The Archive Vol. 6, No. 1 (2025)

Comparing voice-aspect in Southern Cordillera: Pangasinan, Bugkalot/Eg̓ongot, and Keley-i

Abstract

The Southern Cordilleran subgroup, originally termed as Pangasinic (Zorc, 1979), is a classification of several Philippine vernaculars spoken across four regions (CAR, I, II, III). Among the members of this group are Pangasinan [pag] which is considered as a major language (Constantino, 1971) but may be endangered (Anderson & Anderson, 2007), the threatened Bugkalot/Eg̓ongot [ilk] with less than 6,000 speakers, and Keley-i [ify] which its speakers push as a separate language from the others spoken in some towns in Ifugao. These three are given varying degrees of membership by the literature (Blust, 1991; Dyen, 1965; Himes, 1998; McFarland, 1980; Thomas & Healy, 1962; Walton, 1979) based on the reflex of the Proto Southern Cordilleran (PSC) *(ʔ)uN in verbs in the non-past (Himes, 1998; Zorc, 1979). This paper then presents the voice-aspect paradigm of the three languages (i) to revisit the subgrouping based on the shared innovation, (ii) to arrive at a better understanding of the morphosyntax of Southern Cordilleran verbs, and (iii) to update the descriptions of these vernaculars. For voice, it covers actor voice (av), patient voice (pv), locative voice (lv), benefactive voice (bv), and instrumental voice (iv). For aspect, it includes perfective, recent perfective, imperfective, and contemplative. Data used in the analysis came from personal fieldwork done in the municipalities of Calasiao (in Pangasinan), Bambang and Bayombong (in Nueva Vizcaya), and Asipulo (in Ifugao) within the period of June 2023 to November 2024. The findings re-establish the position of Pangasinan, Bugkalot/Egongot, and Keley-i within Southern Cordilleran, and better inform the construction of a general voice-aspect paradigm of Southern Cordilleran.

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