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University of the Philippines-Diliman

College of Social Sciences and Philosophy

Department of Linguistics

A Squib: A Review of Some Papers

on Some Philippine Languages

Submitted by:

Apolinario, Nichelle

Dominguez, Patricia

Lapid, Jezelle

Musico, Patricia

Submitted to:

Prof. Farah Cunanan

In partial fulfillment

of the course requirements

of Linguistics 120

24 October 2009

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Introduction

The Philippines is a much-diversified country not just in its geographical features but as well as on its culture

particularly on the number of languages, the country has. In fact, linguists are still arguing as to what is the exact

number of Philippine languages and as to how they are to be grouped accordingly.

According to the Ethnologue, an encyclopedic reference work cataloging all of the worlds 6,909 known living

languages, 171 native languages are spoken in the country. Except for English, Spanish, Hokkien (Lan-nang),

Cantonese, Mandarin, and Chavacano, all of the languages belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language family. The

Ethnologue grouped these languages in eight (8) families, namely: Bilic, Central Luzon, Greater Central Philippines,

North Borneo, Northern Luzon, Sama-Bajaw, Spanish-based Creole, and a group under the family called the ‘Other

Philippine Languages’.

This paper contains reviews on some the languages of the families of the other Philippine languages, Sama

Bajaw, North Borneo and Spanish-based creole based on the language map of the Ethnologue. Languages under the

other Philippine languages include Calamian Tagbanwa, Tadyawan, Alangan, Iraya, Ibatan, Ivatan, Sangil, Sangir,

Kagoyanen and Agutaynen. For Sama-Bajaw, there are the Balangingi, Mapun, Central Sama, Northern Sama,

Western Sama, Southern Sama, Sibuguey Sama, Pangutaran Sama, and Inabaknon/Abaknon. North Borneo only

has the Yakan and under the Spanish-based Creole, there is the Chavacano.

However, due to the limited resources, only few journal entries and papers of some languages under those

four families were reviewed. Specific to this are the Ivatan and Kalamian languages of the other Philippine languages,

Cavite, Cotabato and Zamboanga Chavacanos of the Spanish-based Creole, Yakan of the North Borneo family, and

the Southern Sama of Sama Bajaw Family. There are some journal entries and papers, which discussed the

language family in general. Journal entries were taken from the journals of the Philippine Journal of Linguistics and

from the papers available at the Ethnologue site.

Each review contains the bibliographic entries, the summaries, the main points, and the commentaries for

each journal entry and each linguistic paper.

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Other Philippine Languages

KALAMIAN

Himes, R.S. (2006). The Kalamian microgroup of Philippine languages. Tenth International Conference on

Austronesian Linguistics, pp. 1-23. Retrieved on August 21, 2009 from

http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/ical/paper.html

Summary

The Kalamian microgroup of Philippine languages (Klm) consists of Agutaynen (Agn), Karamianamen (Krm)

and Tagnbanwa of Koron (TbwK). Klm is differentiated from other microgroup by a body of uniquely shared lexical

innovations and by the configuration of phonological rules that derive the modern language from the ProtoPhilippines

(PPh). An examination of the Klm lexicon indicates that the Klm languages are not particulary closer to one other

microgroup than they are to the others. Application of the phonological rules allows the identification of items

borrowed into Klm languages. These rules also permit the reconstruction of Proto-Philippines (PPh) lexemes that can

be added to those already established.

Main Points

The paper focused on the phonological and morphological aspects of Klm. It was mentioned that Klm has

twenty-one consonants (21): *p, *t, *k, *q, *b, *d, *z, *j, *g, *s, *h, *m, *n, *ñ, *N, *l, *r, *R, *w and *y and four (4)

vowels: *i, *e (schwa), *u and *a in Klm. Although stress in PPh is phonemic, Klm seems to have lost stress as a

phonetic feature. Some of the consonants have undergone notable changes when they entered Klm from Pph. Most

diphthongs in wordfinal position that are inherited from PPh (some of them ultimately from Pan) are interpreted as

such, with *ey reinterpreted as *ay. Some final diphthongs, on the other hand, are treated as vowel clusters and they

follow rules for vowel assimilation, while others are treated as diphthongs.

