Event structure in Tagalog

© 2011 Dr. Maureen Joy SaclotThis thesis examines the verbal system of Tagalog through an event structure analysis, arguing that “focus forms” exhibited by base predicates are expressions of different event structures determined by the semantic feature of telicity. It provides tests to examine the telicity property of the predicates and proposes their corresponding logical representations. These telicity tests and logical representations illuminate the syntactic behaviour of the focus forms in Tagalog. The thesis further demonstrates that the (a)telicity property of the predicates and the event structure they denote trigger the semantic interpretations of the participants in the clause, i.e. the ANG-phrase, NG-phrase and SA-phrase. The study concludes with an elucidation of the interplay between event structure and viewpoint aspect in Tagalog’s verbal expressions