Simple Tenses of the Verb in Kamayo Language

Language is vital in daily basis, it is used to communicate and express ideas and thoughts making each member of the community co-exist harmoniously. Its distinctiveness has significance in social aspects such as the value to access power, influences other people and expresses the identity of a certain ethnic group. In Surigao del Sur, Philippines, Kamayo language has been used by the majority of people living in the mid-eastern part of the province. This is the common language used among the people in daily work, in communication and even in business ventures in the locality. The study aims to analyze the simple tenses of the verb in Kamayo language in the province of Surigao del Sur. The study specifically focuses on identifying the affixes and how these affixes are being used in the simple tenses of the verb in the Kamayo language. This is a qualitative type of research which utilizes a purposive sampling technique and conducted an interview to gather the necessary data in this investigation. It was found in this study that there were 6 affixes used in the tenses of verbs. The six affixes has its own conjugating affixes which is attached as prefix, suffix and circumfix of the Kamayo verb. The affixes cannot be attached anywhere from the root word because it may change its meaning. These conjugating affixes determine the tenses of Kamayo verb whether past, present or future tense. On the other hand, the result clearly implies that language is unique and dynamic. The Kamayo language is being used by the people living in the mid-eastern part of Surigao del Sur.


INTRODUCTION
Philippines is made up of over 7000 islands with more or less 120 and 175 languages all over the country. These languages are being used by the people in the archipelago for communication. Language is vital in daily basis, it is used to communicate and express ideas and thoughts making each member of the community co-exist harmoniously. Its distinctiveness has significance in social aspects such as the value to access power, influences other people and expresses the identity of a certain ethnic group. In the province of Surigao del Sur, Kamayo language has been used by the majority of people living in the mid-eastern part of the province. This is the common language used among the people in daily work, in communication and even in business ventures in the locality. Hence, the study aims to analyze the simple tenses of the verb in Kamayo language in the province of Surigao del Sur. The study specifically focuses on identifying the affixes and how these affixes are used in the simple tenses of the Kamayo verb. Kinamayo is a spoken language without any published materials. The assessment of the status in summary is that the Kinamayo language is one of relatively stable diglossia with high levels of bilingualism. The Kamayo people have some aspirations to use their language to a greater extent but they view other areas of need in their community as more important to address at this time. Kamayo is the term for the people and Kinamayo for the language. The Ethnologue (Lewis 2009) as cited by Hasselbring et al (2011) uses Kamayo for the language. When talking about the language in English, Kamayo use the terms Kamayo and Kinamayo interchangably for the language. The people are also called Kadi and their language Kinadi. In the same way, Kadi is also sometimes used to refer to the language, especially when speaking English. Himmelmann and Bochum (2005) found out that aspect of the voice system in Tagalog is the fact that voice-marked words (V-words) as well as the roots from which they are derived belong to lexical categories which are very different from the lexical categories found in more familiar languages such as English. It has been repeatedly suggested that the difference pertains to the fact that Tagalog roots are precategorial and/or that there is no distinction between nouns and verbs in Tagalog. It is claimed that Tagalog roots are generally not bound and/or precategorial roots. Instead, Tagalog roots belong to different morpho-lexical classes. That is, it cannot be predicted solely on the basis of their meaning with which affixes a given root may occur. Furthermore, all kinds of roots, including roots denoting action, allow for unaffixed uses. In their unaffixed uses, roots may denote things, animate, beings, properties, states, results of actions and names of actions . Rackowski said in her study entitled Morphological Optionality in Tagalog Aspectual Reduplication that aspectual reduplicants in Tagalog are optionally located in any one of several positions among the verbal prefixes, always encoding the same meaning. All Tagalog verbs have a topic marker affix corresponding to the topic of the sentence, which is preceded by (a)ng. She added that the structure of Tagalog verbs are either prefixes or suffixes that occupy a high position in the verbal morphology. In the past time, the Kamayo language does not have any published materials according to Hasselbring et al. (2011) particularly in Surigao del Sur, in this view, conducting a study on the Kamayo language and analyzing it in terms of the simple tenses of the verb in Kamayo language in the province of Surigao del Sur would be very essential. In so doing will help Kamayo people realize that their culture and language is unique. The result of the study contributes to the preservation of culture in the Kamayo community and can be a significant basis for developing a reading materials in the DepEd curriculum such as Mother Tongue subject.

Objective of the Study
The main objective of the study is to describe the simple tenses of the verb in Kamayo language in the province of Surigao del Sur. The study specifically focuses on identifying the affixes and how these affixes are being used in the simple tenses of the Kamayo verb.