Only nominal and genitive pronouns were discussed in the paper. The author provided charts for each of

them. Most of the nominals in Agu, Krm, Tbwk are the same except for the form of the third person singular pronoun.

Also, in Klm, there is no form of the ‘we (dual)’. All three of the Klm speech forms have the same set of genitive

pronouns with some exceptions.

It was argued that the Klm is only assimilated in some ways and is not isolated with other group.

Lexicostatistics show evidences of cognates shared not only of the Klm languages amongst themselves but also with

other languages most particularly that of the Central Philippines and Palawanic that have showed high percentage

figures. It is believed that such occurrence is most likely an evidence of undetected borrowing, as well as the high

percentage of cognition with Inati resulting from mutual borrowing from Bisayan languages.

It appears that Klm is more closely related to Bilic than to other microgroups. However, each of them has a

number of phonological rules shared by the other. It was also found out that there are no lexical innovations uniquely

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shared by the two groups. It was concluded that both Lkm and Bilic are quite distinct groups that diverged from the

rest of the Philippine population at an early date. It was also concluded, based from the lexicostatistic evidences, that

Klm microgroup does not subgroup conveniently and convincingly with any other microgroup of Philippine languages

and that it should, then, be considered as distinct from the others as is Sangiric, Bilic or Bashiic.

Commentary

This paper provided the necessary information in the basic knowledge of phonology and morphology

particularly that of the pronouns, in general among the languages in the Kalamian group. It is commendable on how

the data were presented especially on the discussion of the different phonological changes underwent by the

consonants and vowels, as well as in the explanation on the different functions and changes also underwent by the

pronouns. Adequate examples were presented, which helps the readers to understand and to analyze the given

explanations. This is also a historical linguistics paper on the proto Kalamian and data were presented through

lexicostatistics. It was shown how each language and dialect there are greatly related with each other. Kalamian

languages were also compared to other Philippine languages that further strengthened the conclusion of language

isolation. However, it was later on found out that borrowing of words were also present due to the mingling of their

people with the others as time went by. The data presented were very interesting and although there were sections,

which could be quite hard to understand for nonlinguistic students, the paper can still be considered as “reader-

friendly” as other people can follow with the discussions.

IVATAN

Hidalgo, C.A. & Hidalgo A.C. (1970). Ivatan morphology: The Predicatives. Philippine Journal of Linguistics

1(2), pp. 9-51.

Summary

The authors are known in the linguistic circle as those who specialize on their native language, the Ivatan.

This paper is one of the papers on Ivatan that they’ve written. No phonological details are presented here as this

morphological part was only extracted from their book Ivatan Grammatical Sketch, to which, of course, Ivatan was

fully discussed on.

Among the three major word classes for Ivatan, namely: nominals, predicatives and adjuncts, the predicatives,

particularly its morphology, is the focus of this paper. Predicatives are a class of words distinguished by (a) the

manifestation of deep structure features such as focus, tense, voice, or aspect, and (b) the filling of the predicate slot

of clauses.

Main Points

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The constituents of the predicatives are composed of a (a) predicate stem and a (b) predicate affix. The

predicate stem can be either simple or derived. Simple stems are root words only, possessing no derivational affixes.

On the contrary, derived stems consist of a core, which is manifested by a noun and a derivational affix, or a noun in

its plural form. Predicate affixes undergo no reduplication, reduplicative, and those supra-affixes.

The verb stem is divided into two, namely, the VS1 and the VS2.

