Les marqueurs nominaux en tagal

'Focus' and 'passive voice' enjoy a good deal of currency among people interested in Tagalog. Thus the surface values of nominal markers are taken for granted without trying to see whether the latter are combinations of smaller items. Actually, case is hidden by focalisation. Once stripped of its focus morphemes, a clause will yield surprising results: the agent and the complement are in like cases akin to the dative, whereas the patient is in the nominative. Relative clauses reveal that the nominal marker ang splits into a-, an anaphor of the predicator, and the ligature: a'ng. Similarly, the nominal marker nang splits into na- and -'ng, na- being the contrary of a- : na'ng. Na'ng is masked after the preposition sa, e.g. sa (na'ng) kasamáh to/from a tenant farmer'. Conversely sa becomes invisible when na- is remplaced by a-, e.g. (sa) a'ng kasamáh to/from the tenant farmer.'Potet Jean-Paul. Les marqueurs nominaux en tagal. In: Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale, vol. 23, 1994. pp. 279-292