Tagalog Noun Cases

Noun Cases

Tagalog nouns are not inflected, unlike other languages there’s a need to change the noun by adding a suffix or any sort of modification to function as whatever cases. Tagalog nouns are usually preceded by case-marking particles. Let’s take a look at this comparison between English and Tagalog sentence construction.

I eat bread. – Let’s break down the function of every word. Bread is the direct object of the verb eat, which is done by I, the subject. English follows the syntactical order which is subject followed by its verb then the object. 

Tagalog follows a different pattern which is based on the Austronesian syntactical pattern. The default sentence order is verb first followed by the doer of the action (which is introduced by a marker), then an object (which is also introduced by a marker.)

Kumain	ako	ng	tinapay
Ate	I	marker	bread

Tinapay is the object of the verb which is introduced by the marker ng. It is important to know the case of a noun in order to use the proper marker. If another marker is used to introduce the noun, it will change the meaning of the sentence and the focus of the action, as well as the case of the noun. 

There are three basic cases of the noun. 

Direct Case- this is the core argument or the main topic of the sentence. 
Indirect Case-this can function as the subject of an action, direct object of the verb, or the noun modifying another noun.
Oblique Case-this is the indirect object of the verb, or the location where the verb will be taken place or the object of the preposition.

Direct case and indirect case can both function as the subject of the verb. The difference is that the direct case is the main topic of a sentence. The verb defines the doer of the action depending on its form. [see Verb Conjugation]

 {Refer to the color of the three cases to identify the case of the word in the sentences below.}

Nagluto ang nanay ng adobo. Mother cooked (some) adobo. 

The verb in this sentence is in the actor focus form making ang nanay the core argument of the sentence and the doer of the action nagluto. Use ang to show the doer of the action in an actor focus verb form, and ng to show the direct object.

 Niluto ng nanay ang adobo. Mother cooked (that) adobo. 

The verb in this sentence is in the object focus form making ang adobo the core argument of the sentence, or the topic of the sentence. It also emphasizes that adobo (a specific adobo which the speaker and the listener know) was cooked. Use ng to show the doer of the action in an object focus verb form and ang to show direct object of the verb. 

However, if the noun is a name of person, or a specific person who does the action, we have to use Si (Singular Direct Case Marker), Sina (Plural Direct Case Marker), and Ni (Singular Indirect Case Marker), Nina (Plural Indirect Case Marker).



Short Explanation of Markers ang & ng
ang- is the marker for direct case noun, it can sometimes be translated to the definite article "The".
ng- is the marker of indirect case noun, it also marks the subject of the verb in the object focus form, and to link two nouns together modifying the other noun. [See Markers]