Tagalog - use of SIYA to refer to non-humans

[Hsiu-Chuan Liao]

Hi Chris,

The use of siya for non-humans is quite common in the Philippines now (not just in Manila, but also in other Tagalog-speaking areas).  If you are interested in the use of siya, you might want to contact my student Evelyn Calizo (evelynlccalizo at yahoo.com).  Evelyn did a paper on the use of siya for one of the courses that I taught at De La Salle University.  She presented the result of the study at the 10-ICAL.    

Best,
Hsiu-chuan


----- Original Message -----
From: Christopher Sundita <csundita at yahoo.com>
Date: Sunday, June 18, 2006 10:45 am
Subject: [An-lang] Tagalog - use of SIYA to refer to non-humans
To: an-lang at anu.edu.au

> Hi,
> 
> Just recently, I ran into a phrase that read "binili ko siya" (I 
> bought it). 
> This confused me because I thought this refered to a person.  In 
> reality, it
> was referring to a thing. I question the speaker about it and he 
> says it's
> quite common around Manila, though not considered "standard" grammar.
> 
> As a native speaker, I found this a bit jarring to my ears. I 
> would have used
> one of the demonstratives ito, iyan, or iyon instead of "siya" or 
> simply no
> pronoun at all (i.e., "binili ko"). I've talked with relatives, 
> who are from
> Manila, and they agreed - but we have not lived in the Philippines 
> for almost
> 20 years.
> 
> Are any of you familiar with this phenomenon? Does it exist in 
> other Philippine
> languages as well?  I know in Kapampangan it's possible, but their 
> treatment of
> pronouns is different than other Philippine languages'.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> --Chris
> http://salitablog.blogspot.com
> 
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