More on the grammatical features of Philippine English

LAST week, we began talking about the grammar of Philippine English, highlighting the broad categories where it occasionally differs from other varieties of the language: subject-verb agreement, tense and aspect usage, preposition usage, and pronoun usage. Today, I will reference the work of my dissertation supervisor, Professor Emeritus Ma. Lourdes Bautista, and some specific grammatical points of Philippine English that she had an interest in.

Two particular usages that she kept mentioning in her many works are “based from” in place of “based on” and “result to” in place of “result in.” Based on actual frequency, the alternative Philippine English variants, i.e., “based from” and “result to,” have not yet replaced the canonical “based on” and “result in.” In fact, it seems they are not set to replace the latter as of yet. But their frequencies are already noticeable. Prof. Bautista says the logical explanation for the emergence of these variants is that “from” appears to be an appropriate preposition for a basis or source, and so “based from.” Meanwhile, the “to” in “result to” clearly demonstrates a destination or a product.

Prof. Bautista also documents the use of “one of the” with a singular noun, as in “one of the students,” when the noun should ideally be plural. She notes that this usage is common not only in Philippine English but is also documented in other varieties of Asian English. In fact, it is more common in Hong Kong English and Singapore English than in Philippine English. Another scholar actually noticed the same for Malaysian English. It seems a singular noun is used because of the word “one” at the beginning of the entire expression.

And then, there is the use of the word “majority” without an article (“a” or “the”) preceding it. The use of articles is particularly thorny for users of English, so this is not surprising. While Hong Kong and Singapore English also document the same tendencies, Philippine English appears to use this more often.

The word “assure” is also sometimes used in Philippine English without an indirect object, and in my own personal observation, sometimes the direct object also disappears. The ideal construction of the word must indicate (1) the person or entity being assured and (2) what assurance is being given, as in “The president assured the nation of progress in the coming years.” This is particularly common in newspaper headlines. However, in this usage, Hong Kong English is once again more inclined to do this than Philippine English.

Another usage that is preponderantly Filipino — overwhelmingly so that it is barely documented in other varieties of English — is the use of “wherein.” Alternatives for wherein could be “in which,” “by which” or “through which.” Again, we must remember that Tagalog has a less complex relativization system; it only has “na.”

It is important to note that these are now features, not errors. These are variants available in Philippine English. I shall talk more about this in the coming weeks.

Ariane Macalinga Borlongan is one of the leading scholars on English in the Philippines who is also doing pioneering work on language in the context of migration. He is the youngest to earn a doctorate in linguistics, at 23, from De La Salle University. He has had several teaching and research positions in Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore and Taiwan. He is currently an associate professor of sociolinguistics at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in Japan.