Commentary

This paper provides a brief introduction on the Ivatan predicatives and discussed in detail what its

components are. The verb stems are also discussed thoroughly and effectively. This is a very good paper on the

predicatives as it showcased a different perspective and approach in its study and will be a very useful reference for

those who will study predicatives. It is recommended, however, that a brief background on the Ivatan grammar and

the presentation of its phonology, particularly its alphabets be shown before presenting the morphological aspect of

the language. In that way, readers who don’t have background on this will appreciate it more.

Hidalgo, C.A. & Hidalgo, A.C. (1971). Tagmemic grammar of Ivatans [Review of A Tagmemic grammar of

Ivatan]. Philippine Linguistics Journal, 1(2), pp. ___.

Summary

This is Elmer Wolfenden’s review of the Hidalgo’s A Tagmemic Grammar of Ivatan, commenting on how

extensive and how detailed the outcome came to be. In this review, he described generally its phonology,

morphology and syntax. He also mentioned that the Hidalgos’ work is a big contribution to the better understanding of

Ivatan. This is a brief discussion on the tagmemic grammar of the language.

Main Points

In phonology, phonemes and allophones are described as with reference to their distribution in syllables and

word patterns. Southern Ivatan has both phonemic stress and phonemic vowel length in contradiction to Northern

Ivatan (Reid, 1966.3), which has only phonemic stress.

Limited to a description of the permitted combination of affixes and roots, in morphology, these combinations

has syntactic influence on the structure of clause when they manifest the predicate of such clauses. The features on

the verbs that order the syntax of the clauses are considered central to the grammar. There are three major word

classes: the nominals, the predicatives and the adjuncts. Nominals are common and proper nouns, and pronouns

depending on the function markers, which precede and introduce them in the syntax. Predicatives are identified by

their inflections and stem classes, which are composed of six major classes.

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The syntax part discussed the distinctions of class structure from sentence structure. Permutations from

‘normal’ order within a clause are described as processes distinct from the derivational processes and are applied to

both basic and derived clause. There are also seven major types of phrases, which are grouped into three general

categories: a) single-centered, b) double centered, and c) relator-axis phrases.

Commentary

This is a very detailed and interesting review of Wolfenden on the Tagmemic Grammar of Ivatan of the

Hidalgos since it already provided the general information of the language’s grammar. There were some problematic

data found in the book and so we recommend that it should be revised to omit the problematic data, but generally,

this review very well showed that the book was commendable and is greatly recommended as reference for other

language researchers.

Spanish-based Creole

CHAVACANO

Clamacio, L. C. (1972). The Phrase-structure rules of Cavite Chavacano. Philippine Journal of Linguistics,

3(1), 67-95.

Summary

This paper attempts to define the rules that generate the basic structure of Cavite Chavacano. Only the

morphosyntax of the said language was discussed here particularly on the basic structure of the components of its

basic sentence.

Main points

The basic sentence formation of Cavite Chavacano consists of the substantive phrase and a predicate

phrase. The substantive phrase is the topic of the sentence while the predicate phrase tells something about it. A

predicate phrase may contain an indefinite noun phrase, a pronoun, a possessive phrase, a reservational phrase, a

locative phrase, an adjectival phrase and a verb phrase.

A noun phrase is composed of a determiner plus a noun. Sometimes, a post determiner, in which case the

two determiners fuse creating a combined meaning, may follow the determiner. The post determiner may either

connote a singular or plural meaning. Determiners always mark nouns, and pronouns refer to personal pronouns.

Possessive predicate is composed of the determiner di, which when followed by an el phrase becomes del and then

either an NP or a pronoun.

A reservation phrase may structured in two ways The first construction starts with para and is then followed

by na, todo a determiner, the noun that is to be given, and the person to which the object is to be given to. The

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second construction also starts with para followed by todo, and an NP or a pronoun to which an object is to be given

to.

A locative phrase is composed of ta and either a locative or a deictic.

In a verb phrase, its constituents are obligatory aspect and verb, and an optional preverb and complement.

