Grammatical features of spoken Binukid

• Main Author: Borres, Teresita H.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Binukid Manobo language; Manobo languages; Philippine languages; Language and Literacy Education
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/505
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study was conducted to describe the phonological, morphological, and syntactic features of spoken Binukid language. The study made use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in Ladefoged (2012) to anchor its phonetic notations and standardized representations for consonants and vowels, while the simplified stem-based analysis on affixation of Nolasco (2005) and some morphophonemic alternations were used in providing morphological explanations, and finally Ditas (2007) eclectic perspective in describing the language was adopted, where it combined the varied linguistic frameworks that help in the syntactic analysis and description of the language. Proper research protocols were observed such as the consent from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), the tribal informed consent, and the conduct of the traditional pamuhat ritual. Twenty-one informants were initially tapped to answer the lexical and sentence ability tests however, in order to provide in-depth grammatical description of the spoken Binukid language, the number of informants was later trimmed to three family members of the community with ages from 30 years old and above. Phonologically, Binukid as spoken by the Umajamnen tribe has 16 consonants: the /b/, /k/, /d/, /g/, /h/, /j/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /ng/, /p/, /r/, /s/, /t/, /w/, and /y/. It has five vowels: the /a/, the pepet /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/ and finally, it has five diphthongs: the high-front /ei/, the front central /au/, the low central back /ai/, the central / i/ and the back central /ou/. Significant findings on the phonological features of spoken Binukid include the identification of the pepet /e/ the identification of one more consonant, the alveo-palatal affricate /j/ and the description of the five dipthongs: the / i/, /au/, /ai/, / i/, and /ow/. These findings were not discussed in the ealy descriptions of Binukid phonology in the studies of Atherton (1953, 1963) Post (1965, 1968), and Post & Gardner (1965). Moreover, the study has also found the interchangeability of some vowels and consonants among the elderly in the community, and the preponderance of the /a/, the peppet /e/, and the /j/ in the corpus. Morphologically, Binukid morphemes undergo inflection by way of affixation using the prefixes, suffixes and circumfixes that either denote relationship, role, identity, size, space, and distance. In addition, its lexicon is also enriched by morphophonemic changes within the word such as morphemic addition, consonant and vowel loss, vowel loss and metathesis combination, stress shift, or contractions, thereby changing the form and meaning of some Binukid terms. Syntactically, Binukid clauses are categorized as non-verbal and as verbal clauses, depending on its function in the argument. Additionally, its nominals are marked either by the presence of the non-verbal or verbal determiners, the plural markers and the gender used. Its pronominals, on the other hand, have four functions: absolutive, ergative, genitive, and oblique. Adjectives could be described in terms of its semantic and syntactic features as to predicate-initialed or post-nominal adjectives. Its adjectives manifest gradation and other semantic features. Further, its verbs could be intransitive and transitive, or actor-focused or goal-focused. It also has three aspects: the imperfective or the actions that are yet to happen, the continuing or the actions that are happening, and the perfective or the actions that have already happened.