Ordering of two clitic pronouns in Tagalog (and Hiligaynon)

[Loren A. Billings]

On June 30th, I asked the list the following. I now have a partial answer

> I'm trying to answer a historiographic question: Leonard Bloomfield's (1917)
> _Tagalog tests and grammatical analysis_ is the first work I know of to report
> that if there are two clitic pronouns in a Tagalog clause, their order will be
> determined by number of syllables (i.e., light before heavy). I'm wondering if
> any of the earlier descriptions, perhaps from the Spanish-occupation period,
> that reported the same thing.

First, Harald Hammarström responded with information about downloadable .pdf
versions of numerous Spanish-era grammars (and others from all over the
world). He wrote:

> I don't know the answer to your question but I have some older grammars
> from the Spanish period in .pdf so you can check for yourself:
> 
> Gaspar de San Agustin. 1879 Compendio del Arte de la Lengua Tagala, 3rd
> Ed., Amigos del Pais, Manila.
> Sebastian de Totanes. 1865 Arte de la Lengua Tagala y Manual
> Tagalog, Miguel Sanchez, Binondo.
> http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~harald2/grammars/arte_tagala.zip (35.9 MB)
> 
> Frank R. Blake. 1925 A Grammar of the Tagálog Language, American Oriental
> Society, New Haven, American Oriental Series 1. [Plus ten or so minor
> Tagalog-related grammars.]
> http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~harald2/grammars/tagalog.zip (136. MB)

The more general site <http://www.cs.chalmers.se/~harald2> has links to all
those other grammars.

I still haven't had the time to go through these grammars, so I don't know
the answer. However, I did just happen to come across an excerpt from an
early grammar of Hiligaynon (=Ilonggo) that definitely refers to number of
syllables (p. 37) in ordering pronominal and other clitics in that language:

Kaufmann, John (1916) Principles of Visayan grammar. Oroquieta, Manila:
Catholic Trade School.

Thus, although Bloomfield may still be the first to have described Tagalog
in this regard, Kaufmann preceded him by just a year in describing a very
closely related Central Philippine language.


Loren A. Billings, Ph.D.
Associate professor of linguistics
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Chi Nan University
Puli, Nantou County 545 Taiwan



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