P While invariable in some cases, as in palit, dear; páltog, gun; pisus, Sp., peso; in others it passes into f, as shown under that letter. Q This letter is not used in writing Nabaloi. R Pronounced with the tongue and rather softly: Era, they; marikit, pretty. Note also the following letter changes: Chala, blood; I., dara; díros, clock, watch; Sp., reloj; chinggol, quarrel; I., ringgor; gícha, war; Sp., guerra; uling, charcoal ; P., uring; kuldyo, mail; Sp., correo; Alingay, a town; I., Aringay; diraldyo, newspaper; Sp., diario. (See also under L and Ch.) S Sharp in kosipos, to roll up; asas, to see; chaschasan, peel, etc. Soft in sudat, to write; siged, well, right, and others. T Pronounced as ordinarily, though it is often not readily distinguished from d by an European ear. U Short in nutnut, to talk; kadut, to tie, etc.; long in bunu, to kill; unas, sugar cane, etc. V, W, X, Y, Z For w and y see under G and D, respectively. The other sounds do not occur, excepting perhaps v, which approaches the soft Nabaloi b, and a, which is used to represent the second sound given under K. DIPHTHONGS ell A broad e joined to a short u: Badéu, song; Aléu-éu, a personal name, etc. ei Sounds like the diphthong in English they, and takes the place of the Ilokano ai: Atei, dead; altei, liver; balei, house; pagei, paddy. A long hollow u. This sound corresponds to the ao in lowland dialects: Akou, sun, day; T., arao; payou, rice field; irou, a big snake; Palou, name of a locality; tapou, top of mountain; I., tapao. au Like ow in English cow: Puxau, hawk; talau, star; kalau, a bird. oi Like the diphthong in English coy: Angalutoi, slippery; Nabaloi, name of this dialect, etc. HIATUS; TRANSPOSITION OF VOWELS There are in Nabaloi, as in Ilocano, certain words the correct pronunciation of which requires a distinct hiatus to be interposed between two syllables. Of this kind are: Tag-in, cold; Pináu-an, Aleu-éu, Kam-ol, three personal names; bulbul-ó, butterfly; alam-am, a fern; un-an, to go to see. The hiatus in question is like the one we make in English in such a word as tick-tack. It may be remarked finally that there are to be found in Nabaloi examples of that curious transposition of vowels within one word that is met with also in Ilocano and other native dialects. By a change of this kind the word ambúlinget, dark, for instance, will be heard as ambílunget, and others similarly. A certain author has seen in this capriciousness in speaking one of the causes of the great variety of Philippine dialects. SIGNS EMPLOYED The two sounds fluctuating-the one between e and i and the other between o and u, for each of which the old Philippine alphabets had only one character-I shall not distinguish by special signs but write. words containing them as I have heard them.' I discard further the distinction in writing between the first and second sounds under A, between the three kinds of C, and between the first and second sounds under E, because, being influenced by the neighboring dialects, they become more or less distinct according to the geographical position of each rancheria. The examples given may suffice to illustrate them. Lastly, the difference between sharp and soft s and long and short u is not so excessive as to render diacritical marks necessary. There remain only three special sounds to be considered: First, that which the Spaniards, finding it in all dialects of these Islands, rendered by ñg, ng, or ng. Leaving aside the much-debated question how it can be represented properly for popular, practical use, I retain in this study the simplest Spanish form of writing the sound ng. The two other sounds 2 1 Rizal repudiates for Tagalog orthography the use of the e altogether, which he says was introduced by foreign writers. He admits only the i with two values-i in the middle of a word (Spanish i) and i in a final syllable a little more open, like y in English "carry," "fluently"—that is, a sound between e and i. Of u he similarly says that in the middle of a word it sounds like the Spanish u, but that it opens a little and takes an intermediate sound between o and u in final syllables, a fact which, as in the case of e and i, leads some to believe that the Filipinos employed o and u indifferently. Words with two o's of the intermediate sound, as tutoo, poon, etc., he pronounces to contain really only a long final u. He admits therefore the letter o only for final syllables, giving it the value of ou-that is, darker than the Italian o. 2 In passing I will only point out that the sign n avoids the drawback which led Rizal to admit reluctantly the old Spanish ng instead of the ĝ proposed by him, viz, it does not destroy the character of the assimilated particle na in contractions like Harin bata for Hari na bata. [The author proposed to adopt the character ǹ in place of ng, but, in view of the fact that there is not general agreement as to the wisdom of this course and also because the character ng is well understood, it has seemed best for the present to represent the sound by ng.