Characteristics of the Tagalog language in AX Semantics

Fundamentals

In Tagalog, you need to know the case and number of a noun to form the accompanying determiners and pronouns correctly. Tagalog has four cases: direct, indirect, oblique, and locative. Additionally, Tagalog has two numbers: singular, and plural. There is no gender in Tagalog.

The standardized form of Tagalog is called Filipino. It is the national language of the Philippines.

grammatical name	values	examples
number	singular	ibon (bird)
	plural	mga ibon (birds)
case	direct	ang ibon (the bird)
	indirect	makita ang ibon (see the bird)
	oblique	bigyan ng tinapay ang ibon (give bread to the bird)
	locative	isa ang ibon (on the bird)
adjectives (noun)	before noun	pulang bahay (red house)
verb tenses	present	Siya/ito gumagana. (He/she/it works.)
	past	Siya/ito ay gumana. (He worked.)
	future	Siya/ito ay gagana. (He will work.)

The standard order of a noun phrase in Tagalog is the following: preposition + numeral + adjective + noun + determiner. See for example:

tungkol sa tatlong bagong aklat  na ito
about      three   new    books  these
PREP       NUM     ADJ    NOUN   DET                                             
"about these three new books"

Lexicon

Nouns

Nouns are not inflected, but they might be preceded by case-marking or number-marking particles. Thus, case and number are required in the noun lexicon. Nouns should be added to the lexicon if they are not regular.

Lexicon entries for nouns may also be necessary for inflecting determiners, and pronouns correctly. They are omitted, if a lexicon entry is required, but missing.

Examples

The basic lexicon entry for lalaki (man) contains:

• lexicon table for case and number:

	Singular	Plural
Direct	lalaki	mga lalaki
Indirect	lalaki	mga lalaki
Oblique	lalaki	mga lalaki
Locative	lalaki	mga lalaki

Adjectives

In Tagalog, adjectives do not inflect. The default position for an adjective is "before noun".

Verbs

Tagalog verbs only inflect for tense. The most common verbs are encoded in our software. If a verb inflects incorrectly, you should add it to the lexicon.

Container settings

Determiner

The AX NLG platform supports the following determiners for Tagalog: indefinite, definite, demonstratives (proximal + distal) and possessives.

Pronoun

The AX NLG platform supports the following pronouns for Tagalog: demonstratives (proximal + distal), personal, and 3rd possessives.

Numerals

Two different sets of numbers are used in Tagalog: a set of native Tagalog numbers (originally from Malay), and a set of numbers from Spanish. The native Tagalog numbers are used on AX NLG platform.

Four types of numerals are possible on the AX NLG platform: cardinal, cardinal as digit, ordinal, and ordinal as digit. Take araw (day) for example:

	cardinal	ordinal
text	siyam na araw (nine days)	ang ikasiyam na araw (the ninth day)
digit	9 na araw (9 days)	ang ika-9 na araw (the 9th day)

As the above example shows, the numeric ordinals in Tagalog are formed by using the prefix ika-. Additionally, to describe the quantity, the cardinal number is placed before the noun and affixed with -ng when the numeral ends with a vowel, and a separate word, -na, for numerals ending in a consonant. For example:

dalawang araw
(two days)
vs.
siyam na araw
(nine days)

For Tagalog, both cardinal and ordinal numerals are written out until 10 on the platform, otherwise (above 10) the output is in digit form. Take cardinal numerals for example:

sampung aso
(ten dogs)
vs.
11 aso 
(11 dogs)