A Pragmatic Analysis of Clitics in Ilonggo Language

Abstract

To share the noble objective for a successful transmission and survival of Philippine languages, most especially of the Ilonggo language, and to deflect the world's dirge on language loss; this study investigates llonggo clitics and their functions or implicatures. It has sought and identified these clitics' instability, dispensability, and other distinct linguistic attributes and behavior as collectively used and understood by its speakers in Koronadal City in South Cotabato.

In this study, the researcher made use of 3, 029 respondents: 1, 339 respondents were from the urban and 1, 690 respondents from rural areas. Rural respondents were randomly sampled from four barangays: Concepcion, Topland, Rotonda, and Esperanza. Moreover, urban respondents hailed from the two most populous zones, Zone 2 and Zone 4. Furthermore, in this paper, the pervasiveness of clitics or the use of clitics in the written literary pieces was also examined-150 literary pieces representing 38 literary genres.

Moreover, this study derived both quantitative and qualitative data; quantitative data based on the frequency and use of clitics in written and spoken Ilonggo was analyzed using descriptive statistics, while the responses to the open ended questions were analyzed using content analysis. The descriptive statistics employed to ascertain the use of clitics in spoken and written Ilonggo is the frequency count, mean and mode; cross tabulation was done to determine which clitics and group of clitics were predominantly used in the Ilonggo language. This study reports that Ilonggo clitics are utilized and spoken extensively across rural and urban areas in Koronadal, South Cotabato, where 32 clitics and 40 clitic combinations that are existing function as emphatic markers and emotional markers. Emotional markers include empathy, care, urgency, downtoning etc. Likewise, the emphasis markers such as urgency, emphasis, exactness, affirmation, etc. are extensively used. These clitics shed light on Ilonggos' strategic communication skills.