Aspects can either be + begun. The preverb pudi denotes ability and translates as ‘can’ or ‘able to’. Cavite

Chavacano has two types of verbs, V1 and V2. V1 is +transitive and +verbal idiom.

An adverbial phrase has seven classes: enclitics, direction verbs, locative adverbs, fine adverbs, manner

adverbs, adverbs of clause, and adverbs of mood.

Commentary

Some of the rules that were provided are so difficult to understand. Also, the discussions were quite hard to

follow but then when someone really spends time for it, he/she will find it interesting because not only did it present

linguistic data but it also included historical data, which were not only useful in understanding how the language

evolved, but is also a good history introduction, and to some, a refresher. Further simplification of this review would

benefit others greatly though so less time is consumed.

De dios, M. I. O. R. (1976). The Cotabato Chabacano (Ct) Verb. Philippine Journal of Linguistics, 7(1-2), pp. __.

Summary

This paper includes a historical background of the language and its people. It distinguishes the Cotabato

Chabacano from the Zamboanga Chabacano. The occurrence of such difference was brought about the waves of

population as it increased after the rule of the Spaniards, which likewise brought about a linguistic invasion into the

language situationing at native speakers.

Main points

The Ct verb is defined as any stem, which can occur with the temporal elements of the grammar. The

temporal elements are preposed particles, which signal the tense-aspect features of the V stem. There are two types

of Ct verb stems, the V-1 and V-2. V-1 stems are stems that came from the Spanish infinitives with the final –r

deleted and the tense aspect signaled by the simple occurrences of the preposed temporal particles, while the V-2

stems are stems that came from Philippine source verbs accompanied with the verbalizing marker man-.

Ct tends to lack inflectional morphological marker. To ‘compensate’ for that, there is the addition of tense

and aspect markers and particles to show future verbal predictions, for completed action and existential predictions.

The Ct verbs undergo three processes of derivations: a) affixing of a small est of verbalizing affixes to full

noun (N) stems and descriptive (D) stems, b) reduplication of certain simple verb stems, and c) stress shift to the next

syllable to the right of the simple noun stems.

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A Ct complex verbal expression is a series of verbs that occur in consecutive sequences and which forms a

chain.

Commentary

This paper is very direct and concise, easy to understand and to comprehend. The introduction was very

interesting as it presented how the Cotabato Chabacano came to be. The Ct verbs were discussed thoroughly,

making even the readers who do not have a background on Spanish able to appreciate and carry on with the

discussion.

De Dios, I. O. R. (1989). A composite dictionary of Philippine Creole Spanish. Studies in Philippine

Linguistics, 7(2) [Review of A composite dictionary of Philippine Creole Spanish.] Philippine Journal

of Linguistics, 21(2), pp. __.

Summary

This is a review by Leonard E. Newell from the Summer Institute of Linguistics to de Dios’s dictionary. The

dictionary included a study on Cotabato Chabacano (Ct) with comparative lexical materials on three other Creole

Spanish dialects in the Philippines: Cavite Chabacano (Cv), Ternate Chabacano (Tr) and Zamboanga Chabacano

(ZM).

Main points

Ct has five vowel phonemes: a, e, i, o, u and twenty-one consonant phonemes, and a suprasegmental

phoneme of stress.

It has no word-final vowels. When Spanish and Philippine language cognates end in vowels, /h/ consistently

follows vowel position. Word-final /h/ is, at least in some cases, due to voicing of vowels word final.

Either particles are classed syntactically as preposed or post posed. Preposed particles indicate features

such as tense-aspect and plural, and occur as prepositions, subordinating conjunctions and adverbs. Post posed

particles on the other side modify verbs, adjectives and nouns.

The four major parts of the speech are verbs, nouns, descriptive and substitutes, with which verbs and

nouns focus majorly to the features of derivation involving affixation and doubling of roots, stress shift and

compounding.

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Ct has very little verb inflection. Tense-aspect is indicated by pre-verb particles and case involves only

prenoun particles. Verb derivation of words of Philippine-language origin is by affixation and doubling, while derivation

involving Spanish words is by doubling, stress shift, and compounding.

