I've been wanting to do a post about Tagalog verbs for a while now. I've brought my notes together to give you all this entry.
Currently, modern Tagalog verb conjugation is as outlined in the following chart.
| Infinitive
| Contemplative
(future actions) | Progressive
(past and present actions) | Completed
(past actions) |
| Actor Focus 1 | -um-
(gumawa) | CV-
(gagawa) | CumV-
(gumagawa) | -um-
(gumawa) |
| Actor Focus 2 | mag-
(magbigay) | magCV-
(magbibigay) | nagCV-
(nagbibigay) | nag-
(nagbigay) |
| Object Focus 1 | -in
(kainin) | CV-...-in
(kakainin) | CinV-
(kinakain) | -in-
(kinain) |
| Object Focus 2 | i-
(isulat) | iCV-
(isusulat) | iCinV-
(isinusulat) | i- -in-
(isinulat) |
| Object Focus 3 | -an
(tawagan) | CV-...-an
(tatawagan) | CinV- ... -an
(tinatawagan) | -in- ... -an
(tinawagan) |
I hope you all will find this chart easy to understand, but I think it's simple enough. The dashes represent the position of the affix in relation to the rootword. CV stands for consonant and vowel and represents the first consonant and the first vowel of the rootword, hence reduplication.
For those who are learning Tagalog, the root words used are
gawa (do),
bigay (give),
kain (eat),
sulat (write), and
tawag (call). So if you look at the proper column, you can tell that if you add the infix
-um- to the rootword
gawa you'll get
gumawa (did). And if you attach the infix
-in- with the suffix
-an to
tawag, you'll get
tinawagan (called [someone]). Got it? Please also keep in mind that these are the basic affixes, so none of the potentive, causative, reason, etc. affixes are included.
However, Tagalog verbal conjugation was not quite as it was as early as a century ago. I have consulted two Tagalog grammar books from the Spanish era; Francisco Blancas de San José's 1610
Arte y Reglas de la lengua tagala and Fr. Sebastián de Totanes's 1745
Arte de la lengua tagala.
During those times, Tagalog's verbal affixes looked more like the following.
| Infinitive
| Contemplative
(future actions) | Progressive
(past and present actions) | Completed
(past actions) | Imperative |
| Actor Focus 1 | -um-
(gumawa) | CV-
(gagawa) | CungmV-
(gungmagawa) | -ungm-
(gungmawa) | |
| Actor Focus 2 | mag-
(magbigay) | magCV-
(magbibigay) | nagCV-
(nagbibigay) | nag-
(nagbigay) | pag-
(pagbigay) |
| Object Focus 1 | -in
(kainin) | CV-...-in
(kakainin) | CinV-
(kinakain) | -in-
(kinain) | 0
(kain) |
| Object Focus 2 | i-
(isulat) | iCV-
(isusulat) | iCinV-
(isinusulat) | i- -in-
(isinulat) | -an
(sulatan) |
| Object Focus 3 | -an
(tawagan) | CV-...-an
(tatawagan) | CinV- ... -an
(tinatawagan) | -in- ... -an
(tinawagan) | -i
(tawagi) |
Imperative affixes
One major difference is that the Tagalog spoken over two centuries ago had an additional verb category, the imperative which is used for commands and requests (i.e.,
Matulog ka na - Go to sleep). Even then, the imperative and the infinitive were used side by side in expressing commands, but apparently the infinitive became used exclusively in
standard Tagalog. Now, I emphasize standard because in certain dialects of Tagalog, it still exists. In certain dialects of Batangas Tagalog, it has been said that one says
buksi mo instead of
buksan mo for "open it." And in the Eastern Marinduque dialect, the imperative affixes are very much alive.
Since Tagalog is a Central Philippine language, does this mean that other Central Philippine languages have imperative affixes too? The answer is yes and they are widely used in the languages spoken in Bicol and in the Visayas. Though, in the "Actor Focus 1" category, all these languages have the suffix "-a" for the imperative.
The languages of the Northern Philippines like Pangasinan, Kapampangan, and Ilokano do not have imperative affixes. In light of this fact, my guess is that Tagalog lost the affixes due to speakers of Northern Philippine languages who migrated to Manila and imposed their respective native languages' grammatical rules onto Tagalog. This caught on when their children, assimilated Tagalog speakers, began to use the language. So this could explain why the dialects that tend to be further from Ilokano and Kapampangan speaking regions tend to preserve the affixes. Though because of the influence and prestige of Manila Tagalog, they are also disappearing.
The infix -um- and its derivatives
Another noticeable difference is the infix
-um- which has also undergone a process of simplification since the Spanish era.
The infix
-ungm- which has disappeared from virtually all contemporary Tagalog dialects. In modern Tagalog,
-um- serves as the infinitive, imperative, and completed (past) forms. So what distinguishes the phrase
kumain ka (either "eat" or "you ate") is context and tone). This infix is cognate with similar infixes in other Philippine languages. They, too, also make a distinction between the infinitive the past forms:
| Language | Infinitive affix | Completed/Past affix |
| Old Tagalog | -um- | -ungm- |
| Modern Tagalog | -um- |
| Ilokano | -um- | -inn |
| Kapampangan | -um- | -in- |
| Pangasinan | on- | -inm- |
| Waray-Waray | -um- | -inm-, -in-, -um- |
| Tausug | -um- | -im- |
|
| Old Bikol | -um- | -umin- |
Apparently the infinitive form comes from Proto-Philippine *-um- and the past one from Proto-Philippine *-umin-.