II. METHODS AND DESIGN
The study is qualitative in nature. It uses key informants in order to elicit the language correctly. The interview was conducted to six key informants and an interview guide questions were asked based on the beliefs and traditions in the life cycle of human. Purposive criterion sampling was used in selecting the key informants. Thus, inclusion criteria were established as basis in choosing the key informants, the following are;1.) he/she must be at least 60 years old above, and 2.) a native Kamayo and speaker of the language. On the other hand, the study was limited to the first district of Surigao del sur which is composed of the three municipalities; Lianga, San Agustine and Marihatag Surigao del Sur. The researcher utilized recorder to record the conversation during the interview, after which transcription of the recorded corpus was made and the translation and analysis of the data were also undertaken.

III.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The table below discusses the simple tenses of the verb in Kamayo language in the province of Surigao del Sur. The study analyzes also the affixes and how these affixes are being used in the simple tenses of the Kamayo verb. dagani tagdagan(ran)) yagdagan (run) dagani (will run) The table above shows the simple tenses of the verb in Kamayo language. This language has the tenses such as past, present and future. The study found out that there are affixes attached in the verb of the Kamayo language. Every aspect of the verb used the affix/affixes which determines its tenses; the past, present and future tense. There are six (6) affixes attached in the verb of the Kamayo language such as mag-, ma-, -an, mang-, -on, and -i. These affixes determine the future tense of the verb. For instance the word "magkabu" (will fetch),"maindug" (will stand), "latusan"(will hit), "mangguyud" (will drag), "utudon"(will cut) and"kabui" (will fetch). These affixes has conjugation of affixes which can be found in a prefix, suffix and circumfix of a certain word or words. The study reveals that prefixation is the most common process of affixation of the Kamayo verb. This research paper conformed to the study of Dumalagan (2011) that prefixation is more commonly used than infixation and suffixation in Surigaonon, Kamayo-Hinatuan, and Kamayo-Bislig. Other features that have been found to affect verbal inflection are plurality and reciprocity of action, though only to a limited extent. He added that Surigaonon, Kamayo-Hinatuan, and Kamayo-Bislig inflect for focus and aspect and these they employ the same procedure in verbal affixation in the action, objective, instrumental, and locative-benefactive focus.
The affix mag has conjugating affixessuch as tag-and tag…-an which determine the past tense of the verb if attach to a certain words like "tagrabak" (thrown) and "tagburat" (prepared).The affixes ya-and ya…-an are the conjugated affixof ma-in Kamayo language.These affixes determine the past form of the verb like for example the words "yaindug" (stand) and "yasumbagan" (punched). The tag and tag-…-anare conjugated affix of -an which define the action that is being done. Example the words "tagkatkat" (climbed) and "taglatusan"(hit). The affixyang-is the only conjugating affix of mang-like the word yanghagutwhich means pulled.The -on has two conjugating affixes, the tag-and tag-…-an. The -iuses only a prefix tag-.
The affixes that are being attached to the verb such as yaga-, ga-and ga-indicate the present form of the verb or action that happened of speaking. These conjugating affixes were attached in the initial portion og the Kamayo verb. The result of the study conformed to the work of Bucjan (2017) the idea of some commonalities of morphemes which are also found attached to a root word in the present form and past form but may vary in the phoneme that signify the future tense of the verb in Kamayo language. She added that Kamayo language is distinct and it has its own characteristics. This study also conformed to the work of Saavedra and Claro (2011) that Zamboanga Chavacano grammar is basically native Philippine although it lacks the explicit inflectional marking system extremely abundant in Philippine languages. This makes Chavacano very different and much simpler than other Philippine languages in terms of grammar. In place of the inflectional affixes, Zamboanga Chavacano used particles to indicate their functions. It's also conformed to the study of Dumanig (2015) that Surigaonon language is distinct as compared to other languages in the Visayas and Mindanao because it has its own consonant and vowel sounds, stress, intonation patterns and morphophonemic processes. The result shows that the affixes of Kamayo verb cannot be attached anywhere from the root word because it may form different meaning of the word. These affixes are very important because it tells the simple tenses of the verb in Kamayo language.This implies that Kamayo language is unique and this language has been used for communication by the people living in the mid-eastern part of Surigao del Sur.

IV. CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of the study, it shows that Kamayo language has simple tenses of verb such as past, present and future. The six affixes has its own conjugating affixes which attached as prefix, suffix and circumfix of the Kamayo verb. The affixes cannot be attached anywhere from the root word because it may change its meaning. These conjugating affixes determine the tenses of Kamayo verb whether past, present or future tense. Hence, Kamayo language is incomparable and this language is very important to the Kamayo people especially in the interaction to convey ideas and feelings. This language has been used for communication by the people living in the mid-easter part of Surigao del Sur.

RECOMMENDATION
Based on the findings of the study, the researcher recommends and suggests to the future researchersto discover and conduct studies on some concepts and theories of morphologyof Kamayo language.