A corpus study ofkasama‘companion’ in Tagalog

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents a corpus-based study of a number of different types of previously undescribed constructions formed with the Tagalog nounkasama‘companion’. Apart from independent and attributive uses,kasamafrequently occurs as the predicate of an adjunct clause that can introduce a comitative participant, a semantically depictive secondary predicate, an event-oriented adjunct, or a predicative complement. The study analyses the frequency ofkasamain all of these types of constructions and looks into their specific properties. This includes: the semantic distinction between additive and inclusory constructions withkasama; animacy agreement between arguments ofkasamain additive constructions; variation in case marking of arguments ofkasama; the preponderance of the absence of linkers – commonly known to introduce adverbial clauses in Tagalog – which are used to attach thekasamaclause to the main clause; attested controllers of thekasamaclause; positions available for thekasamaclause in the sentence. Variation in case marking and compatibility with linkers suggests a classification of Tagalog adjunct clauses similar to that of Tagalog adverbials and prepositions. There is also some evidence to believe thatkasamais being grammaticalized as a preposition. Comitative and semantically depictive constructions withkasama, which account for a quarter of the corpus sample, have never been studied before, despite the fact that Tagalog is included in several typological studies on comitative and depictive constructions.