-ED.] are the ones described under E and the palatal fricative mentioned under K. As both are constantly used and clearly heard they merit distinctive signs, and I give them, the first with a and the second with a (Association Phonétique Internationale). ROOTS AND PARTICLES Nabaloi, like all Philippine dialects, is agglutinative, built up of roots and particles. By roots I mean here simply the words that convey a certain definite and independent idea-for example, apui, fire; ootik, little; bunu, to kill; chua, two. Particles I call here certain syllables which, taken by themselves, have no meaning whatever and therefore never occur singly in the sentence and which become significative only when agglutinated to roots or compound words the meaning of which they modify in a variety of ways. Agglutinative particles are either prefixed or infixed or suffixed. Some examples will illustrate their use: Prefix maka, meaningless if by itself, has the office of adding the idea "owner" to the sense embodied in the stem. Taking, for instance, the word balei, house, we get makabalei, owner of house; makakabadyo, owner of horse, and so on. Infix in serves to make the past tense of verbal forms. Stem: Tag-in, cold; antag-in, to become cold; t-im-ag-in, to have become cold. In this case the n of infix in becomes m for reasons of idiomatic pronunciation. Suffix an denotes locality. Root: Apui, fire; apuian, fireplace. The number of particles a stem may take is not limited to one. instance: For Root, Puetang, Warmth, heat + Prefix ka and suffix an1 ka-p(ue)tang-an Hot territory. I-ka-p'tang-an A person having his home By certain particles a verbal force is given to nouns. For example, to the compound word apuian, fireplace, the idea of "to use as" is superadded by the prefix pan. Let this be your fireplace; (or, briefly) make your fire here. The same sentence is rendered as a statement in the past tense by infixing into panapuian the particle in: 1 Ka... an denote, among other things, the whole extent in which the idea expressed by the root prevails. The above is an instance of this idea in concrete sense; for abstract ideas compare T., layâ, free; ka-laya-án, freedom. This is the place that served you to make fire; (or) you made your fire here. The notable point in this form is that it expresses both a thing and an action, and that with this duality in sense accords its grammatical appearance. It is preceded by the article like a noun and it can be modified as to time like a verb. We can not then bring it justly under either of these grammatical categories of ours, and the less we try to do so the sooner we enter into the spirit of these idioms.1 verb," p. 126.) (Compare "The THE ARTICLE DEFINITE The definite article, used for singular and plural and for both genders, is e, also pronounced i (Spanish pronunciation). The declension of a noun with the definite article in English would appear in Nabaloi as follows: 2 Nominative case: e daxi, the man; e balei, the house. Possessive case: Objective case: ne dari, of the man; ne balei, of the house. fsun daxi, to the man;3 chi balei, to the house.3 le dari, the man; e balei, the house. In speaking of persons the special article si is used with their personal names and also with words which express kinship, as ama, father; ina, mother; agi, brother, sister. It is likewise used with the pronouns iai, this, and iman, that, if they refer to persons. The different cases are shown in the following example: Nominative case: si Mateo. Possessive case: nan Mateo or ne Mateo. Objective case: sun or sikan Mateo; si Mateo. Si, if following a vowel, is generally abbreviated to s' and pronounced as a suffix to the word preceding it. (See examples.) INDEFINITE The indefinite article is sarei, one, joined to the noun by the particle a. It forms the following cases: It may not be superfluous to point out here that although I take our grammatical categories as a ground plan for these notes and continually use terms taken from our grammar I use them because they are familiar and not because grammatical terms used in a European language fit exactly a Malayan dialect like Nabaloi. 2 The word "declension" is used here merely as a matter of convenience. Strictly speaking, a word which does not change in form to make the different cases is not declined. 3 The dative particle sun is used only for living beings. With inanimate things this case generally bears upon relations as to space and is expressed by prepositions like chi and others. Akotai e daxi.' Si Mateo e baknang. Abadeg e balei ni Kastil. Chulong chi balei nan Mateo iai. Balei nan Mateo. Balei-Matco. Mapteng si iai. Saidiai e balei ne saxei a abiteg. Iaxan-mo e sudat sun saxei a igudut. Insas-ko e bii. Guara insas-ko'n bii. Guara insas-ko chua'n bii. Insas-ko achum a bii. Achaxel e bii'n insas-ko. Examples The man is bad. The tree is high. Mateo is a headman (or rich man). The house of the Spaniard is big. Many are the children of Juan. I have given the bone to the dog. I have met the capitan (headman). Is your father present? These boards belong to the house of The house of Mateo. Mateo's house. This (person) is good. This is a house of a poor man. Give the letter to an Igorot. I have seen the woman (women). I have seen women. I have seen two women. I have seen some women. Many were the women I saw. The emphasis obtained for "many" in the last sentence by putting acharel at the beginning and the definite article immediately after is an idiomatic construction often to be rendered by such relative phrases of ours as "it is he who," etc. For instance: Sikak e kinilbig-to. Saidiai e cha kapan sungura. Sikam e angala ne kabadyo. It is I who was struck by him. THE NOUN The Nabaloi noun has no distinctive forms to denote number or gender. The plural, if not left to be understood from the context, is expressed by such words as amin, all; achum, some; acharel, many, etc. There are, however, in use some nouns, mostly belonging to the Ilocano dialect, that form a plural by reduplication of the first syllable plus the following consonant; for example: Balei, house; bal-balei, houses; ili, town; il-ili, towns; bilin, command, order; bil-bilin, commands, orders. To express the gender in the case of animals the words dari, man, 1 Lit.: "Bad the man." It is well to point out here that Nabaloi entirely lacks the auxiliary verb "to be," and that the idea of it is embodied in the noun (substantive, pronoun, adjective). Instances of this, besides above examples, will occur continually in these notes. (See under "The adjective.") |