Comparing the case-marking particles, with CV. TR and ZM of the particles listed, three are cognates in all

four dialects. 2.7% of CT words have no equivalent forms in the other three dialects. This supports the conclusion

that CT is a PCS dialect distinct from the three. 10.96% of words shared by CT and ZM have no equivalent forms in

the other two which infers that they have a closer relationship.

Commentary

The reviewed work is very good and important contribution to linguistics as it provided the necessary

information needed to learn, understand and appreciate the language. The over 4,000 entries of Ct words in the

dictionary is a commendable feat for someone. This is also a very good reference to any language learners and

researchers.

Barrios, A. (2006). Austronesian Elements in Philippine Creole Spanish. Tenth International Conference on

Austronesian Linguistics, pp. 1-25. Retrieved on August 21, 2009 from

http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/ical/papers.html

Summary

The paper discusses about the lexicon and grammar of Philippine Creole Spanish or Chabacano. It shows the

relation of Chabacano to Zamboangueño, Spanish, Tagalog, and Cebuano.

Main Points

There are different variants of Chabacano such as Caviteño, Ternateño, Cotabeño, Davaoeño and

Zamboangueño. Of these variants, the last one is the only surviving language. One of the hypotheses of Creoles is

that the superstrate or lexifier language of a Creole contributes to its vocabulary, while its grammar comes directly

from its substrate (Crowley 1997). If we look at the lexicon and grammar of Chabacano, this particular theory works

for Zamboangueño. Words in Zamboangueño, such as numbers, days, months and body parts, are derived from

Spanish. Some of the grammar properties show relations to Tagalog and Cebuano. The paper attempts to show the

similarities in the grammatical properties of Tagalog, Cebuano and Zamboangueño

The first part of the body of the paper discusses the word order pattern. Like Tagalog, Cebuano, and most

Philippine languages, Chabacano follows the verb initial word order different from the SVO pattern exhibited by

Spanish. A number of previous studies such as those made by Holm (2001), Forman (2001) and Lipski (1987) also

support this observation. This word order pattern is supported in the following grammar categories: nominal predicate

clauses, adjectival clauses, verbal clauses and prepositional predicate clauses.

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The plural pronominal system of Chabacano was to be discussed next. Cebuano was the language that

influenced this pronominal system on Zamboangueño with the exception of the first person dual, second person

familiar and second person formal all of these forms are Spanish derived. The Cebuano influence is demonstrated in

nominative, genitive and accusative cases. The si-type, di-type, and kon-type pronouns were discussed to support

the previous statement.

The nominative noun marking si is next presented as evidence. In the sample sentence provided, si is also used

to introduce nouns used in the nominative case.

Lastly, the plural noun marker in Zamboangueño is the same to that of Tagalog and Cebuano. Mga is used as

the plural noun marker although it may in some instances become optional specifically when the plural marker –e

suffix, marks the noun.

Commentary

The paper was written in a very simple and organized form that it was very easy to understand. It was also good

that the author provided a suggestion of what could be furthered studied in this subject matter.

Sama Bajaw

SAMA BADJAO

Allison, E. J. (1979). The phonology of Sibutu Sama: a language of southern Philippines. Studies in

Philippines Linguistics , 3 No. 2, 63-104.

Summary

Sibutu Sama is a dialect of Southern Sama under the Sama-Badjao language family. This paper discusses

the basic phonological information of the language as well as the different features found in it particularly on the

syllable, word and junctures.

Main Points

In phonology, Sibutu Sama has five vowel phonemes: [a], [e], [i], [o], and [u]. Each phoneme has allophones.

It also has seventeen consonant phonemes: [p], [b], [t], [d], [k], [g], [m], [w], [s], [l], [n], [j], [h], [�], [y], [�], and [ny].

(Note: [ny] is a voiced alveopalatal nasal.)

