sound

1. To turn a verb into present tense, combine the future and past tense rules. Repeat the first
two letters, and thenadd “UM” between them. The present tense of Talon
isTUMATALONTo turn a verb to past tense, insert “UM” between thefirst and second letter
of the word. Past tense of Talon isTUMALON. For example, the verb jump is “Talon”.
Future tense is“TATALON” the T and A is repeated.In Tagalog, verbs start with verb roots.
To create tenses, an affix is added to the root. To make verbs future tense, the first two
letters are repeated.
2. 11. INSTRUCTIONAL IMPLICATIONSAddressing past tense difficulties:− Have students tell
you what they did the night before− Have students tell you about a TV show they watched−
Have students fill in correct past tense verbs in sentences−Give students sentence starters
like “ Last night….. orYesterday…..− Show students pictures and have them write sentences
in pasttense− Use tongue twisters such as: Swan swam over the sea. Swim,swan, swim!
Swan swam back again. Well swum, swan!
3. 12. The word order in Tagalog is different inthan English. In English one would say"The
house is beautiful." which is translatedinto Tagalog as "Magandá ang báhay."which literally
means "Beautiful the house."
4. 13. Work collaboratively to build sentences by pickingwords from index cards Start with
simple sentences Color code each part of speech the same color Write individual words
on index cards representingvarious parts of speechINSTRUCTIONAL IMPLICATIONS
Sentence structure difficulty:

Word order:

Filipino sentences generally follow the V-S-O word order (Verb-Subject-Object).


See examples:

Filipino English Kumakain ako ng ubas I am eating grapes Nawala nila ang
lapis They lost the pencil Magbabasa sila ng mga libro They will read books

 Kumakain - verb (eating), ako - subject (direct case I), ng - object


marker, ubas - object (grapes)
 Nawala - verb (lost), nila - subject (indirect case they), ang lapis - object (the
pencil)
 Magbabasa - verb (will read), sila - subject (direct case they), mga - plural
marker, libro - object (books)
Verbs:
Filipino verbs conjugate for aspect rather than tense. This essentially means that
verbs are more concerned about the state of an action rather than when the
action was done.

Aspect Description Uncompleted aspect Action started but not


complete. Completed aspect Used when the action has been
completed. Unstarted aspect: Used when the action has not been started

SOME VERBS HAVE A FOURTH ASPECT:

 Recently Completed aspect: Used when the action has just been completed
before the time of speaking or before a specified time.
VERB:

Tulog - Sleep
Aspect Filipino English Uncompleted Natutulog ang kabayo The horse is
sleeping, The horse sleeps, The horse was sleeping. Completed Natulog (na)
ang kabayo The horse (has) slept. Unstarted Matutulog ang kabayo The horse is
going to sleep, The horse will sleep. Recently Completed Katutulog lang ng
kabayo The horse has just slept, The horse had just slept.

Affixes:

The Filipino language uses affixes a lot and use many prefixes, suffixes, infixes,
and circumfixes to change the meaning. One may create complex words from the
root.

KAIN - EAT

 Kinain ko ang pagkain ni Duo - I ate Duo's food. "-in-" implies intent.
 Nakain ko ang pagkain ni Duo - I ate Duo's food. "Na-" implies accident/not
intentional.
ALIS - LEAVE

 Nagsisialisan ang mga tao - The people are leaving. Circumfix.


KANTA - SING

 Kinantahan ni Duo ang mga tao - Duo sang for the people. "-in-" infix and "-
han" suffix implies that Duo is doing the action for the object.
SINUNGALING - LIE (NOT SPEAK THE TRUTH)

 Nagsisipagsisinusinungalingan ang mga tao - The people are lying.


Circumfix, duplication.
Inflection:

Good news for people who despise verb conjugation! Filipino verbs don't inflect
for quantity or the identity of the subject. Observe:

 Nagluto ako - I cooked


 Nagluto ka/ikaw - You (sing.) cooked
 Nagluto siya - She/He/They(sing.) cooked
 Nagluto kami - We (exclusive) cooked
 Nagluto tayo - We (inclusive) cooked
 Nagluto [po] kayo - You ([polite])/(plural) cooked
 Nagluto sila - They cooked
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12078278/A-taste-of-the-Filipino-language-Verbs

Tagalog has a complex verb conjugation. Verbs are conjugated by reduplicating the first syllable
and by the infix –um- and –in-. Or by prefixing ma-, mag- or mang- before a verb. For example
to eat kain would be conjugated as kumain kumakain kain kakain. The mag verb is very
versatile and is often used to conjugate Englis verbs or nouns. I once heard my wife say (she is
from the Philipines) mag-door-doorbell someone is ringing the doorbell.

