Entry words

The entry words or headwords according to which the dictionary is alphabetized consist primarily of root words. Where two or more root words are identical in form but semantically unrelated (homonyms), they are distinguished in the dictionary by numerical subscripts. For example, bokbók1 means ‘to slice’, bokbók2 means ‘wood borer’, and bokbók3 means ‘to shake, sprinkle’.

Roots such as bokbók, tedtéd, kaskás, gisgís, basbás, basábas, and gaságas, in which two syllables are identical, occur with great frequency in the language and are alphabetized according to the full form of the root, e.g.,gisgís, not gis. They are to be distinguished from roots which usually occur with certain types of grammatical reduplication, but whose underlying form does not contain a reduplicated syllable. Such forms are alphabetized according to the underlying root, not the reduplicated form. For example, adó always occurs with CVC- reduplication when it is used as an adjective ad-adó, a verb omad-adó, ad-addoén, or a derived noun kaad-addoán. But it also occurs without the reduplication as an interjection adó and an adverb namin-adó. Consequently it appears in the dictionary under the headword adó. Some other frequently used words, which almost always occur in reduplicated form and are thus likely to be mistaken for roots, are dakdaké, kitkittóy, and dadáel. But in each of these cases, the root appears in at least one environment without the reduplication and can thus be identified as daké, kittóy, and dáel, respectively. In cases where a suspected reduplication is present in all environments, it has been considered part of the underlying root, e.g., ay-ayyó and babáwi.

In addition to root words, the following are also listed as main entry words in the dictionary: clitics, variant and synonymous forms, and certain affixed forms. Clitics are indicated by a preceding hyphen, e.g., -ak ‘I’.

In Kankanaey, unlike English, there are numerous true synonyms, words which, as far as can be ascertained, are identical in meaning, semantic range, affixation potential, and distribution in the sentence. This is probably due in large part to the spread of dialect variants, which has been greatly facilitated in recent times by the rapid expansion of the transportation network. In order to reduce the bulk of the dictionary as much as possible, synonyms and variants are glossed only once, generally under the item most commonly used in the Kibungan area. The other forms are listed as entries and cross-referenced to the glossed form. For purposes of this dictionary, a form is considered a variant (var.) when it is clearly cognate with another form, generally with only one segmental difference between the two, e.g., besáang and bisáang, kaltí and kaltíb. When two forms are not clearly cognate, they are identified as synonyms (syn.), e.g., kosíli and títit.

Affixed forms are listed as headwords only when the operation of phonological rules would make it difficult for a person who does not know the language to identify the related root. These may be described under four categories:

·        forms to which both nasal assimilation and reduction and initial vowel deletion have applied, e.g., mamtét (petét), manngét (sengét), manpap (depáp). These forms are ambiguous, even to a person familiar with the operation of the morphophonemic rules, because of the ambiguity associated with the affixes. Mamtét could be wrongly interpreted as metét + ma-, and manngét and manpáp could be wrongly interpreted as the roots nget and pap affixed with man-.

·        forms which exceptionally undergo initial vowel deletion, e.g., makwáni (kawáni).

·        forms which undergo initial vowel deletion other than e. Because e is the only vowel which regularly deletes regardless of the nature of the following vowel, forms which undergo initial e deletion will not be listed as separate entry words. Forms in which other initial vowels are deleted will be thus listed and cross-referenced to their respective roots to eliminate ambiguity. This applies only to the ma- or mai- prefixed forms. Thus mapnó (ponó) and mapsít (pisít) will be entered as headwords, whereas madpáp (depáp) and masngét (sengét) will not. If users of the dictionary are unsure of the root for a form such as madpáp and fail to find it listed as a main entry word, they may assume that the deleted vowel is e.

·        forms to which both initial vowel deletion and glottal metathesis have applied, e.g., mas-ét (esét) and mas-éd (seéd), for which the roots could be wrongly interpreted as seét and eséd, respectively.

Derived forms, generally nouns, adverbs, and adjectives with infrequently occurring affixes such as maka- are indented as sub-entries below the body of the entry for the related root.

Order of occurrence

Main entry words occur in alphabetical order, as given above in the section on the sound and spelling systems, with the following clarifications:

Unlike English, ng is treated as a separate letter of the alphabet following n, e.g., antókos precedes angápil.

Words with ultimate stress precede identical words with penultimate stress, e.g., gayáng precedes gáyang.

Words without a hyphen precede identical words with a hyphen, e.g., otót precedes ot-ót.

Elsewhere, hyphen does not affect alphabetization, e.g., lólo, lol-ó, lol-ók, and lólom occur in that order.

Construction of entries

The body of the entry is divided into five sections, arranged in the following order: source and status of headword, grammatical information, gloss, example, and semantic field.

Source and status of headword

A number of words have been borrowed into Kankanaey from other languages, generally with accompanying adaptation to the Kankanaey sound system. Such borrowings are identified by enclosing in parentheses following the headword an abbreviation for the source language, along with the spelling of the word in the source language, where it is different from Kankanaey. Three source languages are identified:

Ilo.       Ilocano

Sp.       Spanish

Eng.     English

A number of problems are associated with correct identification of the source language. In a few instances, the loan word is cognate in English and Spanish, e.g., animál, and since the Philippines has had extensive contact with both languages, it is difficult to say which language is the correct source for a particular loan. In many more cases, the loan is clearly Spanish in origin but is also found in Ilocano. In such cases, this dictionary ignores the question of whether the word was borrowed into Kankanaey directly from Spanish or indirectly from Spanish through Ilocano, and merely lists the source as Spanish.

The most difficult problem concerns Ilocano loans. First, most Kankanaey speakers are bilingual to one extent or another in Ilocano, and depending on the social contect, freely mix Ilocano terms with their speech. Second, Ilocano and Kankanaey are closely related languages, and share a large number of words because of their common origin. Third, Kankanaey is becoming progressively more Ilocanoized, particularly among members of the younger generation. These factors make it difficult to decide, in some cases, whether a certain word should be marked as an Ilocano loan or even included in the dictionary. The following criteria have been adopted as arbitrary guidelines: a) If a mature adult Kankanaey resident of Kibungan identifies a word as Ilocano, not Kankanaey, the word will not be included in the dictionary, even though it is frequently heard in daily speech. b) If a word is identified as “also a Kankanaey word” or “the same in Ilocano”, it will be included in the dictionary and marked with (Ilocano), indicating only that it is cognate with Ilocano.

Words in various stages of disuse are identified in the dictionary as follows:

(arch.) archaic – indicates that the word is no longer in current use, but is still known by a number of individuals, generally older men, e.g., talombági ‘thirty-five centavos’.

(n.c.) not common – indicates that the word is in current use, but only by a small percentage of the population. Words in this category include loans that are not yet in widespread use, e.g., lígtas ‘fire’, and words that are becoming archaic, e.g., kolít ‘leprosy’, a disease which has not been present in the area for many years.

Words that are used only in certain cultural contexts, such as mourning songs, are not included in the above two categories. Limitations on their use are given in the gloss. (arch.) and (n.c.) are usually given at the beginning of the body of an entry. When they co-occur with source language information, both will be included in the same parentheses, e.g., (Ilo., n.c.). Where they apply to only one section of an entry, as in the case of polysemy, they will precede any other information given in that section.