A reference grammar of Southern Alta

Date of Publication

6-2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Linguistics

Subject Categories

Indigenous Studies | Linguistics

College

Br. Andrew Gonzalez FSC College of Education

Department/Unit

English and Applied Linguistics

Thesis Adviser

Shirley N. Dita

Defense Panel Chair

Aireen B. Arnuco

Defense Panel Member

Leah E. Gustilo
Teresita F. Fortunato

Abstract/Summary

Southern Alta is a predicate-initial language. The basic clause can be non-verbal or verbal clause. A verbal clause is verb-initial while a non-verbal clauses can be a noun, an adjective, preposition, locative, adverb, or existential. The verbal clause consists of a verb element and a marked-NP, a pronominal, an adverbial particle(s), a temporal or a locative demonstrative. The noun phrase consists of a head noun and a case marker. And a clause may also contain clitic(s) or particle(s).
Southern Alta nominal case-marking exhibits an ergative pattern. The Actor Focus (AF) affixes are intrasitive while the Goal Focus (GF) affixes are transitive. The AF affixes are , mag – and mang-. The mag- affix consists of three forms; they are mag- as mag-, man-, and mam-. The GF affixes consist of patient focus (PAT), locative focus (LOC), benefactive focus (BEN), comitative focus (COM), instrumental focus (INST), and theme (THE). GF verbs consist of verb stem plus the following affixes: for PAT–on or –an, LOC –an, BEN –en, COM ka-, INST i-, and THE –on.
The dissertation contains 18 chapters. Chapter One gives a background of Philippine Negrito languages vis-a-vis Philippine languages, the origin, the language and culture of the Southern Alta people. This chapter also reviews published studies in Philippine linguistics and languages including Philippine Negrito languages, language documentation and description, the synthesis of related studies, the aim of this study and the statement of the problem, theoretical and conceptual framework, scope and limitation, and significance of the study . Chapter Two describes the research approach and setting, methods and techniques in data gathering, the data and corpus, results from texts and language data, and the featured chapters of the dissertation. Chapters Three and Four provide a description of the phonology and morphology of Southern Alta, respectively. Chapter Five introduces and describes the verbal and non-verbal clause types of the language.
Chapter Six introduces the two nominal markers: determiners and demonstratives. It describes the common and proper, the definiteness and indefiniteness, constituent order, case, and number. It also describes the demonstratives, the spatial and temporal. Chapter Seven introduces the pronominal system. It consists of the position and functions of pronouns in basic verbal and non-verbal clauses. It distinguishes the types of pronouns including the five distinct sets of personal pronouns. It also describes the types and functions of various demonstratives and other deictic expressions. This chapter shows the long and short forms, case-markings, person, number, and functions of each set of pronouns and demonstratives. Chapter Eight introduces the grammatical category of nouns and noun phrases. It describes of the structural and distributional properties of nouns including the nominal markers, and semantic subclasses of nouns, derivations, and pluralization. Chapter Nine describes the adjectives and its prototypical characteristic (size, quality, trait and color) including the existence of antonymic pairs. It also describes the morphological formation such as pluralization, inflection, and gradation.Chapter Ten describes the distributional and structural properties of verbs. The description includes the verbal morphology in relation to the focus system, the theoretical underpinning of transitivity, and the ergative-absolutive analysis of verbal clauses, the aspect and conjugation of intransitive and transitive verbs, verb classes including causativization and extended locative focus (ELF).
Chapter Eleven describes the adverbial particles and adjuncts. Chapter Twelve introduces the number system. Chapter Thirteen describes existential constructions. Chapter Fourteen describes and categorizes the connectors and preposition-like morphemes. Chapter Fifteen describes the interrogative constructions. Chapter Sixteen introduces negation clause constructions. Chapter Seventeen introduces other syntactic processes of Southern Alta syntax including the clause formations like antipassitivization and detransitivization, relativization, topicalization and causativization. Chapter Eighteen, the last chapter, provides the summary of each chapter, conclusion, and recommendation or direction for future studies.

Abstract Format

html

Language

English

Format

Electronic

Accession Number

CDTG008235

Keywords

Philippine languages--Grammar

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Embargo Period

3-11-2025

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