COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATE STUDIES AND APPLIED RESEARCH

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND PHILIPPINE LANGUAGE

BATTERY TEST

Name: James Alexander M. Deza Date: March 17, 2023

1. Describe the differences between the verb tenses used in English and
Filipino.

Tagalog and other Philippine languages are not considered by linguists to have verb
tenses.

Paul Schachter & Fe T. Otanes’ write on page 66 of their 1972 Tagalog Reference

Grammar:

The Tagalog verb system includes no true tense distinctions like the English
distinction between past and non-past: past as in 'He lived in Manila', 'He worked too
hard', 'He left this morning'; non-past (present, habitual, or anticipated) as in 'He lives
in Manila', 'He works too hard', 'He leaves this morning'. This English tense
distinction, by means of which events are expressed as either limited or not limited to
some time before the moment of speaking, has no genuine parallel in Tagalog.

But the English verb system makes certain other distinctions that do have Tagalog
parallels: e.g., the distinction between events viewed as completed - 'He walked
down the street' - and those viewed as on-going - 'He was walking down the street'.
This type of distinction is a distinction of aspect.

Schachter & Otanes (1972) go on to give three aspectual categories for Tagalog
(specifically for the standard spoken in Manila):
perfective (for completed actions), imperfective (actions that have been initiated
but have not been completed), and contemplated (actions that haven’t begun).

Below is the verb magbigay ‘to give’ being conjugated for aspect. Note that the
prefix nag- is present rather than mag- in the perfective and imperfective. Also note
the addition of an additional syllable, a reduplicated bi- of the first syllable of the
root bigay, in the imperfective and contemplated.

 Perfective: nagbigay. (roughly equivalent to English ‘gave’ and ‘have

given’)

 Imperfective: nagbibigay (roughly equivalent to English ‘is giving’ or ‘was

giving’)

 Contemplated: magbibigay (roughly equivalent to English ‘will give’)

2. What accent marks are there in Filipino? Its significance in linguistic

usage.

There are three (3) accent marks in Filipino.

1. The ˊ Accent Mark (pahilis)

This accent mark is a slanted accent mark that leans up and to the right. It is
written above vowels, and indicates that the syllable under the mark should be
stressed.

If you don't see a pahilís mark on a word on this web site, you should assume that
the "Default Stress Syllable" is the one that is stressed (the 2nd-to-last syllable).

In some Filipino words, the accent marks can change the meaning completely. For
example, you can find the same word object with an accent mark on the top of the E.
In that case, you’ll read it as objéct, stressing the middle. - objéct which means “to
oppose.”
Examples:

1. Báon meaning “lunch” and Baón meaning “to be buried”. You can spell it
B.A.O.N., but the first one has the accent mark on top of the A, and the second one
has it on the top of the O. Báon means “lunch” or “allowance”, and Baón means “to
be buried.”

2. Hápon meaning “afternoon” and Hapón meaning “Japanese”. Hápon has its
accent at the beginning on the a. When you stress the first vowel, it means
‘afternoon.’ But when you stress the second vowel like “Hapón”, where the accent is
on the o, it means ‘Japanese.’

2. The ˋ Accent Mark (paiwà)

This accent mark is a slanted accent mark that leans down and to the right.

This mark signifies two things:

a. That the vowel the accent mark is over should not be stressed but that it should
be "cut short." This is known as a "stop" (or "glottal stop"). It's the same sound you
make between syllables in English when you say "uh-oh". This is really best
understood by listening to example audio clips included below.

b. This accent mark also means the vowel immediately before the paiwa mark is the
stressed syllable.

Example: Bata and Batà. This last word had the Paiwa accent mark on the top of the
vowel a. Bata means ‘bathrobe’ and Batà means ‘child’.

3. The ˆ Accent Mark (pakupyâ)

The pakupyâ stress mark indicates that the last syllable of a word must both be
stressed and have a stop.