Furthermore, there were variants of
-um- that had to do with phonetic environment. For example, if the first vowel of a rootword was /i/, then
-um- would optionally change to
-im-. This is called
vowel harmony. For comparison's sake, I'll use the rootword
tingin as an example:
| English | Modern Tagalog | Old Tagalog |
| to look | tumingin | timingin |
| I looked | tumingin ako | tingmingin ako |
| I am/was looking | tumitingin ako | tingmitingin ako |
| I will look | titingin ako |
Now when did this conjugation cease to exist? I am guessing sometime in the middle of the last century. I was able to find a mention of the -ungm- infix in the Pedro Serrano Laktaw's 1929
Estudios gramaticales sobre la lengua Tagálog. He remarks on page 83:
"... que el um del imperativo tenga ng intercalada entre sus dos letras componentes, de modo que resulte ungm para el pretérito y presente, a fin de distinguir el pretérito perfecto del imperativo, como se nota en las antiguas gramáticas, y tal como aún pronuncian la mayor parte de los tagalogs puros, si bien se ve igualmente en muchos libros impresos, como también se oye en Manila a los tagálogs pronunciar el pretérito y el presente con solo el um."
(... that the um of the imperative has a "ng" inserted between its two component letters, in a way that it results in ungm for the preterite and the present, in order to distinguish the preterite perfect from the imperative, as is noted in the older grammars. And it is pronoounced such by the majority of pure Tagalogs, it's also seen in many printed books. The Tagalogs in Manila also pronounce the preterite and the present with just um.)
It makes me wonder if there are still older Tagalog speakers - people in their 90s and 100s - who speak this way.
Another phonological change was that verbs beginning with certain sounds took on different affixes. This would usually happen to verbs beginning with /b/ and /p/. The infix -um- would assimilate with those consonants. There were some exceptions to the /p/ and /b/ rule as in the verbs
kuha (get),
uwi (return home),
inom (drink),
ihi (urinate), and others. According to the grammars, verbs fitting in this category may also be conjugated the regular way (i.e., unassimilated). Below is a comparison outlining the modern Tagalog forms and the two ways of conjugating the verb in old Tagalog. I use the rootword
pasok (enter) as an example.
| English | Modern Tagalog | Old Tagalog
(unassimilated conjugation) | Old Tagalog
(assimilated conjugation) |
| to enter | pumasok | masok |
| I entered | pumasok ako | pungmasok ako | nasok ako |
| I am/was entering | pumapasok ako | pungmapasok ako | nanasok ako |
| I will enter | papasok ako |
It's also worth nothing that a similar process of assimilation happens in Tausug and Kapampangan languages.
Verbal affixes in other Tagalog dialects
One thing I heard growing up was that Tagalog speakers from southern Luzon (Batangas, Quezon, etc.) would say "nakain ka ba ng pating?" To a Manileño, this means "were you eaten by a shark?" But in those regions, it means "are you eating shark?" -
nakain is the equivalent of
kumakain.
The Tagalog dialects of Marinduque are the most divergent, especially the Eastern Marinduque dialect - perhaps due to the relative isolation from the Tagalogs of Luzon and also perhaps due to the influence of the Visayan and Bikol migrants.
Linguist Rosa Soberano's 1980
The Dialects of Marinduque Tagalog goes into great depth concerning the dialects spoken there. The following is a verb chart which outlines the conjugation of the Eastern Marindique dialect of Tagalog:
| Infinitive
| Contemplative
(future actions) | Progressive
(past and present actions) | Completed
(past actions) | Imperative |
| Actor Focus 1 | -um-
(gumawa) | má-
(mágawâ) | ná-
(nágawâ) | -um-
(gumawa) | 0
(gawa) |
| Actor Focus 2 | mag-
(magbigay) | (ma)ga-
([ma]gabigay) | naga-
(nagabigay) | nag-
(nagbigay) | pag-
(pagbigay) |
| Object Focus 1 | -in
(kainin) | a-
(akainin) | ina-
(inakain) | -in-
(kinain) | -a
(kaina) |
| Object Focus 2 | i-
(isulat) | a-
(asulat) | ina-
(inasulat) | i- -in-
(isinulat) | -an
(sulatan) |
| Object Focus 3 | -an
(tawagan) | a-...-an
(atawagan) | ina- ... -an
(inatawagan) | -in- ... -an
(tinawagan) | -i
(tawagi) |
What I find interesting is that some of these affixes, particularly "a-" and "ina-," are affixes used in Asi (Bantoanon), a Visaya language spoken in Romblon, just south of Marinduque.
Some final thoughts
I hope you found this informative. It's fun sometimes for me to use the Old Tagalog or Eastern Marinduque Tagalog verbal affixes in my conversations with other Filipinos. Some have not noticed them at all (particularly when I use -ungm-) while others will think I'm weird and attempt to correct me. In some ways, I think it would have been wonderful for Tagalog to have preserved them - to have preserved the richness. But I guess these things happen for a reason.
