CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION - Reduplication

26) Kan nag-hapot~hapot ako ...
when BEG.AV-PL~ask 1SG.AF
'When I asked here and there ...'
2.5.4 Morphological marking of properties and states
A short grammar sketch of Bikol
[merr_asuwang]
Lexemes which are marked as properties or states at the morphological level can operate in an
attributive as well as in a predicative and even in a referential function. 62 The examples
illustrate that there are rare semantic constraints with respect to the productivity of deriving
properties and states. Himmelmann (2004) also attests this high productivity in Tagalog:
"Stative (...) affixations are not restricted to a specific class of lexical bases but (...) may, in
principle, occur on any lexical base, provided the resulting form makes semantic and
pragmatic sense" (Himmelmann 2004: 113). There is no reason to separate the property and
state derived forms from the other voice-and TAM-affixations. Their morphosyntactic
behavior is exactly the same (cf. also Himmelmann 1987: 160-161 for Tagalog).
In Bikol, properties and states are derived in the following four ways:
1. ma-prefix
27) ma-siram na prutas. 28)ma-bulod ang Bikol
ST-delicious LK fruit ST-mountain PB Bikol
'delicious fruit' 'In the Bikol region there are a lot of mountains.'
2. ha-prefix (“property”-prefix for roots that express spacial dimension)
29) ha-baba' ang tukaw-an 30)ha-langkaw na lalaki
ST.SP-low PB sit-LOC ST.SP-tall LK man
'The chair is low.' 'tall man'
3. accent change
31) búhay 'life' – buháy 'alive'
ma-gayon ang búhay vs. buháy na manok
ST-beauty PB life alive LK chicken
'Life is beautiful.' 'alive chicken'
62 Himmelmann (in detail in 2004, 2006) assumes two different ma-prefixes for Tagalog. He calls them stative
and potentive. This distinction establishes a paradigm. Himmelmann's argumentation is very convincing and
I assumed that in Bikol we would find something very similar. An initial check through my data however,
leads to the conclusion that the differences between Tagalog and Bikol in this respect are considerable, so
that I am not able to fully analyze it for Bikol at the moment.
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