3. What are the diacritics in English? The significance of it in English Language.

Diacritics, often loosely called `accents', are the various little dots and squiggles
which, in many languages, are written above, below or on top of certain letters of the
alphabet to indicate something about their pronunciation.

In English, diacritics are not normally used, but they occur in three situations. First,
many foreign words and phrases have been borrowed into English, and some of
these are not yet regarded as fully anglicized. Such forms should be written with their
original diacritics, and they should also be written in italics,

DIACRITICAL PURPOSE EXAMPLES

MARK
Acute accent Used with certain French loanwords café, cliché
Apostrophe * Indicates possession or the omission of a letter children's, don't
Cedilla Attached to the bottom of the letter c in French façade
loanwords, indicating a soft c
Circumflex Indicates reduced primary stress élevàtor ôperàtor
accent
Diaeresis or Used with certain names and words as a guide to Chloë, Brontë,
Umlaut pronunciation coöperate, naïve
Grave accent Occasionally used in poetry to indicate that a learnèd
normally silent vowel should be pronounced
Macron or Stress A dictionary notation to signify "long" vowel sounds pādā for payday
Mark
Tilde In Spanish loan words, the tilde indicates a /y/ cañon or piña colada
sound added to a consonant.
Tilde In Portuguese loanwords, the tilde indicates São Paulo
nasalized vowels.

*Because marks of punctuation aren't added to letters, they're generally not

regarded as diacritics. However, an exception is sometimes made for apostrophes.

NAME SYMBOL EXAMPLE

Acute accent ´ Café
Grave accent ` Cortège
Diaeresis ¨ Naïve
Circumflex ˆ Entrepôt
Cedilla ¸ Façade
NAME SYMBOL EXAMPLE
Tilde/eñe* ˜/ñ Jalapeño

Examples of Diacritics
Diacritical marks are plentiful in English-language articles and books. Writers
and lexicographers have used the marks to great advantage over the years as
these examples show:

Acute accent: "Feluda handed over the blue attaché case before he sat
down."
- Satyajit Ray, "The Complete Adventures of Feluda"
Apostrophe: " 'Let's go down to my house and have some more fun,' Nancy
said.
" 'Mother won't let us,' I said. 'It's too late now.'
" 'Don't bother her,' Nancy said."
- William Faulkner, "That Evening Sun Go Down." The American Mercury,
1931
Diaeresis or Umlaut: "Five young activists were voted into office, bringing
political validation to a youth-driven movement dismissed by establishment
elders as naïve, unschooled, and untenable."
- "Youthquake." Time, Oct. 6, 2016
Grave accent: "Margret stood in her chamber;
She'd sewn a silken seam.
She lookèd east an she lookèd west,
An she saw those woods grow green."
Tam Lin, "The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads"
Macron: "neighbor
noun neigh·bor \ˈnā-bər\"
- Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., 2009
Diacritics in Foreign Languages
As noted, there are literally dozens of diacritical marks in foreign languages.
Wheeler gives these examples:
 "Swedish and Norse words may also use the circle marking above certain
vowels (å), and Czechoslovakian words may use the hacek (ˆ), a wedge-
shaped symbol to indicate a "ch" sound as in English chill."
But unless you learn—or at least develop a proficiency—in those languages,
you won't know how to read the words and letters altered by diacritical marks.
You should, however, learn where these marks have become common in
English—and where they have been dropped, notes Shelley Townsend-
Hudson in "The Christian Writer's Manual of Style." It can be tricky to know
when to retain the diacritical marks, she says:

"The language is in flux. It is becoming more common, for example, to see the
acute accent and diacritics being dropped from the words cliché, café, and
naïve—thus, cliche, cafe, and naive."
But dropping diacritical marks can change the meaning of a word. Townsend-
Hudson argues that in many cases you should retain these crucial marks,
particularly various accents, to ensure you are referring to the correct word,
such as pâté instead of pate: The first use means a spread of finely chopped
or pureed seasoned meat, while the second refers the crown of the head—
certainly a great difference in meaning.

