SYNTAX OF KANKANAEY LANGUAGE OF TADIAN CENTRAL: STRUCTURE AND EXPANSION
(Estrella A. Basco)

ABSTRACT

The study aimed to do basic syntactic analysis of the Kankanaey language. It studied the systems of combining or relating Kankanaey words of the Applai tribe of Tadian, Mountain Province to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. After defining and describing what a Kankanaey sentence is, it discussed its different basic patterns and then it formulated some grammar rules. It also showed how the basic sentence structures may be expanded.
Results and findings revealed that the Kankanaey sentence is any utterance that expresses a complete thought. It has a tone of completeness at its end which signifies that the speaker has uttered an idea that s/he wants to transmit to her/is listener. It may or may not have a topic, a predicate or both because its completeness depends upon what statement precedes or follows it. There are many Kankanaey sentences that have two general parts: topic and predicate, both of which can be structurally formed by one or more words, phrases, or clauses. They can also be classified according to the parts of speech that are used to form them. Furthermore, they can be expanded by compound predicates, compound topics, enclitics, modifiers, and fillers or complements.

The normal or natural word order of the Kankanaey sentence is the P + T (Predicate + Topic) arrangement. However, it is possible to invert or transpose the order of predicate + topic to T + P (Topic + Predicate) for the sake of variety.

The expanded Kankanaey sentence with a verb and a topic is a very flexible statement. It can be said or written in different variations or word orders without changing its meaning, like V-T-O (verb-topic-object), V-O-T (verb-object-topic) or T-V-O (topic-verb-object) arrangements.

Based on the findings and conclusions, the following recommendations are offered:

Other writers to continue researching the history of the Kankanaey language, how it developed, its present situation, and how it can be improved or enriched to meet the needs of the present and future times and generations. They shall include the other aspects of the Kankanaey sentence that were not covered by this study.

The Kankanaey language of Poblacion, Tadian may adopt the letters r, h, c ,q ,n, x, f, j, v, and z in speaking and in writing borrowed words from other dialects and languages so that the Kankanaey children will not be confused in spelling their English words and other borrowed words.

Writers in the vernacular shall survey the preferred spelling and methods of contracting Kankanaey words and recommend the same, for the standardization of Kankanaey orthography.