Vowels and consonants have been found to function as syllabic peaks of resonance within the syllable in

Sibutu Sama. There are four non-suspect syllable patterns: V, VC, CV and CVC.

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The phonological word consists of one or more syllables bounded by juncture, plus the occurrence of stress.

Unlike in English, juncture in Sibutu Sama appears to be characterized primarily by time-lapse transition

between words. The length of time-lapse is conditioned by word stress, which has an effect on the length of the word.

The suprasegmental stress consists of two stress levels: primary and secondary, both of which are

predictable. Stress occurs on syllable peak, whether vowels or consonant, and any syllable which does not carry a

primary and secondary stress is said to have zero stress.

Commentary

This paper provides a comprehensive discussion of Sibutu Sama’s phonology. The author presented

phoneme charts of vowels and consonants and then gave examples for every phoneme. He also described the

environment in which every phoneme occurs. How the data were organized made it for the readers to be easily

understood. In addition, at the end of the paper, he provided an appendix of the example words and sentences with

translations, which he had used.

More research on the phonology of other dialects under Southern Sama or Southern Sinama itself is

suggested.

Trick, D. (2006). Ergative control of syntactic processes in Sama southern. Tenth International Conference on

Austronesian Linguistics, pp. 1-25. Retrieved on August 21, 2009 from

http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/ical/papers.html

Summary

This paper documents the exclusive ergative control of five syntactic processes in Southern Sama

(southwestern Philippines). It begins with an explanation of ergativity in reference to morphology (with data from

Southern Sama, which illustrates morphological ergativity). It then introduces and explains each of the following

syntactic operations, demonstrating that they exhibit an ergative-absolutive pattern in Southern Sama: relativization,

clefting, WH-question formation, equi-NP deletion, and second-position cliticization. That is, it is the O argument of a

transitive clause, which controls these syntactic processes. This contrasts with most other Philippine languages in

which control of these syntactic processes is distributed more or less evenly between the A argument and the O

argument.

Main points

Sinama's (Sama) syntactic control, in addition to morphological ergativity found in pronouns displays a high

degree of ergativity. It is shown in the processes of relativization, clefting, WH-question, equi-NP deletion, and

second position cliticization.

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Relativization is defined as a process by which a NP is modified by a subordinate clause. The NP being

modified is its head noun and only S and O may be the head of the clause.

Clefting occurs when a NP is extracted from the main clause and appears as a fronted head noun; and in

Southern Sama, this head noun is cross-referenced on the nominalized verb. Only S and O may be the head noun.

The head noun precedes the nominalized clause. The argument in the nominalized clause that is co-referential with

the head noun is obligatory absent. If the head noun is a pronoun, the pronoun is from the oblique class. Note that in

Southern Sama, pronouns have three sets: ergative, absolutive, and oblique. In this process, A also cannot be the

head of the construction; however, if the transitive clause is changed to an antipassive construction, in which A

argument becomes an S argument, then the argument can be the head. If an oblique NP is to become a head noun,

it must be promoted to O (i.e. direct object).

WH-question is one, which contains a pro-form. In many languages, this pro-form occurs in the clause-initial

position, resulting in a 'gap' at the position where the questioned argument occurs in the non-question form. In

Southern Sama, S and O may be questioned; A may not.

Equi-NP deletion, on the other hand, is a syntactic process involving a main clause and a complement

clause, in which an argument in the main clause is co-referential with one complement, and one of the co-referential

arguments is deleted. Although equi-NP deletion operates on a nominative pattern of control in most languages of the

world, including Philippine languages, Southern Sama is an exception to this near universal in that equi-NP deletion

operates on an exclusive ergative pattern of control, that is, only S of an intransitive clause and O of a transitive

clause are deleted under co-reference, never A.

The last process is called second-position cliticization. For many Philippine languages, the arguments S, A

and O all behave as second-position clitics. In Southern Sama, however, only S and O function as second-position

clitics, never A.

