The Archive releases Regular Volume 6, No. 2 (2025)

The Archive journal, the official publication of the UP Department of Linguistics, has released the second issue of its sixth regular volume, featuring four research articles.

In the editor’s note, Assoc. Prof. Maria Kristina S. Gallego (editor-in-chief) emphasized the central role of language in facilitating social interaction, and how the science of language, ranging from esoteric linguistic descriptions to interdisciplinary perspectives, is ultimately a social one. The papers featured in this issue of The Archive generally deal with the interaction within and across language systems, both on the micro-level of internal language structure, as well as the macro-level of information processing.

Interaction within and across language systems

In the first article, Leo Gregory Fordan investigates the nature and distribution of cross-referent pronouns in three Sambalic languages, Sambal, Botolan, and Bolinao. His investigation shows how cross-referent pronouns, which co-refers to a particular argument within a construction, serve pragmatic functions such as reference tracking. By presenting data on the three languages, the study also suggests that the observable variation is influenced by factors such as language-specific phonological and morphological structures.

The succeeding article by Ethan Nicholas Salvador describes the verbal paradigms of Masbatenyo that encode parameters such as voice, aspect, and mode. As a canonical Philippine language, Masbatenyo exhibits what has been described in linguistic typology as a complex morphosyntactic system, which conveys information about who does what to whom, through small units that combine with the verb.

In his article, Jem Javier gives a nuanced treatment to how the Filipino language conceptualizes the idea of space primarily through the function word sa as well as the suffix -an. The study effectively demonstrates how the domain of semantics interacts with the domains of morphology and syntax, as well as how information such as space is crucially encoded and extended through language.

The last article by Mark Kevin Reginio addresses the question of language choice in the perception of information. The article focuses on risk communication in the contexts of disaster and disease, where the choice of presenting information in either Filipino and English is hypothesized to influence how information is transmitted and perceived.

Growing with junior scholars of the Department

This issue of the journal also contains the abstracts of three recently completed graduate theses and dissertation, namely A Grammar of Itneg Inlaud by Ryn Jean Fe Gonzales (PhD Linguistics, supervised by Mary Ann Bacolod), Imperative Constructions in Marinduque Tagalog by Reb Nuñez (MA Linguistics, supervised by Mary Ann Bacolod), and Complex Constructions in Pangasinan by John Meynard Sanchez (MA Linguistics, supervised by Francisco Rosario, Jr.). These graduate research under the MA and PhD programs of the UP Department of Linguistics are a testament to the Department’s role in cultivating more younger scholars engaged in the documentation and description of Philippine languages.

A space for continued scholarship

The Archive continues to serve its role as a platform for research dissemination, especially for Filipino scholars, to contribute to scholarly ideas and discussions on social interaction, the human experience, and how language and linguistic structures are woven in them. The Archive Vol. 6 No. 2 (2025) is helmed by Assoc. Prof. Maria Kristina S. Gallego (Editor-in-Chief), Asst. Prof. Kyung Min Bae (Managing Editor), Brian Salvador Baran (Copyeditor, Layout Artist, and Cover Designer), with support from Mai Andre Encarnacion (Copyeditor), Victoria Vidal, Marielle Eugenio, and Jefferson David (Administrative Staff), and the reviewers who ensured the quality of the articles.

The Archive was originally published in the 1920s by Otto Johns Scheerer as a repository for working papers of the Department’s graduate students. It now publishes research outputs in three different categories: the Regular Issue, which is the peer-reviewed publication for original works dealing primarily but not exclusively with Philippine languages and dialects; the Special Publication, which is a venue for publishing single, extensive works on Philippine languages, translations, and other similar works; and the Classics series, which reprints monumental works in Philippine linguistics that paved the way for further research in the field and continue to influence current studies on Philippine languages.

The Archive accepts submissions all year round. It is officially hosted by the UP Diliman Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Development. Online access to the issue is currently limited. You may browse the issues of the journal on our temporary website at: <https://linguistics.upd.edu.ph/research/publications/the-archive-journal/>. For copies of the articles, kindly send a request to thearchive.upd@up.edu.ph.  More information about the journal and submission guidelines are available through the same link.