Linguistic Structure

• Linguistic structure of Philippine English:

  • Linguistic structures are pairings of meaning (Semantics) and sound (Phonetics) or other forms of externalization.
• Phonetics is the study of the physical aspects of sounds of human language.
• Phonology is the study of patterns of a language's sounds.
• Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words.
• Syntax is the study of how words combine to form grammatical sentences.
• Semantics is the study of the meaning of words (lexical semantics) and fixed word combinations (phraseology), and how these combine to form the meanings of sentences.
• Pragmatics is the study of how utterances are used (literally, figuratively, or otherwise) in communicative acts.
• Discourse Analysis is the analysis of language use in texts (spoken, written or signed).
• For linguists, grammar is simply the collection of principles defining how to put together a sentence.
• Word order is the syntactic principles of a language that may insist on some order of words or may allow several options.
• In linguistics, word order is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders.
• Word structure - there is another aspect of grammar in which languages differ more radically, namely in morphology, the principles governing the structure of words. Languages do not all employ morphology to a similar extent.
• Since the turn of the century, much of research on the grammar of PhE has shifted from broad descriptions of limited spoken and written data to more quantitative approaches using voluminous corpora.
• To provide a general description on the current grammatical features of PhE, this chapter discusses the most recent studies that have explored the area over the past 20 years.
• Morphology:

  Morphosyntactic structure of verbs in PhE is overwhelmingly regular in morphology (Borlongan, 2011b), a pattern akin to that in American English (AmE). Past tense and past perfect tenses usually take the -d/ed forms instead of the -t form.
• Tense and Aspect:

  Among the most notable studies on PhE tense and aspect are those by Gonzalez (1985) and Bautista (2000) who provided broad descriptions of the tense-aspect system based on internal features.
• Gonzales (1985) identified three main aspects of PhE: simple present, continuous present, and habitual present.
• Bautista (2000) also described the use of auxiliary be as a marker of progressive aspect in PhE.
• Noun Phrase:

  Bautista (2008) as part of her large scale analysis of PhE grammar covered three types of noun phrase constructions including one of the, majority, and such with high consideration for the collocation of succeeding articles to determine their grammatical nature.
• Adjectives and Adverbs:

  Similar to other varieties, PhE also has greater preference for inflectional comparatives (i.e. -er), while the periphrastic form (more + adjective, e.g. more rich) and double comparatives (more + inflected adjective, e.g. more richer) remain marginal (Borlongan, 2011).
• Is there a distinct PhE grammar? The answer is Yes and No.
• All the observed patterns across its features suggest that some internal norms are characteristic of this new English. These are evident when looking at a wide range of features in the PhE dataset compared to other Englishes, particularly with its parent AmE. While these are already signs of endonormative stabilization, there remains gravitation toward exonormative norms (Collins & Borlongan, 2017).
• Research on PhE grammar has indeed come a long way. The advent o corpus-based, quantitative methods has given more systematic and measurable ways to look at the development of English and its varieties around the world. This warrants the need to further explore and understand the grammatical
• Discourse:

  In linguistics, discourse refers to a unit of language longer than a single sentence. The word discourse is derived from the latin prefix dis- meaning "away" and the root word currere meaning "to run". Discourse, therefore, translates to "run away" and refers to the way that conversations flow.
• Discourse in Philippine English:

  The aim of this chapter is to summarize various research works, and, in case some are found lacking or deemed inadequate in terms of pattern or features, to provide a description of discourse structures in PhE. Thus, an important task of this chapter is also to present the direction for the description and analysis of discourse features and organizational patterns found in PhE texts.
• Written Discourse: Mass Media

  According to Gonzalez, PhE of the mass media for casual and formal styles seems to be similar in features, and is ‘textbookish’ due to the manner of acquisition in school. Whereas written PhE observes a composition style, spoken PhE is closer to ‘textbook English’.
• Dayag(2004b) noted that in relation to global structure, Philippine newspaper editorials observe the lead-follow-valuate structure with the tendency to combine background material with evaluative statements as early as the first statement.
• Reflections of culture in Philippine English Discourse:

  According to Genuino (2002), Cultural features found to be common in all speech communities highlight the writers being analytical rather than accumulative, and individualist rather than collectivist.
• In comparing the Englishes used in different text types with shared or unshared features, one may find the need to raise awareness among language teachers and learners that much has to be understood in terms of writing styles, structures, and moves.
• These linguistic and discourse features make one variety distinct from the other and are reflective of the culture of the writer.
• Writers of different discourse communities conform to the writing norms to which they are exposed to, and which they employ for communal purposes.
• For some of the written Englishes analyzed, very few differences can be identified.
• This may be attributed to the fact that writers from different cultures conform to the set of standards which are often observed by the writing communities in different countries.
• PhE advances as a field or area in applied linguistics, it is important to note that the said variety may also be compared with other Philippine languages considering that the Philippines is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse countries in Southeast Asia, with the multitude of major and minor languages used by Filipinos.
• Needless to say, after work on PhE description started, what caught the attention of scholars at that time was the growing comparison of the PhE variety with other Englishes. One will note that it is only after getting acquainted with the features of one variety that a researcher can be more confident in comparing it with another. In other words, the study of one variety of English will likely undergo more meaningful advancement when it is compared with other Englishes.