Have you compared? : Tense and aspect in Philippine English

Have you compared?: Tense and aspect in Philippine English Ma. Althea T. Enriquez National University of Singapore

Philippine English (PE) • Product of a language contact ecology • American occupation in the 1st half of the 20th century • “New” Englishes • No sizable population of original English speakers settled • English through education

Philippine English (PE) • Transplanted • importation or introduction of a language to a new environment; new users, new uses • Indigenized • initially acquired through education, used as lingua franca, model for subsequent learners • Nativized • transmitted from parent to child

Research on PE • Standard Philippine English • Data from written materials and mass media • Approached from error analysis • Regular and widespread deviations from SAE are emergent features

Language contact approaches • Universalist – extensive similarities are outcome of the universal aspects of language • Superstratist – most features can be traced to lexifier language • Substratist – influence of dominant substrate or L1 languages

Substrate approach • In pidgins and creoles, grammatical structure is largely determined by grammatical structure of substrate languages • Similarity with language learning: • Supplementation of grammatical structures by L1 • Some features are retained even after shift

Scope (speech community) • Adult speakers who have had at least some college education • Employ English for various communicative purposes with other Filipinos • Bilinguals who acquire English normally in the classroom and Filipino in the home (or in the classroom/in media)

Scope and data • Spoken, interpersonal or in-group communication • Philippine component of the International Corpus of English (ICE) • Subset of the spoken texts: dialogue, direct conversations (S1A-001 to 020)

PE TMA emergent features • Progressive • Present perfect • Already

Tagalog as dominant substrate influence • Some phonological but more morphosyntactic features • Philippine languages are genetically related and typologically similar • PE is spoken more in the urban areas especially in Metro Manila • primary source of influence and locus where PE is used

Tagalog verb system • Verb composed of root with affixes corresponding to FMA • Time relations is expressed by adverbs; in SAE, verb tense markers • Overt aspect markers: perfective, imperfective, contemplative • Panahunan: pangnagdaan (past), pangkasalukuyan (present), panghinaharap (future)

The Progressive • Dynamic action in the process of happening • Dynamism is the crucial difference between states and activities • Only one viewpoint may be available for statives: • In SAE, it is the perfective • In Tagalog, it is the imperfective

Nagbasa ako ng libro. I read a book. • Nagbabasa ako ng libro. I am reading a book. • Magbabasa ako ng libro. I will read a book. I am going to read a book. • Nagbabasa ako ng libro (araw-araw). I read a book (everyday).

PE Progressive • Combines imperfective and present tense through the use of the progressive • Progressives are used in habitual and general stative sentences • Refers to future events which expresses intended events

Yeah something like I-, I’m also playing basketball and I’m trying to figure out how he does those things and he’s so great, he’s just so good to become… [S1A-001#95] • Uh, you just have to make some sacrifices and at the same time, right now, I’m just having a positive attitude to enjoy working there because at least, what makes it more bearable is I have good officemates. [S1A-006#35]

3) Yeah, nice. We went to Harvard. It was so cold and ka-cheap-an namin, we-, we were trying to find out where Sharon Cuneta was living. [S1A-002#39] 4) I’m leaving next-, next, next Monday. It’s on the twenty-sixth. [1] 5) Uhm, I know. I’m watchingon the seventh. [73]

The (present) perfect • “Extended now” • Anteriority • situation prior to speech time • occuring at an indefinite or unspecified time in the past • Current relevance • In SAE, current relevance and definite past cannot be combined

6) How about you Candice? I’ve heard that you like Bacolod so much. [S1A-012#57] 7) Ihave written insights from planned language change and language shift and so on. [S1A-003#163] 8) Really? So you haven’t seen them for a long time. [S1A-002#180] 9) I’ve been to Iloilo like three years ago. [S1A-012#69]

Tagalog ‘na’ • Nagluto ng pagkain ang nanay. NAG-cook OBJ food TOP mother ‘Mother cooked/has/had cooked some food.’ • Nagluto na ng pagkain ang nanay (kanina). ‘Mother cooked/has/had (already) cooked some food (a while ago).’

Already • Used with present perfect but in general American English, it occurs with simple past • ‘has happened before now’ or ‘has happened sooner than expected’ • ‘the situation exists at an earlier time than expected’

We’ve already reached the top. [A#297] • Probably they came to that point already and now they’re languishing at the bottom. [A#298] • Yeah, well. They’re already going down. [B#299] • They’realreadyat the bottom really. [B#300] • I guess, I guess they alreadyhavefive wins. Just imagine, five wins. [A#305]

10) Nagluto (na) si nanay ng pagkain. ‘Mother has already cooked some food.’ 11a) Payat ang babae. ‘The woman is thin.’ b) Payat na ang babae. ‘The woman is now thin.’ 12a) Pumayat ka. ‘You got thin.’ b) Pumayat ka na. ‘You are now thin.’

PE Already • We’ve already reached the top. • They’re already going down. • Focusing of the result to the beginning of the situation in its new state (inchoative) • Recentness or “now-ness” of the situation

Positioning in sentences • But I’ll be working already next month. • I think there were others but I forgot about them already. • But because uh it was time already to go and practice and uh it was a suggestion from my mom and okay we 'll try it and I did.

Summary and conclusion

Have you compared? : Tense and aspect in Philippine English