Verbal Function and Valency in Kinamayu Dialect of Surigao del Sur, Philippines

Function and valency of verbs are two of the unexplored features of Kinamayu dialect in Surigao del Sur, Philippines; hence, this study attempts to analyze and describe the syntactic structure and features of sentences in Kinamayu by focusing on the interface level between the verb and its syntax. This corpus-based study is qualitative in nature. It examines the corpus taken from legitimate key informants who were chosen through purposive sampling procedure. Data were sourced out through interviews, focus group discussion and direct elicitation. Findings revealed the distinctive syntactical features of Kinamayu which are dictated by the verbs used. One of which is that Kinamayu is a verb initial language with the verb functioning as the head of the structure placed in the initial position of the sentence. Kinamayu also allows a verbless sentence structure particularly in sentences linking the subject to its complement. Kinamayu is also unique as it is one of the few languages in the world which can be classified as pro-drop or null subject languages allowing the dropping of subject, and whereby verbs can appear alone in the sentence. This is made possible through one of the types of valency of verb known as avalent. Other types of verb valency also uncovered in Kinamayu are monovalent, divalent and trivalent. The study concludes that Kinamayu verbs as the head of the structure exhibit lexicosyntactic property which dictate the existence and number of arguments in the sentence.