Diacritical marks are also important when you are referring to foreign place
names, such as São Paulo, Göttingen, and Córdoba and personal names
such as Salvador Dalí, Molière, and Karel Čapek, she notes. Understanding
diacritical marks is the key, then, to correctly identifying and even using many
of the foreign words that have migrated into the English language.

Diacritics  are marks placed above or below (or sometimes next to) a
letter in a word to indicate a particular pronunciation—in regard to
accent, tone, or stress—as well as meaning, especially when a
homograph exists without the marked letter or letters. For
example, pâte  refers to clay whereas pate  refers to the head,
and résumé  or resumé is used for a work history versus resume , which
means "to begin again."
Diacritical marks take such forms as a straight or curvy line or a dot or
a pair of dots, and they are an integral part of spelling in many foreign
languages. In English, words having diacritics are borrowings from
other languages, and the marks are not a natural part of the English
language itself. However, lexicographers have adopted diacritics to
indicate English pronunciation and, of course, to show word
etymologies. Although the English borrowings enter the language with
their markings, they are often dropped from many spellings
through Anglicization . Take, for instance, French naïve , which is
commonly spelled naive in English.
The word diacritic is a derivative of Greek diakritikos, meaning
"separative" or "able to distinguish," which is based on the prefix  dia-,
meaning "through" or "across," and the verb krinein, "to separate." The
word was first used as an adjective in 17th-century English with the
meaning "serving to distinguish" (as in "diacritic factors in
demography"). It wasn't until the 19th century that it began being used
as the name for a phonological diacritical (the '-al' spelling of the
adjective being the most common) mark.
Diacritical marks are important in correctly pronouncing many foreign
words that have migrated into the English language. Being a publisher
of references on the English language, we feel it is important to give a
tutorial on the more common diacritics that you will encounter in your
pursuit of knowledge through reading. So, without further ado, let's
begin.

Acute and Grave Accent  Marks

The forward-leaning acute  accent  (  ́ ) generally indicates a stressed
syllable or raised pitch. It is commonly found above the letter 'e' in
many French words and French borrowings in English, such as  exposé ,
where it indicates that the 'e' is pronounced as a long 'a' and where it
can serve to distinguish the word from another with the same spelling
(compare English's expose ). The acute accent is also placed over
vowels in Spanish to mark that the syllable in which the vowel appears
is stressed, as in adiós .
The backward-leaning grave  accent ( ˋ ) is in contrast to the acute
accent. It is a mark that is often used to indicate an unaccented
syllable or a lower inflection, as French-derived  à la carte , pied-à-terre ,
or crème . In poetic verse, it is used as an indicator of a falling inflection
or a final syllable that is to be pronounced separately, for the sake of
the meter, in words ending in the nonsyllabic '-ed.'
Margret stood in her chamber; / She'd sewn a silken seam. / She lookèd
east an she lookèd west, / An she saw those woods grow green.
— "Tam Lin," The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular Ballads , 1972
The French-based English word déjà vu  combines both accent marks.

Cedilla
The cedilla  is the diacritical mark (  ̧ ) that is placed under the letter 'c,'
as in the spelling of the French words façade  and garçon , to indicate
that the letter is to be pronounced \s\, rather than \k\.  Cedilla is from
the name of the obsolete Spanish letter 'ç' and is a diminutive  form
of ceda, itself from zeda, which once denoted the letter 'z.' Actually, the
'ç' was used as a form of 'z' in the Middle Ages. In Late Latin, that
letter was referred to as zeta.

Circumflex
Today, circumflex  most commonly refers to the mark ( ˆ ), but in ancient
times it designated other "bent" marks ( ⌢ or ˜ ). The name derives
from a Latin verb meaning "to bend around," and it is used for the
symbol placed above a long vowel to indicate a rising-falling tone in
Greek and to mark length, contraction, or another particular
pronunciation of a vowel in other languages, such as French—for
example, the pronunciations of château , crêpe , maître d' , and rôle .

Breve  and Haček

The breve  ( ˘ ) is the rounded curved mark that is used by some
dictionaries in pronunciations to indicate that a vowel is short, as in \
kŭt\ for cut, or in poetic scansion  to show that a syllable is unstressed in
verse. It is similar to the haček  ( ˇ ), whose name includes the inverted
pointed circumflex over the 'c,' that is used in Baltic and Slavonic
languages to indicate a change in pronunciation (the last name of the
Czech author Karel Čapek  bears the diacritic). The name haček is a
Czech borrowing meaning, literally, "little hook."  Breve is related
to brief via Latin brevis, of similar meaning.

Tilde  and Tittle

The tilde  is the mark ( ˜ ) that is most often seen sitting over the letter
'n' (as in Spanish señor , meaning "sir," and mañana , "tomorrow"), where
it indicates a blend of the sound of 'n' and 'y.' In Portuguese, it may
appear over 'a' or 'o,' as in São Paulo , and indicates nasality  in
pronunciation.
The diacritic's name is a 19th-century borrowing from a Spanish word
that traces back to Medieval Latin titulus, meaning "tittle." In
English, tittle  can refer to any point or small sign that is used as a
diacritical mark. It has been applied to the dot over the letters 'i' and 'j,'
and in the past, to the cedilla; it is also used in languages, such as
Hebrew and Arabic, to point out accent. In Latin,  titulus meant "title" or
"label," which is fitting since the tittle tops the letter like a title to a
piece of writing.
The tilde also occurs as a somewhat larger symbol that resembles
the swung dash , that is set somewhat lower, and that is used
independently of other characters. This tilde is sometimes used in front
of a number to mean "approximately" (e.g., "in ~ 30 minutes"), and it
has other advanced mathematical uses  related to equivalency and
negation. It also has a conventional use in URLs , where it indicates
that the URL is a personal page residing on the institutional server
whose address precedes the tilde in the URL. And print dictionaries
use the tilde (a.k.a. "swung dash") to take the place of the entry word
in verbal illustrations (example sentences) in order to save space.
The words tilde and swung dash are not compared or contrasted in the
dictionary because, although they are related on a "real" level (i.e.,
they happen to be represented by the same mark), they are not related
on a lexical level (i.e., the words themselves are not related to one
another through their respective meanings).

Diaeresis

The diaeresis , or dieresis, is the mark ( ¨ ) that is often placed over the

second of two adjacent vowels, which otherwise make
a diphthong  forming one speech sound, to indicate that the vowels are
pronounced in separate syllables, as in French naïve  and its
derivatives; it may also be placed over a vowel to indicate that it is
pronounced in a separate syllable, as in the family
name Brontë  (namely Charlotte and her sisters Emily and Anne) or
Zoë. In the past, it also occurred in words having adjacent vowels that
are the same to indicate that they are sounded separately rather than
blended, as in coöperate and reëstablish (each of which have four
syllables). Diaeresis is from a Greek word meaning, literally, "the act of
dividing."
In German and Germanic languages (such as Swedish), there is the
diaeretic mark called the umlaut , which is placed over a vowel to
indicate a more central or front articulation, as
in Götterdämmerung  and Führer . (In orthography, the umlaut may be
replaced by an 'e' following the vowel, as in Fuehrer.) Umlaut is a
combination of German um-, meaning "around" or "transforming,"
and Laut, "sound."

Macron

The macron  is the mark ( − ) placed over a vowel to indicate that it is

long or placed over a syllable or used alone to indicate a stressed or
long syllable in a metrical foot or verse in poetry. You are most likely to
encounter it in dictionaries, where it populates pronunciations of words
that include a long vowel sound, as ā in the pronunciation
of fate or ē in lead.