Cebuano grammar

Cebuano grammar is the set of rules that shape the Cebuano language. This language is very common in places like Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, parts of Leyte and Samar islands, Negros Oriental, and many areas in Mindanao.

Cebuano has eight main parts of speech. These include nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, particles, prepositions, and conjunctions. It is an agglutinative language. This means words are made by joining smaller parts together. Pronouns and verbs change to show things like number, aspect, focus, and mood. Learning these rules helps people speak and write Cebuano better.

Morphosyntactic alignment

Main article: Austronesian alignment

Cebuano, like many Philippine languages, has special ways to show who is doing what in a sentence. It uses word endings and markers to show the role of each word.

Cebuano has four main ways to show these roles, called "voices":

1. The active voice shows the doer of the action.
2. The passive voice shows things that receive the action.
3. The passive voice shows places or people who benefit from the action.
4. The passive voice shows tools used in the action.

The word markers ang or si show which word is the main focus of the sentence. This helps make clear who is doing what.

Pronouns

Pronouns in Cebuano change depending on who they are talking about, how many people there are, and what job the word has in the sentence. In Cebuano, there is only one word for both "he" and "she"—that word is siyá.

A pronoun can have three main jobs in a sentence:

• Direct (the person doing the action)
• Indirect (the person getting the action)
• Oblique (a less direct job)

The indirect case can also show ownership. For example, "my dog" can be said as irô nakò (dog mine) or akóng irô (I’s dog).

Cebuano has full and short forms of pronouns. The short forms are used in everyday talking. The full forms are used when the pronoun stands alone, like when saying "I am John."

Cebuano also has different words for "we" depending on whether the person you are talking to is included. For example, mi means "we" when talking about a group that does not include the listener, while ta means "we" when the listener is part of the group.

Demonstratives

Cebuano has special words to show where things are, like "this," "that," or "there." Here are some examples:

• Kiní/ni: This.
  Example: "Unsa kiní/ni?" means "What's this?"

• Kanâ/nà: That.
  Example: "Kinsa kanâ/nà?" means "Who is that?"

• Kiníng: This (used with things).
  Example: "Kiníng sulata gikan sa Presidente sa Pilipinas." means "This letter is from the President of the Philippines."

• Didtó: There.
  Example: "Mangaon sila didtó." means "They will eat there."

• Kadtóng/tong: Those.
  Example: "Nangaon kadtóng/tong mga tawo ug mga batà didtó sa piyesta/pista." means "Those people and children ate at the feast."

Adverbs

Deictics

Deictics are words like here and there. They show where things are in relation to the person talking and the person listening. They can tell us where something is and when it is there.

Deictics can describe four different places:

• Near the person talking
• Near both the person talking and the person listening
• Near the person listening
• Far away from both

They can also show three different times:

• Now: "X is here/there now"
• Before: "X was here/there"
• Later: "X will be here/there"

Some deictics can come before or after the words they describe, while others only mean "before" if they come before the words.

Here are some examples:

Día dirí ang batà.
The child is over here.

Túa si lolo sa Amerika.
Grandfather is in America.

Dinhi ang Doktor gahapon.
The doctor was here yesterday.

Moádto siyá sa Manilà.
She will be going to Manila.

Midagan ang batà ngadto sa baláy niya.
The child ran to his/her house.

Nouns

Cebuano nouns are split into two groups: personal nouns, which are about people or things with human qualities, and general nouns, which are about everything else. Nouns in Cebuano do not change to show if they are one or many. Instead, they use special markers to show their role in a sentence. To show many, the word mga is added before the noun.

Nouns can play three roles in a sentence: direct, indirect, and oblique. The direct case is used for the main subject or topic. The indirect case shows who does the action or who owns something. The oblique case is used for objects or tools that are not the main focus. For example, the word sa is used for a specific object, like "the car," while og is used for a general object, like "a car."

Plurality can also be shown by adding special prefixes and suffixes to nouns, changing single items into groups or places where items are found. For example, tawo (person) becomes katawhan (people), and saging (banana) becomes kasagingán (banana farm). Some adjectives can also change to show plural forms, like gamáy (small) becoming gagmay (small ones).

