KINARAY-A
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MORPHOLOGY

Noun Morphology

Like other Philippine languages, Kinaray-a has a rich system of clitics, prefixes, suffixes, and infixes which change the meanings of nouns in certain ways.

1. Possessive Markers

 
Person Singular Plural
1st mata ko
'my eyes'		 mata natün                       mata namün
'our (incl.) eyes'                 'our (excl.) eyes'
2nd mata mo
'your eyes'		 mata ninyo
'your eyes'
3rd mata na
'his/her/its eyes'		 mata nanda
'their eyes'

2. Noun Derivation
Base Noun + affix = Derived Noun

palangga

‘darling, love’

-in-

(derivative infix)

pinalangga

‘beloved’

pamilya

‘family’

ka-

(derivative prefix)

kapamilya

‘brood, family members’

3. Number Derivation

Number Cardinal (one, two, three...) Ordinal (first, second, third...)
1 sara una
2 darwa ikarwa
3 tatlo ikatlo
4 apat ikap-at
5 lima ikalima
6 anüm ikan-üm / ikaanüm
7 pito ikapito
8 walo ikawalo
9 siyam ikasiyam
10 napulo / pulo ikapulo



Verb Morphology
Philippine languages are known for a type of verb morphology called verbal focus in which the affixes on the verb tells us what kind of action is happening with respect to the phrase that begins with the word ang. The ang phrase can be almost any kind of noun, but for illustration, we will use the verbal focus which assumes the ang phrase is a person.

Root: dalagan 'to run'
        
nagadalagan 'is running'
nakadalagan 'was able to run in the past before something happened'
nagdalagan 'ran'
madalagan 'is about to run'
makadalagan 'can run faster (than others)'

See the section on SYNTAX for examples of the verb morphology in sentences.