Kagayanen language explained

Kagayanen
States:Philippines
Region:eastern Palawan
Speakers:30,000
Date:2007
Ref:e18
Familycolor:Austronesian
Fam2:Malayo-Polynesian
Fam3:Philippine
Fam4:Greater Central Philippine
Fam5:Manobo
Fam6:North
Iso3:cgc
Glotto:kaga1256
Glottorefname:Kagayanen
Notice:IPA

The Kagayanen language is spoken in the province of Palawan in the Philippines. It belongs to the Manobo subgroup of the Austronesian language family and is the only member of this subgroup that is not spoken on Mindanao or nearby islands.

Distribution

Kagayanen is spoken in the following areas:[1]

Cagayancillo Island between Negros and Palawan

Phonology

+Kagayanen consonant phonemesLabialCoronalPalatalVelarGlottal
Nasalwidth=20px style="border-right: 0;"width=20px style="border-left: 0;"pronounced as /link/width=20px style="border-right: 0;"width=20px style="border-left: 0;"pronounced as /link/width=20px style="border-right: 0;"width=20px style="border-left: 0;"pronounced as /link/
Stoppronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/width=20px style="border-right: 0;"pronounced as /link/width=20px style="border-left: 0;"
Fricativepronounced as /link/(pronounced as /link/)
Approximant
(Lateral)
pronounced as /link/width=20px style="border-right: 0;"width=20px style="border-left: 0;"pronounced as /link/pronounced as /link/
pronounced as /link/
Rhoticpronounced as /link/

pronounced as /[h]/ occurs only in loan words, proper names, or in words that have pronounced as /[h]/ in the cognates of neighboring languages.[2] Outside of loanwords, pronounced as //d// becomes pronounced as /[r]/ between vowels.

Comparative and historical evidence suggests that pronounced as //ð̞// and pronounced as //l// were in complementary distribution before a split occurred likely with pressure from contact with English, Spanish, and Tagalog.

Vowels of Kagayanen!!Front!Central!Back
Closepronounced as /i/ pronounced as /ə/ pronounced as /u/
pronounced as /a/

pronounced as //i// ranges between pronounced as /[i]/ and pronounced as /[e]/, except in unstressed syllables (as well as before consonant clusters) where it lowers to pronounced as /[ɪ]/ or pronounced as /[ɛ]/. Similarly, pronounced as //u// lowers to pronounced as /[ʊ]/ in unstressed syllables, before consonant clusters, and word-finally. It is otherwise pronounced as /[u]/.

Grammar

Most roots in Kagayanen do not have a defined part of speech but can function in predication (like verbs), referring (like nouns), or modifying (like adjectives and adverbs). For example, cgc |kaan is a root often used to refer to "cooked rice", but when inflected as a verb, the same root can mean "eat".[3] Verbs are inflected for mood, volition, voice (transitive/intransitive in Pebley's terminology), and whether the absolutive argument is a typical affected patient (applicative marking).[4] As with other Austronesian languages, one argument of a verb is always treated specially by the syntax. Pebley refers to this unmarked noun phrase (which is often but not always in a patient role when another argument is present) simply as the "absolutive" argument. (Van Valin 2005) refers to this as the PSA, the "privileged syntactic argument",[5] but linguists use a variety of terms to refer to this type of argument.

Notes and References

  1. Ethnologue
  2. , citing
  3. Web site: Pebley . Carol J. . Payne . Thomas E. . A Grammar of Kagayanen . Language Science Press . 2024 . 23 July 2024 . 337.
  4. Web site: Pebley . Carol J. . Payne . Thomas E. . A Grammar of Kagayanen . Language Science Press . 2024 . 23 July 2024 . 273.
  5. Web site: Reisberg . Sonya . Predicting voice choice in symmetrical voice languages. All the things that do not work in Totoli . Studies in Language . 23 July 2024 . 10.1075/sl.20061.rie . 2021.