Higher Education Presentation

Tagalog and SpanishSyntactial Similaries

By: Samantha Medeiros Morphology and Syntax Dr. Hamiliton

The spanish colonial rule in the Philippines

In 1521, Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the Philippines marking Spain's first contact with the islands.It was not until 1565 that Miguel Lopez de Legazpi conquered the Philippines and established its capital Manila. The Spanish colonization was motivated by the desire to spread Catholicism, expand Spain's empire, and secure trade roots. The Philippines served as a hub for Spain's economic and missionary activities in Asia. Spain ruled over the Philippines for 333 years heavily influencing its culture, language, and beliefs. The Spanish rule ended after the Philippine revolution (1896-1898) and the Spanish American War with the Philippines ceded to the United States under the Treaty of Paris in 1898.

Word order and syntactic structure

Word Order

One of the key syntactic similarities between Tagalog and Spanish is their shared use of the verb-subject-object (VSO) word order. This is shown especially in certain formal or literary contexts. Although, Tagalog primarily uses a verb-subject-object or focus-driven word order depending on the context, the Spanish influence encouraged the use of more rigid structures like VSO, which also became prominent in Tagalog.

Examples

An example would be: -mato el al perro kill. PST he the dog he killed the dog - pinatay niya ang aso kill. PST he/she the dog he killed the dog

Spanish borrowings and Grammatical Constructions

• The syntactic structures of Tagalog also reflect Spanish-influenced verb morphology and auxiliary constructions.
• Tagalog adopted some of the auxiliary verb forms that are used to express tenses or aspects, such as the use of nag- and um- in verbal constructions, similar to Spanish verb inflections.
• The use of ser (to be) and haber (to have) as auxiliary verbs in both languages has parallels in how these verbs are employed to form perfect tenses in Tagalog, drawing from Spanish structure.
• Another commonality between Spanish and Tagalog comes from vocabualry terms such as:

Spanish: parque Tagalog: parke Spanish: silla Tagalog: silya Spanish: tenedor Tagalog: tinidor

Discussion

The Tagalog language has always fascinated me not only because I grew up around many Filipinos but because of its similarites to the Spanish language and cutlure. It was important for me to share this information with you guys so that we can further look into the suprising connections made through morhphology and syntax across two very distinct yet similar languages and dialects. It is alwasy facinating to see how so many different languages can be interlinked!

Works cited

Language Contact in the Philippines, files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED593525.pdf. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.

“The Representation of Spanish in the Philippine Islands (Chapter 25) - A Political History of Spanish.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/political-history-of-spanish/representation-of-spanish-in-the-philippine-islands/B6092993563CF09F91FF84D511A25A80. Accessed 22 Nov. 2024.

Medeiros , Samantha, and Charmaine Garcia . “Tagalog and Spanish Similarities .” 20 Nov. 2024.

Alvalle , Marisol, and Samantha Medeiros . “Spanish Dataset .” 20 Nov. 2024.