The author concludes that Southern Sama or Sinama is unique among other Philippine languages in which

high degree of ergativity controls not only the processes of relativation, clefting, and WH- question but equi-NP and

second position cliticization. However, the author provided conditions for these other two processes. That is, in each

of these syntactic operations, S and O pattern alike and A patterns differently.

Commentary

This paper is a very interesting finding about the ergativity in Philippine languages because it argues that

there are other languages that slightly deviate from the norm. In presenting his examples, the author labeled which

phrases are the A, O and S in the sentences making it easy for the readers to understand the concept of ergativity.

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North Borneo

YAKAN

Behrens, D. & Hale, A. (1986). Demonstratives and the plot in Yakan. Studies in Philippine Linguistic 6(1).

Retrieved on August 29, 2009 from http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines

Summary

This paper tries to determine which demonstratives will be used in a given place in a Yakan narrative. This

problem provides a seemingly elusive answer. Apparently, in Yakan, a speaker is never forced to use a

demonstrative purely by the requirements of clause or sentence level grammar, implying that the choice to use

demonstratives is left to the speaker’s choice. This choice is apparently made based on higher level, that is,

discourse considerations. The author proposed two hypotheses: location hypotheses and the plot hypotheses.

Main Points

In Yakan, assuming that the primary function of demonstratives is marking definiteness, the status of the

specific known entity can be marked just as well by –hin a noun phrase clitic that performs the function without the

using a demonstrative. With the absence of demonstratives, it is obligatory to use –hin to mark ‘specific known

entities. It is the paper’s interest to answer the question regarding under what circumstances a speaker will choose to

use a demonstrative rather than –hin.

The author presents two hypotheses to provide an answer to the problem. The first hypothesis claims that

demonstratives are used for emphasis, for added prominence the factor that dictates the speaker’s choice of what

particular demonstrative is to be used is the relative location. However, this hypothesis does not really answer the

question of what motivates a speaker use a demonstrative

The second hypothesis tries to answer this question. It says that in addition to their locative uses,

demonstratives have reasonably specific functions in highlighting various situations, participants, and props in relation

to the plot – thus called the system of plot-related highlighting hypothesis.

An examination of the two hypotheses governing the use of demonstratives in Yakan, a location hypothesis

and a plot hypothesis was done using a particular demonstrative in different circumstances. The narrator is never

forced to use a demonstrative to mark an entity and for this, it can be inferred that the plot hypothesis is generally

more helpful than the other is.

Commentary

This paper presented a very well- analyzed paper of the use of the demonstratives in Yakan. By using the

demonstratives in different circumstances, the author was able to show the usefulness and the truth behind the two

hypotheses and even concluded that the plot hypothesis is more helpful. This paper also is very commendable as it

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was able to present the problem, the hypotheses and the solution and evidences in a way that it was easily

understood.

Recommendation and Summary

Most of the articles and papers we found discuss the phonology, morphology, and syntax of the some

Philippine languages. Under phonology, most of the languages presented the phonological features such as the

consonants, vowels and their notable suprasegmentals. Forming basic sentences and such are taken up under

syntax. However, no works about their semantics have been discussed.

The number of works about these languages shows how little do people pay attention to them. It is strongly

suggested that more studies and researches be conducted on these languages because they are more prone to

extinction than other larger groups of languages. Language researchers and linguists must begin to study these

languages thoroughly because like the other Philippine languages such as Tagalog, Kapampangan, and Bisaya, they

also deserve the proper attention and preservation.

Bibliography

Barrios, A. (2006). Austronesian Elements in Philippine Creole Spanish.Tenth International Conference on

Austronesian Linguistics, pp. 1-25. Retrieved on August 21, 2009 from

http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/ical/papers.html

De Dios, I. O. R. (1989). A composite dictionary of Philippine Creole Spanish. Studies in Philippine Linguistics, 7(2)

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__.

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