Learn about circumfixes in Filipino
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Intro |
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| Alisha: What are circumfixes? |
| Danilo: And why are they useful to know? |
| Alisha: At FilipinoPod101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine this situation: Karen Lee and her neighbor, Fely Flores, enjoy karaoke together with their friends. Karen says, |
| "Please turn on the karaoke machine." |
| Karen Lee: Pabuksan naman ang karaoke. |
| Dialogue |
| Karen Lee: Pabuksan naman ang karaoke. |
| Fely Flores: Tara, sabay-sabay tayong magkantahan! |
| Alisha: Once more with the English translation. |
| Karen Lee: Pabuksan naman ang karaoke. |
| Alisha: "Please turn on the karaoke machine." |
| Fely Flores: Tara, sabay-sabay tayong magkantahan! |
| Alisha: "Let's all sing together!" |
Lesson focus |
| Alisha: As you probably know, affixes are letters or groups of letters that are attached to the beginning, the middle, or the end of a word. Their job is to create a different meaning for that word, which is usually either a verb or a noun. But have you heard of an affix that attaches at both ends? |
| We call this a ‘circumfix'. It is an affix that has two parts—one placed at the start of a word and the other at the end. That is, it goes around a word! You don't find too many circumfixes in modern English, but one example is the word ‘enlighten'. The root word is ‘light'. When you add an E-N in front, plus an E-N at the end, you get ‘enlighten', which means to shed light on an object or provide understanding about a situation. |
| In languages like Malay and Filipino, circumfixes are far more common. In Filipino, we call them |
| Danilo: mga paligid |
| Alisha: which means ‘surroundings'—very fitting, as they surround the word! Circumfixes are widely used with Filipino nouns and verbs. Let us first look at a few examples with verbs. The Filipino word for ‘laughter' is |
| Danilo: tawa |
| Alisha: and, to form the infinitive, we will add the prefix |
| Danilo: mag- |
| Alisha: to get |
| Danilo: magtawa |
| Alisha: But what if we want to say ‘to laugh together'? We add a circumfix to the root word and get |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] magtawanan [SLOWLY] magtawanan |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: That is the |
| Danilo: mag-an |
| Alisha: circumfix. The best way to understand this kind of circumfix is to think of it as giving the verb a reciprocal meaning. In other words, the verb action becomes something that two people do together, or at the same time, or to each other. Let's look at another example. The Filipino root word for ‘write' is |
| Danilo: sulat |
| Alisha: If we add the prefix |
| Danilo: mag-, |
| Alisha: we get the infinitive form, ‘to write'. But, if we also add the suffix |
| Danilo: -an, |
| Alisha: we create the circumfix |
| Danilo: mag - an, |
| Alisha: resulting in a word that means ‘writing together', or 'writing to each other' |
| Danilo: magsulatan |
| Alisha: In a sentence, it sounds like this |
| Danilo: Magsulatan tayo kapag nasa ibang bansa ka na. |
| Alisha: ‘Let's write when you are abroad.' |
| Recall 1 |
| For a deeper understanding, let's take a closer look at the dialogue. Can you remember how we say "Please turn on the karaoke machine"? |
| [PAUSE 4 SEC] |
| Karen Lee: Pabuksan naman ang karaoke. |
| Recall 2 |
| And can you remember how Fely says "Let's all sing together?" |
| [PAUSE 4 SEC] |
| Fely Flores: Tara, sabay-sabay tayong magkantahan! |
| Alisha: The verb here is |
| Danilo: magkantahan |
| Alisha: and this is where the circumfix is, so let us break it up. The root verb is |
| Danilo: kanta |
| Alisha: which means ‘sing'. Just like other verbs, ‘sing' can be conjugated in various ways. As we just learned, when you want to express doing something together, simultaneously or reciprocally, you add the circumfix |
| Danilo: mag - an |
| Alisha: So, in this case, you will get the word |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] magkantahan [SLOWLY] mag-kanta-han |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: But how would it sound in the past tense? It's very similar, except the first part of the circumfix |
| Danilo: nag - an |
| Alisha: is written with an N, not an M. This means you get |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] nagkantahan [SLOWLY] nag-kanta-han |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: For example, listen to what the sentence ‘They sang together' sounds like. |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] Nagkantahan sila. [SLOWLY] Nagkantahan sila. |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: Here is another past tense example. Listen carefully, and see if you can guess the root word. |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] Naghalikan [SLOWLY] Naghalikan |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: If you heard the word ‘kiss' in there, you guessed right! ‘Kiss' is |
