A Brief Syntactic Typology of Philippine Languages - Academia Sinica

Lawrence A. Reid and Hsiu-chuan Liao
474
(100) Tboli (Forsberg 1992:11)
a. Omin le Yê Bong gna.
and then NOM.3P Mother Big go ahead
‘And then Big Mother and her companions went ahead.’
b. Wen le Yê.
there is NOM.3P Mother
‘There is Mother and the rest of the family.’
c. Lewu me Kasi funen.
two NOM.1PE Kasi owner.GEN.3S
‘Kasi and I are the owners.’ (Lit., ‘We two Kasi are the owners.’)
d. Gunun deng nù se tahu blóng ye Dimas?
where.GEN.3S P AST be EMPH true division NOM.2P Dimas
‘Where is the true boundary between you and Dimas?’
In most Philippine languages, expansions of the head of plural personal nouns, as
also of plural pronoun heads, such as those in (100c-d), are typically accomplished with
a Locative expression, interpreted as ‘with’, as in (101).
(101) Guinaang Bontok
Siya sa nan /ásu=mi an takdəg.
prdc.3S that DET dog=GEN.1PE with Takcheg
‘The dog that is Takcheg’s and mine is that one.’
The marking of plural common noun phrases, although not obligatory in Philippine
languages, 15 is commonly accomplished by the use of one or more of a number of
pluralizing strategies. These are presented below, in the order in which they appear to
have developed historically.
(a) By third person plural pronominal agreement with a marked common noun
phrase, commonly in immediate appositional relationship to it, as in Itawis, Central
Cagayan Agta, Guinaang Bontok, etc., as described above in §2.3.2.3.
(102) Itawis (Natividad and Solomon 1970:23)
Naguribat=ida ya affi.
dim=NOM.3P DET lights
‘The lights are dim.’
15 Common nouns typically can have either singular or plural reference without overt marking.
Most languages also have morphological devices for deriving plural nouns from some subclasses
of singular nouns.