Mga Aspekto ng mga Pandiwang MAG na may Pokus sa Aktor

In my previous posts, I talked about translating English verbs with different tenses to Filipino. Strictly speaking, instead of tense, the Filipino language has what linguists would call the verbal aspect. The verbal aspect indicates whether an action or event has begun, is still in progress, has been completed, or has yet to begin. This is accomplished by changing the root word by reduplication and affixation. According to Maria Sheila Zamar in Filipino: The Essential Grammar (2023), the four aspects of Filipino verbs are infinitive, completed, incompleted, and contemplated. Schachter and Otanes in Tagalog Reference Grammar (1972) identify the three aspects of the Tagalog verb system as perfective, imperfective, and contemplated. However, according to Ramos and Bautista in Handbook of Tagalog Verbs: Inflections, Modes, and Aspects (1986), the infinitive form of the verb (the imperative form of the verb) does not imply an aspect. In Filipino, these three aspects of…

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Translating Future Tense Verbs in English to Filipino

We learned how to translate past tense verbs and present tense verbs in English to Filipino in the last two posts. In this post, we’ll look into translating English verbs in the future tense to Filipino. We'll consider the simple future tense and the future continuous tense. SIMPLE FUTURE TENSE In English, a verb expressed in the simple future tense talks about an action or event that will take place in some future time. There are two ways to form the simple future tense: (1) using the helping verb will + the base form of the verb (e.g., will eat) and (2) am/is/are + going to + the base form of the verb (e.g., is going to eat). In Filipino, there are no direct equivalents for the words will or going to when expressing the future tense. The Filipino action verb is just conjugated appropriately to express the future tense.…

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