Cebuano does not usually give genders to nouns, except in some words borrowed from Spanish.

Adjectives

Adjectives in Cebuano do not change when we talk about more than one thing. But some adjectives about size or amount can have a special form for many things.

When we compare two things, we can say one is bigger or smaller by using words like "more" or adding a special word before the adjective.

To show the highest degree of a quality, such as the biggest or smallest, Cebuano uses special prefixes or words.

Adjectives can also show extreme qualities, like saying something is amazingly pretty, by using certain prefixes.

Intensity, like something being very short, is shown by adding the word "very" after the adjective.

Linkers

Nga

The linker nga shows how words connect in a phrase. For example, it can link an adjective to a noun, like saying "big house" instead of a full sentence. Without this linker, the words might make a sentence instead of a phrase.

Ka

The linker ka links numbers to the words they describe. The word buók, meaning "whole," is sometimes used with ka.

Enclitic particles

Cebuano uses special words called particles to change the meaning of a sentence. These particles help show if something is happening now, later, or already happened. They can also ask questions or show feelings like surprise.

For example, the particle na is used to talk about something that happened before and is still true now. The particle pa talks about something that will happen later. Other particles like ba are used to ask yes-or-no questions. There are many particles that show different ideas, like surprise or a warning. These particles can be used together to make the meaning clearer.

Interrogatives

Here are some important question words in Cebuano:

• Unsá? What?
• Asa? Where? (for a place or person)
• Diín?, Dis-a? Where? (for something that happened before)
• Hain?, Saa/Asa? Where? (for an object)
• Kinsa? Who?
• Kang kinsa? To whom?
• Ngano? Why?
• Giunsa? How? (past)
• Unsaon? How? (future)
• Kanus-a? When?
• Pila (ka buok)? How many?
• Tagpila? How much?
• Ikapila? What order?
• Di-ay ba? Really?

The words asa, diín, and hain can often be used in place of each other when talking casually. In more formal situations, they have specific uses:

Asa is used when asking about a place.

• Asa ka padulóng? (Where are you going?)
• Asa ta molarga? (Where are we traveling to?)

Hain is used when asking about where something is.

• Hain ang gunting? (Where is the pair of scissors?)
• Hain na ang pagka-on sa pista? (Where is the food for the festival?)

In everyday spoken Cebuano, asa has become the most common word for “where.” The word hain is not used as much anymore, mostly by older people.

Verbs

Verbs in Cebuano change based on the noun's role, voice, form, mood, and aspect or tense.

A verb root is the simplest form of a verb that shows its basic meaning. To make different forms, special parts of words, called affixes, are added to the verb stem. The verb stem can be the same as the verb root or changed with affixes. For example, "padalá" means "to cause to bring," while "dalá" means "to bring."

Cebuano verbs have different moods, forms, and aspects. There are three moods: the indicative mood for common actions, the mirative mood for unexpected actions, and the potential mood for actions that can happen. There are four forms: the punctual form for actions seen as a whole, the durative form for actions over time, the stative form for states or feelings, and the reciprocal form for actions done to each other.

Cebuano uses aspect instead of tense. The nasugdan aspect is for actions that have already started, and the pagasugdan aspect is for actions that have not started yet. Verbs also change to match negative sentences.

Negation

In Cebuano, words that mean "no" or "not" act like verbs. They change the meaning of sentences to show that something is not happening or is not true.

Syntax

Cebuano has different ways to build sentences. Some sentences can switch the order of words and still make sense, like saying "This is the Visayas" or "The Visayas is this." Other sentences cannot switch the order, such as "Visayans are Filipinos."

There are also sentences that talk about things existing, like "There is a God in heaven," or having something, like "I have something to drink at home." Sentences can also show where something is, like "Here is the money," or describe the weather, like "It is cold here in Baguio."

Some sentences are used to give commands, like "Grill that fish," or to ask questions that need more than a yes or no answer, like "Who are you?" Others are questions that can be answered with yes or no, like "Is this the Visayas?"