Nobody expects the Austronesian Alignment1!
These days I’ve seen a few panic posts stating that “You must master the Austronesian Alignment (AA) to properly speak Tagalog!” This would be a difficult task, because the AA is a structure found in dozens of languages, and varies from language to language. Don’t worry – it isn’t necessary to master the whole AA. You just need to learn how it’s applied to Tagalog. And that means you need to learn “Focus”, which is a much lesser task. But it’s still pretty surprising to learners, so let me try to explain it in an unusual way.
What is focus, and why is it important?
When you think about it, native English speakers don’t really consider what each sentence focuses on, or which word they are trying to draw the most attention to when they talk. Sure, they might stress one word or another, or it might be clear from context if they really think about it. But that’s the thing – they don’t need to think about it because the grammar doesn’t change. So it might surprise you to know that Tagalog speakers know exactly what the focus is of each sentence they speak. Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. If you ask them “what’s the focus of that sentence?” they might just give you a blank stare. Then why am I so sure that they know? Because the grammar changes with focus, and they speak correctly, so in that way they are aware of the focus. In fact, they even know what English speakers are focusing on, because they can correctly translate an English sentence to Tagalog, and as I implied before, Tagalog grammar specifies focus. Of course, it’s second nature to them. So if a native English speaker wants to become a good Tagalog speaker, they also need to make it second nature.
How to internalize focus.
Now the question becomes, how does someone who doesn’t need to think about focus in their mother tongue change into someone who knows it innately when they speak Tagalog? First, let’s look at the steps a learner goes through to produce a sentence, from a focus point of view.
1) Determine what the focus is.
2) Create the sentence with the grammar associated with that focus.
Step 1) is not very straight forward, and usually not covered very well. What is really needed here is a set of clear rules for determining focus. I’m going to give you those rules, but for them to make sense, first we’ll talk a bit about step 2).
How grammar changes with focus.
Although not trivial, this step is pretty straightforward, and usually covered well. I’m going to define focus, but first let me share some terminology.
a) There are three forms that words can take in Tagalog: ang, ng and sa. For example, the ang-form of Tagalog is ang Tagalog, the ng form is ng Tagalog and sa form is sa Tagalog.
b) Taking the sentence Maria will teach Tagalog to Joe, Maria is the “Actor”, Tagalog is the “Object” and “Joe” is the “Indirect Object (IO)”. Actor, Object and IO can be thought of as linguistic roles of words.
Now we can define Focus. Here is a simplified way to think of it:
To make the sentence focus on a specific word, you 1) put that word in ang-form2, and 2) use a verb3 that matches the linguistic role of the word.
Ok, now the stage is set. Although Maria will teach Tagalog to Joe is just one sentence in English, there are three4 ways to say it in Tagalog, depending on the focus. If you want to make Maria the focus, well, Maria is an actor. So according to the definition above, we put Maria in ang-form and use an Actor Focus (AF) verb:
AF: Magtuturo si Maria ng Tagalog sa Joe. Because si Maria is the ang-form of Maria, and magtuturo is the5 AF verb for will teach.
Similarly, if you want to make Tagalog, which is an Object, the focus, we put it in ang form and use an Object Focus (OF) verb:
OF: Ituturo ni Maria ang Tagalog sa Joe. Because ang Tagalog is the ang-form of Tagalog, and ituturo is the OF verb for will teach.
Finally, if you want to make Joe, an IO, the focus, we put it in ang form and use an IO Focus (IOF6) verb:
IOF: Tuturuan ni Maria ng Tagalog si Joe. Because si Joe is the ang-form of Joe, and tuturuan is the IOF verb for will teach.
This about sums up Step 2) above. As I said, it’s not trivial, but learning how to put a word in ang-form, and memorizing the verbs, are straightforward tasks. Now we finally return to Step 1) above.
Rules for determining focus.
Let’s look at the sentences again. In English, we have:
Maria will teach Tagalog to Joe.
But in Tagalog we have three possibilities:
AF: Magtuturo si Maria ng Tagalog sa Joe.
OF: Ituturo ni Maria ang Tagalog sa Joe.
IOF: Tuturuan ni Maria ng Tagalog si Joe.
So the question is “which one do I use?” The simple answer is, “just use the one that focuses on the word you want to draw attention to”. But that’s not enough information for people whose native languages aren’t affected by AA. How do I know what I’m focusing on? Why do I have to focus on anything? Can’t I just use any one of these and say “yeah, that’s what I meant to focus on” if someone calls me out? To answer all such questions, just know that everything you say can be translated into Tagalog, it will have focus, and there is (almost) always just one right answer, depending on context and some other things. In other words, there is no easy way out; you must become aware of focus when you talk. So here are five rules to help develop a natural awareness of focus:
Rule 17 – Use emphasis. Try emphasizing a word in the sentence to see if one of them captures your nuance correctly. If emphasizing Maria captures your nuance, then form an AF sentence. If emphasizing Tagalog feels right, use an OF sentence. And if it’s Joe, IOF.
Rule 27 – Use questions. If the point of your sentence is to ask “Who will teach Tagalog to Joe?”, then the answer is Maria, and the sentence should be AF. If it’s to ask “What will Maria teach Joe?”, then the answer is Tagalog, and it’s OF. If it’s “Who will Maria Teach Tagalog?”, then it’s Joe, and it’s IOF.
Rule 3 – If the object is definite, the sentence is OF. In a nutshell, the difference between the linguistic terms "definite" and "indefinite" are like the difference between "the" and "a". Here are some examples of things that make objects definite.
The/this/that/those/these.
OF: Ibinigay ni Maria ang sasakyan kay Joe. = Maria gave Joe the car.
Possessives: my, your, his, her, etc.
OF: Ibinigay ni Maria ang sasakyan ko kay Joe. = Maria gave Joe my car.
Proper nouns.
OF: Niyakap ni Joe si Maria. = Joe hugged Maria.
Personal pronouns.
OF: Niyakap ni Joe siya. = Joe hugged her.
Rule 4 - If the object is indefinite, the sentence is probably AF. This is because AF and OF are by far the most common of the 11 focuses. They account for about 90% of focus usage. If the object is indefinite, the sentence isn’t OF, so guessing AF will give you good odds.
A/an/some makes words indefinite.
AF: Nagbigay si Maria ng sasakyan kay Joe. = Maria gave Joe a car.
Rule 5 – If there is only one complement (Actor, Object or OF), that’s probably the focus.
AF: Mag-aaral ako. = I will study. The actor is the only complement.
OF: Kinakain ang manok. = Chicken is eaten. The object is the only complement.
Those are the main rules. I hope they will help you select the correct focus and become more fluent in Tagalog.
1. Much like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects the Austronesian Alignment. Nobody.
2. It’s actually more complicated than this. Rather than just “put the word in ang-form”, it’s more like “apply the appropriate form-pattern to the sentence” which always includes making the focus word ang-form. It’s worth it to memorize the three most common patterns, which make up over 90% of colloquial usages:
Form Pattern
Form
actor
object
X
AF
ang
ng
sa
OF
ng
ang
sa
DF6
ng
ng
ang
3. Different focuses use different verbs. They are different verbs with a common root. They are not conjugations of the same verb.
4. There are actually more than three.
5. Know that rather than the AF verb, it’s more like the appropriate AF verb, because it’s possible to have more than one AF verb for a given root, and the same goes for the other focuses.
6. Nobody actually calls it the IOF. The third complement in a sentence can be called several different things. In this case, it’s a Directional complement, and the focus is called DF.
7. To be fair, the first two rules are often covered in learning materials. It’s the last three that usually aren’t.