Introduction

Doon Po Sa Amin

Doon po sa aming
bayan ng San Roque
May nagkatuwaang
apat na pulubi
Sumayaw ang pilay,
nanood ang bulag
Kumanta ang pipi,
nakinig ang bingi.
Tagalog has a rather complex verbal system. This verb system is based on the use of
affixes. As mentioned previously, an affix is like a little marker or code that is placed in
a word. An affix can be added to the front of a word (prefix), to the end of a word
(suffix), or in the middle of a word (infix). The affix is a way of packaging in some extra
information into a word.

For example, English uses affixes in verbs in order to indicate whether the action of the
verb happened in the past or the present. Consider the English verb kick. If I add the
affix -ed on to the end of this word:

kick + ed = kicked

I have now indicated that the kicking happened in the past. If I added the affix -ing on to
the word kick,

kick + ing = kicking

you now know that the action is occurring in the present.

Tagalog also uses affixes in a similar way to indicate if an action if completed or not (we
will discuss this later). In addition to this, Tagalog uses affixes to indicate the role of
the focus of the sentence. In other words, affixes are used to let you know what the
focus is doing in the sentence. This will take some explaining.

Let's look at the following sentence in English:

The man bit the dog.

As you can see, there are two nouns in this sentence: the man and the dog. Now, ask
yourself, how do you know which one did the biting. Was the man the one who bit the
dog? Or was the dog the one who bit the man? Of course, in this case, it was the man
that bit the dog. We know this because of the word order. Man comes before dog. What
if I reversed this sentence?

The dog bit the man.

Now you know that it was the dog that bit the man.

Some languages do not depend on word order to indicate what role the words play in
the sentence. Instead, many languages use little markers to indicate things like which
word did the biting and which word got bitten. Let's look at how this works. First let's
pretend that the asterisk symbol * is a little marker that indicates that the word this
symbol goes with is the doer of the action of the sentence. Think of * as a little sign that
says "Hey! Anytime you see me stuck on a word, you know I'm doing the action!" Now,
let's say that the number sign # is a little marker that indicates that the word this
symbol goes with receives the action of the verb. If I stick these markers onto my nouns
in my previous sentence, this is what I get:

The dog* bit the man#

Now you know that the dog (because of *) bit the man. If I reverse the word order, the
meaning of the sentence is still the same.

The man# bit the dog*

This still means that the dog bit the man.

English itself once used markers in this same way instead of relying totally on word
order. We lost these markers over time. However, our pronouns still retain the method
of changing according to their role in the sentence. For example, I and me work in the
same way that we have discussed above. When I do the action I use the pronoun I.
When I receive the action I use me. Compare these sentences:

I bit the dog.

The dog bit me.

Tagalog is a language that does not use word order to tell you who is doing what in a
sentence. Instead, Tagalog uses affixes and markers to tell you this information. By
looking at markers on nouns and affixes in verbs, you can tell who is doing the action of
the sentence etc. In the Tagalog system, the marker on the noun tells you which word
is in focus, and affixes in the verb tell you what the focus is doing. It's like a code you
must figure out. Let's see how this works:

Here's the sentence we used before:

The man bit the dog.

Now, as we know, the nouns in Tagalog are marked according to whether they are in
focus or not:

Ang man bit ng dog

In Tagalog man is tao, dog is aso, and bite is kagat:

Kumagat ng aso ang tao


bit dog man

Tao (man) is in focus. Aso (dog) is not in focus. How do I know if the man bit the dog or
if the dog bit the man? I look at the verb. In this case the verb is kumagat. The UM in
kumagat is a little affix that tells me that the focus of the sentence is doing the action. So
I look at the UM and if I see that tao (man) is in focus (tao has ang in front), I know that
the focus (the man) did the biting.

I could reverse the markers without changing the meaning:

Kumagat ang tao ng aso.

Here the meaning is still the same: the man bit the dog.

In this section, we are going to talk about the major affixes that go with Tagalog verbs.
Once you learn these affixes, you can figure out what is going on in a Tagalog sentence.
You can also avoid saying the type of things that we non-native speakers tend to say
like: the fish caught me, etc. You will rob your listener of the fun times and laughter, but
you might save yourself some embarrassment.

This section will cover the most common verbal affixes used for the basic focus forms:
actor/agent, object/goal, location/direction, beneficiary/benefactive, and instrumental.
More complex verb forms such as causative and comitatives will not be dealt with in
this page.

http://www.seasite.niu.edu/tagalog/Grammar%20Activities/Grammar%202/Verbal%20Focus/Verbalfoc
us-fs.htm

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