Endriga dissects verb subcategorization in Cebuano

Last 30 September 2025, Asst. Prof. Divine Angeli Endriga presented the ninth installment of the 2025 Philippine Indigenous Languages Lecture Series (PILLS) on Cebuano/Binisaya (ISO 639-3 [ceb]). Her lecture was entitled “Cebuano [ceb]: An Affix-Based Subcategorization of Cebuano Verbs”. The lecture aimed to answer two questions in the context of the Cebuano language: which verb can be affixed with which specific affix? And which affix can be attached to which verb?

To answer these questions, three concepts were first discussed. The first is theta-theory, which is the component of grammar that assigns thematic roles such as the [Agent], [Patient], or [Theme], etc., i.e., who is the doer, the undergoer, etc. of an action/event. The second is focus, i.e., what is being talked about in a clause. Focus in Cebuano is marked with the absolutive/nominative determiners si/sina for people names and ang/ang mga for all other nouns. Focus goes hand-in-hand with the theta-theory, as it identifies which of the theta-roles is highlighted. This is demonstrated by the following permutations of the root verb luto, and how the focus and theta-roles change in relation to their affixes:

The last concept is subcategorization. Subcategorization identifies the arguments of the verb, including the types of these arguments. Putting all these together, the framework that was the basis of the lecture is the affix-based subcategorization framework. This framework was based on MA Lingg Alum Sergey Klimenko and Asst. Prof. Enrdiga’s work on “Semantic verb classes and regularity of voice paradigms in Tagalog.”

Using this framework, Endriga dissects the pattern of how verbs and affixes function alongside each other. In the process, she uses this framework to determine the limitations and flexibility of verbal inflection in the context of Cebuano. 
The lecture presented data from 100 Cebuano words and 10 affixes that were verified by native speakers of Cebuano and the use of these words and affixes on Cebuano Facebook pages. The roles the lecture focused on were of the [Agent], [Patient], [Theme], [Location], [Beneficiary], and [Instrument]. The following table illustrated the relationship between all the roles and affixes that were considered. These affixes per role are then chosen based on aspect: infinitive, perfective, imperfective, and contemplative before being attached to the verbs, e.g., the agent focus mu- is for the perfective and mag- for the imperfective.

The agent focus affixes were first discussed. Agent focus means that the one in focus is the doer of the action. The agents may be animate or inanimate, such as people and calamities, respectively, e.g., nagdula ang bata ‘the child is playing,’ naglinog ‘there is an earthquake,’ etc. From the data collated, it was found that Cebuano exhibited a realis-irrealis distinction. This means that in Cebuano, the affix of a verb changes depending on whether or not the action/event has been actualized or not. In addition, it was found that some verbs take more than one affix with slight differences in meaning. For example, the perfective irrealis mu- affix can imply singularity while the irrealis imperfective mag- affix indicates duality/reciprocity, depending on the collocation, e.g., mag- + inom ‘to drink’ = mag-inom ‘to drink (alcohol) together.’

The patient focus was discussed next, which means that the focus would be on the object or entity being completely affected by an action. From the data, it was found that the various verb-affix collocations of the agent focus did not necessarily apply to the patient focus. While the agent focus can be mag– or mu-, only one affix can be used in patient focus. An example of this is if the word gawas ‘to bring out’ were affixed for agent focus, it can be nigawas or nagawas. However, for patient focus, it can only be affixed as gigawas ‘to take [something] out’. Unlike the agent focus, the patient focus does not have collocations. Next was the locative focus. This indicates the “person, thing, or place toward which the action is directed or from which the action originated or where the action takes place” [Endriga cites Cruz (1972, p. 13)]. The patient focus and locative focus can both use the affixes -on and -an. The –an affix is more commonly used on locative focus, while -on is mostly used on the patient focus; thus, in the data, there is only one instance of the usage of -on for the locative (tabokon ‘to cross [the sea]’). As stated earlier, the patient focus does not have any collocations, and this is because its collocation using the -on affix would make it locative focus. Next was the benefactive focus, which focuses on the person for whom the action is being done. Similar to the patient and locative focus, the benefactive focus also shares the affix -an. Differentiating between the patient and locative -an is simple as when -an is used as patient focus, the verb takes on a different affix when used as locative focus, and vice versa. For example, for the word bilin ‘to leave’, the locative focus is bilinan or binlan ‘to leave [somewhere]’, which in the patient focus is ibilin ‘to leave [something]’. This leaves differentiating the locative focus and benefactive focus, which can be done by changing to agent focus and seeing which marker gets used for the arguments: sa for the location, and og for beneficiary. Lastly, Endriga discussed instrumental focus, which pertains to the object that was used to perform an action. Because the affix ipang- ends with a velar nasal, it may undergo assimilation or replacive assimilation, depending on the verb, e.g., ipang- + silhig ‘broom’ = ipanilhig ‘to sweep with [a broom]’.

In general, it was found that affixes and verbs were not in a 1:1 correspondence. Like explained earlier, the patient, locative, and benefactive focuses share some affixes. In addition, the verbs also were not locked into one affix, like with the agent affixes that held slightly different meanings. The most used affixes were the following: mag- for actor focus and -on for patient focus. The most used focus would be the agent followed by the patient, and so if a verb can only take 1 affix, it would likely be the agent focus. All of these show that affixation in Cebuano is highly unpredictable, and from the data, there was no determining factor for which affixes go to which verbs and vice versa.

Because of the limited scope, it was recommended that further studies be done by expanding the list of verbs to include more than 100 verbs for the corpus, more affixes, and more theta-roles. Endriga also recommends including modal constructions and discussing syntax, among others, to generate a more comprehensive discussion of Cebuano subcategorization. Aside from these, Endriga also recommended testing for regularity and grouping of any correspondences.

During the open forum, attendees further inquired regarding the methodology and the corpus, clarifications of the results and analysis including questions about affix-verb collocations, and some general questions about the Cebuano language and its verbs.

The recorded lecture of the ninth installment of the 2025 PILLS on Cebuano is now available on the official Department Youtube Channel. Follow our social media pages for the release of the recordings og the next installments of PILLS. The next installment of PILLS 2025, held on October, focused on the intertidal lexicon of Cuyonon [cyo] and was delivered by Prof. Aldrin P. Lee. Stay tuned for the release of the article and recording of the 10th PILLS installment!