A corpus study of kasama ‘companion’ in Tagalog
This paper presents a corpus-based study of a number of different types of previously undescribed constructions
formed with the Tagalog noun kasama ‘companion’. Apart from independent and attributive uses,
kasama frequently occurs as the predicate of an adjunct clause that can introduce a comitative participant, a
semantically depictive secondary predicate, an event-oriented adjunct, or a predicative complement. The study analyses the frequency
of kasama in all of these types of constructions and looks into their specific properties. This includes: the
semantic distinction between additive and inclusory constructions with kasama; animacy agreement between
arguments of kasama in additive constructions; variation in case marking of arguments of kasama;
the preponderance of the absence of linkers – commonly known to introduce adverbial clauses in Tagalog –
which are used to attach the kasama clause to the main clause; attested controllers of the
kasama clause; positions available for the kasama clause in the sentence. Variation in case
marking and compatibility with linkers suggests a classification of Tagalog adjunct clauses similar to that of Tagalog adverbials
and prepositions. There is also some evidence to believe that kasama is being grammaticalized as a preposition.
Comitative and semantically depictive constructions with kasama, which account for a quarter of the corpus
sample, have never been studied before, despite the fact that Tagalog is included in several typological studies on comitative and
depictive constructions.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Overview of Tagalog grammar
- 2.1Lexical classes
- 2.2Substantivation and nominalization
- 2.3Case marking and prepositions
- 2.4Voice and aspect
- 2.5Inversion constructions
- 2.6Linkers
- 2.7Comitative and depictive
- 3.Composition of the sample
- 3.1Independent
- 3.2Dependent
- 3.2.1Substantive
- 3.2.2Attributive
- 3.2.3Clausal
- 4.Discussion
- 4.1Controller of the kasama clause
- 4.2Marking of the argument of kasama
- 4.3Constituent order
- 4.4Linkers introducing the kasama clause
- 5.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- List of abbreviations
-
References