Ebook: Dupaningan Agta: Grammar, Vocabulary and Texts

Dupaningan Agta is an Austronesian language spoken in northeastern Luzon, Philippines by approximately 1400 semi- nomadic hunter-gatherers belonging to the Negrito ethnic minority. The language is endangered, as it is beginning to lose child speakers. Dupaningan is spoken in some thirty-five scattered communities, both along the Pacific coast (Philippine Sea) and inland, on both sides of the Sierra Madre mountain range.

This work is an overview of the basic grammar of Dupaningan Agta. The author has tried to write it in such a way that it is accessible to any trained linguist, whether versed in Philippine languages or not. Chapter 1 outlines the language situation. Chapter 2 examines the phonology of the language, both historical and synchronic. It outlines the most salient phonological changes from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian and shows the reflexes in modern Dupaningan. This chapter also includes a detailed phonological analysis, which begins by discussing the phonemes of the language, then addresses various phonological rules. Chapter 3 treats the Dupaningan noun phrase, discussing case markers, nominalization, pronouns, and adjectives. Chapter 4 is an overview of the verb phrase, and treats the topics of voice, aspect, and adverbs, including the enclitic adverbial particles. Chapter 5 addresses other syntactic issues of the Dupaningan sentence, dealing with word order, existential constructions, question formation, and clause combining. There are three appendices to the grammar: the first, Appendix A, is a short dictionary of Dupaningan vocabulary; the second, Appendix B, is a collection of selected texts in Dupaningan; and the third, Appendix C, is a list of the items of primary data upon which this work is based and which are archived at Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC).