Date of Publication
9-2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Linguistics
Subject Categories
Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics | Morphology | Phonetics and Phonology | Syntax
College
Br. Andrew Gonzalez FSC College of Education
Department/Unit
Dept of English and Applied Linguistics
Thesis Advisor
Shirley N. Dita
Defense Panel Chair
Aireen Barrios Arnuco
Defense Panel Member
Rochelle Irene G. Lucas
Leah E. Gustilo
Teresita F. Fortunato
Aldrin P. Lee
Abstract/Summary
Inagta (lit. spoken in the language of the Agtas) is a distinct yet undefined Philippine Negrito language spoken by a small number of scattered native speakers living in and around the remote areas of Barangay Villa Espina and its adjacent areas in Lopez and its neighboring towns of Calauag, Guinayangan and Tagkawayan, Southern part of Quezon Province, Philippines. Except for occasional mention in hardly any literature, very little is known about the language as no extensive study has ever been done about it yet other than this groundwork study. It may also be considered critically endangered as the native speakers’ population – although yet to be determined with certainty – is assumed in this study to be around 50 or less. Out of this small population, only few remaining elders speak the language with convincing degree of fluency and proficiency while the younger members of the tribe barely speak it as most have already shifted to Manide or Tagalog, or have developed an amalgamated Inagta language due to increasing cases of intermarriage between native Agtas, Manides, and Tagalogs, which further endangers the language.
Debatably, this study also argues that Inagta Alabat “language” is non-existent since no linguistic evidence can be found that would prove that such “language” existed and was spoken by the original Negrito inhabitants of the Alabat Island prior to the Lopez Agta migration in the 1970s. It is also further claimed that the language spoken today by the Negrito community in Alabat Island is Inagta Lopez, which is the mother language of the Lopez Agta migrants who now dominates its population as per report of Lobel (2013). Be that as it may, more thorough investigation is needed to validate the claim.
Prompted by the current sociolinguistic situations of the Lopez Agtas, this dissertation focuses on the documentation of the Inagta Lopez language. Specifically, it aims to describe the grammar and linguistic features of this language, which includes phonology, morphology, and syntax.
Inagta Lopez is a spoken-only language. Its phonological system is clearly straightforward. It has twenty-two (22) sounds, but only twenty (20) of them—i.e., sixteen consonants and four vowels—are phonemic. Minimal pairs (i.e., word positions for consonants and the order of syllables for vowels) are used to establish the phonemic status of each sound. The two remaining sounds are the loaned [r] and the allophonic [ɔ]. A community-based orthography is needed to be conducted to standardize the language.
From a typological perspective, Inagta Lopez – as most Philippine languages – can be analyzed as agglutinating where words are comprised of several morphemes—i.e., roots and affixes, each of which expresses one meaning—and that can be segmented. Moreover, words in this language can be mainly divided into lexical and functional words. On the one hand, lexical categories include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and they are called so because they have lexical meanings and accept new members (or new words). On the other hand, functional categories include nominal markers, pronouns, modal and discourse particles, prepositions, and conjunctions.
Like any other Philippine-type languages, Inagta Lopez is a verb-initial or predicate-initial language, in which the verb or the predicate occupy the first position in a clause, followed by nouns and other constituents. Clauses in this language can be non-verbal (based on forms that are not verbs) and verbal. They consist of at least a predicate (usually a verb) and an entity. However, in some instances, non-verbal forms are also used as predicates. Non-verb clauses consist of various forms: nominal, adjectival, existential, prepositional, and locative. Verbal clauses, on the other hand, are characterized by transitivity and valency.
Inagta Lopez also exhibits ergativity where the patient is the primary choice for the unmarked and syntactically prominent position. In transitive constructions, the entity responsible for the action is in the absolutive and the entity carrying out the action is in the ergative form. The nouns are marked for absolutive, ergative, genitive, and oblique cases.
In general, the discussions made in the description of the grammar of Inagta Lopez in this dissertation being one of the many Philippine languages and one of the critically endangered Philippine Negrito languages are patterned to major research findings on Philippine languages, such as the ergative analysis and transitivity, deviating from how grammar of Philippine languages have been described in the past.
Abstract Format
html
Language
English
Format
Electronic
Keywords
Sociolinguistics; Agta language
Recommended Citation
Salipande, A. L. (2023). A grammar of Inagta Lopez. Retrieved from https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdd_deal/14
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Embargo Period
9-2026
