Learn some common suffixes in Filipino
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Intro |
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| Alisha: What are some suffixes in Filipino? |
| Danilo: And why are they useful to know? |
| Alisha: At FilipinoPod101.com, we hear these questions often. In this scenario, Sasha Lee studies for her exam together with her classmate, Nancy Navarro. She sees an unknown word, and asks, "What does 'Sagingan' mean?" |
| Sasha Lee: Ano ibig sabihin ng "Sagingan"? |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Ano ibig sabihin ng "Sagingan"? |
| Nancy Navarro: Ibig sabihin nun ay "plantasyon ng saging," |
| Alisha: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Ano ibig sabihin ng "Sagingan"? |
| Alisha: "What does 'Sagingan' mean?" |
| Nancy Navarro: Ibig sabihin nun ay "plantasyon ng saging," |
| Alisha: "It means 'banana plantation.'" |
Lesson focus |
| Alisha: In this lesson, we will be looking at some suffixes in Filipino and why they are useful to know. Suffixes are a form of affix, and affixes are small units of language that, when attached to other words, change the meaning of the root word. The Filipino language relies heavily on affixes to convey meaning. In the Filipino language, one says "affixes" like this: |
| Danilo: mga panlapi |
| Alisha: and the word "suffixes" is said like this: |
| Danilo: mga hulapi |
| Alisha: Affixes can tell us, among other things, what the tense of a sentence is, they can change nouns into adjectives, and they can tell us which word in a sentence is the focus. They have many functions. Among these affixes in the Filipino language, there are many prefixes, but not many suffixes. Prefixes attach to the beginning of the root word and suffixes attach to the end. The two suffixes that will be our primary focus in this lesson are: |
| Danilo: an |
| Alisha: and |
| Danilo: in |
| Alisha: Let's start by looking at the suffix, |
| Danilo: in. |
| Alisha: This suffix is used to form the imperative or to form a command related to the root verb it is modifying. To demonstrate how this works, let's start with the root verb meaning "eat" : |
| Danilo: kain |
| Alisha: Add the suffix and the newly formed word is: |
| Danilo: kainin |
| Alisha: Now, let's put this new word in a sentence meaning "Eat that.": |
| Danilo: Kainin mo 'yan. |
| Alisha: As you can tell, this is a form of command. Now, let's add the same suffix to the root verb meaning "cook": |
| Danilo: luto |
| Alisha: The resulting word is: |
| Danilo: lutuin |
| Alisha: Again, let's put it in a sentence: |
| Danilo: Lutuin mo 'yan. |
| Alisha: No doubt you will have guessed that this sentence means "Cook that," And, once again, this sentence is in the imperative. |
| When adding the suffix, we had to change the spelling of the root verb: |
| Danilo: luto. |
| Alisha: The "o" at the end of the word was changed to a "u," The reason for this is that the "o" needs to be replaced with a "u" for all root verbs ending in "o" when attaching either the suffix |
| Danilo: in |
| Alisha: or the suffix |
| Danilo: an. |
| Alisha: You will learn more about |
| Danilo: an |
| Alisha: in a moment. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Alisha: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. Do you remember how Sasha Lee asks, "What does 'Sagingan' mean"? |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Danilo as Sasha Lee: Ano ibig sabihin ng "Sagingan"? |
| Alisha: Let's answer this question in detail. The root noun of the word that Sasha Lee is asking about is |
| Danilo: saging, |
| Alisha: which means "banana," At the end of this root word is the suffix |
| Danilo: an |
| Alisha: What happens when one adds this suffix to a noun is that it converts that noun into a new noun. This new noun denotes a place and in that place one can find a large amount of the thing that the root noun refers to. It might be that it is grown there, placed there or kept there. In this case, the thing you can find a lot of is bananas and the place is a "banana plantation," Let's look at another example. This time, let's start with the root noun meaning "book": |
| Danilo: aklat |
| Alisha: If we add the suffix, it forms the word |
| Danilo: aklatan |
| Alisha: Can you guess the meaning of this word? The suffix tells us that it's a place where many books can be found. That's right, it refers to a library. Easy. |
| I'm sure these two examples will have given you a good idea of how this suffix functions when attached to a root noun. But what if we attach this suffix to a root verb? In what way does it modify that verb? Well, this suffix, when attached to a verb, indicates that the newly created word has a purpose or function attached to it that relates to the root verb. Let's again take the root verb meaning "eat" as an example: |
| Danilo: kain |
| Alisha: If we add this suffix to the verb root, the newly created word refers to a place that is designated for the purpose of eating: |
| Danilo: kainan |
| Alisha: This means it could refer to a "diner," an "eatery," or a "banquet," Which one it refers to would depend on the context within which it is used. Let's look at an example: |
| Danilo: Ang pagkain sa kainan na ito ay mahusay. |
| Alisha: In English, this sentence means "The food in this diner is excellent" and the word "diner" is represented by the Filipino word we mentioned before: |
| Danilo: kainan |
| Alisha: Here's another example of how this suffix works when attached to a verb root. The verb root is |
| Danilo: luto |
| Alisha: As you will recall, this means "cook," If we add the suffix, the new word refers to a place or appliance that has been specifically designed or created for cooking. It sounds like this: |
| Danilo: lutuan |
| Alisha: This word could refer to a "stove," a "cooking utensil" or a "kitchen," depending on the context. If I want to say, "I burnt my finger on the stove." I could say, for instance: |
| Danilo: Napaso ang daliri ko sa lutuan. |
| Alisha: Naturally, the word |
| Danilo: lutuan |
| Alisha: refers to a "stove" in this sentence. |
| You should now have a good understanding of how the suffix |
| Danilo: an |
| Alisha: modifies both noun and verb roots. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Alisha: Now, let's take a look at our second sentence. Do you remember how Nancy Navarro says, "It means 'banana plantation.'"? |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Danilo as Nancy Navarro: Ibig sabihin nun ay "plantasyon ng saging," |
| Summary |
| Alisha: In this lesson, we talked about how the suffix |
| Danilo: in |
| Alisha: can be attached to the end of a verb when one wants to use the imperative or form a command in the Filipino language. We also learned how the suffix |
| Danilo: an |
| Alisha: can be attached to the end of a verb root to denote a place where the action referred to by the root can be performed. This same suffix can also be attached to the end of a root noun to denote a place where the thing referred to by the noun root can be found, grown, or stored. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion (Optional) |
| Alisha: There is a useful suffix to know in the Filipino language that has been borrowed from Spanish. This suffix converts a noun into an occupation or into a new noun that denotes the agent of the root noun. In other words, it denotes a person or a ‘doer' who uses the thing that the root noun refers to. The suffix I am talking about is |
| Danilo: ero |
| Alisha: Now, let's see how it functions. We can start with the root noun for "kitchen." which is |
| Danilo: kusina. |
| Alisha: The noun for "kitchen staff" is then formed by adding this special suffix. This is how it sounds: |
| Danilo: kusinero. |
| Alisha: Pretty simple, really. Let's try another. This word means "merchandise": |
| Danilo: tinda. |
| Alisha: And this word means "merchandiser": |
| Danilo: tindero. |
| Alisha: As you can see, it's pretty easy to form agent nouns and occupation nouns from the root noun when we use this suffix. |
Outro |
| Alisha: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Danilo: Paalam. |
| Alisha: See you soon! |
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