Misconstruing Tagalog Adpositions As Structure Markers

Martin & Doran (2023: 19):

Martin and Cruz  (2022) adopt a similar analysis for function marking pre-positions in Tagalog. There the adpositions (ang/si/sina,ng/ni/nina,sa/kay/kina) occupy first rather than culminative position in almost every nominal group that plays a participant role in clause structure. And in conjunction with verb morphology these clitics sort out both participant roles and thematic prominence. Thus in (3), in relation to the affix in- in the Process inaantay ‘was waiting’, the pre-position ni positions Tonyo as Actor and si positions Ningning as Goal and Theme. In (3) “FM” abbreviates Function Marking,“ ntp” abbreviates“ non-theme participant” and “tp” abbreviates “theme participant”.

Blogger Comments:

[1] As the authors make clear, these adpositions mark functions, not structure — the relations between functions — and so do not function as structure markers, and, as such, are irrelevant to the concerns of this paper. 

[2] To be clear, Matthiessen (1995: 600-2) proposes a textual system of CULMINATION, at clause rank, as a written mode analogue of spoken mode INFORMATION. The authors, however, just use 'culminative' to mean 'final', without any acknowledgement of Matthiessen.