| Danilo: halik |
| Alisha: and, with the added circumfix |
| Danilo: nag - an, |
| Alisha: the word means ‘kissed each other'. In a sentence, we could say |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] Naghalikan ang magkasintahan. [SLOWLY] Naghalikan ang magkasintahan. |
| [PAUSE 4 SEC] |
| Alisha: ‘The couple kissed each other'. Now, not all circumfixes have the same prefix-suffix combination. There are others like |
| Danilo: pa - an, pag - in, pang - an, ka - an, ma - an. |
| Alisha: These can get rather complicated, so we will just look at two more in this lesson. The circumfix |
| Danilo: ka - an |
| Alisha: is used to denote feelings that you experience, such as anger. The root word for anger is |
| Danilo: galit |
| Alisha: and, if we add the circumfix, we get |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] kagalitan [SLOWLY] kagalitan |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: which means to be angry with, to feel resentful, or to scold. There is an implication of a third party that the feeling is directed at. In a sentence, it sounds like this |
| Danilo: Hindi nyo dapat kagalitan ang kaibigan. |
| Alisha: ‘You should not resent your friend.' Let's do one more. The verb circumfix |
| Danilo: pa - in |
| Alisha: is used to make someone do something, or to cause something to get bigger, faster, or better. For instance, if we take the root word for ‘beauty' |
| Danilo: ganda |
| Alisha: and attach this circumfix, we get |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] pagandahin [SLOWLY] pagandahin |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: which means to ‘beautify', or to make someone or something more beautiful or attractive. For example, this sentence |
| Danilo: Kailangan nating pagandahin ang ating bahay. |
| Alisha: meaning ‘We need to beautify our house.' |
| Leaving the verbs now, circumfixes also attach to nouns, so let us look at those next. A common one is |
| Danilo: ka - an |
| Alisha: We can use it to express abstract qualities like beauty, sadness, or youth. For example, if we add this circumfix to the base word for ‘child', which is |
| Danilo: bata, |
| Alisha: we will get the word that means ‘youth' |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] kabataan [SLOWLY] kabataan |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: In a sentence, it sounds like this |
| Danilo: Ang mga kabataan ay mahilig sumunod sa uso. |
| Alisha:'The youth likes to follow the trend.' |
| Another way to use noun circumfixes is for creating groups of things—like this example: |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] kapuluan [SLOWLY] kapuluan |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: which means ‘archipelago'. An archipelago is a group of islands. So, how did we come up with that word? Well, we took the root word for ‘island', which is |
| Danilo: pulo |
| Alisha: and just attached the right circumfix! You can have fun with practising making collective nouns. Let's say you want to talk about more than one Filipino person. You can add the circumfix |
| Danilo: ka - an |
| Alisha: to make the collective noun |
| Danilo: ka-Filipino-an |
| Alisha: which means ‘the Filipinos'. |
| Summary |
| In this lesson, you learned what circumfixes are and how they are used in the Filipino language. You also learned a few examples of common circumfixes that are attached to verbs, and some others that are attached to nouns. |
| Expansion |
| An important thing to remember when adding circumfixes to verbs is that you might also have to add additional affixes to denote tense or aspect. Filipino verb conjugation is complex and, apart from added circumfixes, many verbs are also conjugated by reduplicating the first syllable. Listen to this conjugated verb: |
| Danilo: [NORMAL] pagbubuksan [SLOWLY] pagbubuksan |
| [PAUSE 3 SEC] |
| Alisha: This means to open something repeatedly, like if you were opening a hundred boxes. The root word for ‘open' is |
| Danilo: bukas |
| Alisha: We added a circumfix to it, but did you hear how the first syllable was also duplicated? Listen again: |
| Danilo: pagbubuksan |
| Alisha: In Filipino verbs, reduplication of the root, prefix, or infix is employed to convey different grammatical aspects. Sometimes, it also intensifies the meaning. To fully understand how reduplication and circumfixes work together will take time and practice. For now, hopefully, you have a better idea of how circumfixes work and how they change the meaning of a word! |
Outro |
| Alisha: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Danilo: Paalam. |
| Alisha: See you soon! |
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