The Development of the Verb SAY in Central Cordilleran Languages, Northern Philippines

Abstract:This article focuses on the development of kan, a "say" verb in Central Cordilleran languages. The article deals with the possible historical development of this verb, and then discusses the unusual development of the locative voice suffix -an that it requires, which loses its final consonant only when singular pronouns are added, but not when plural pronouns are added. This is true for all locative and patient voice suffixes in Central Cordilleran languages. When a noun is the agent of the verb, there is a genitive enclitic before it, but only when the preceding word ends in a vowel, otherwise there is no genitive marking. This is discussed with reference to quotative indexes and the claim is made that the historical change of quotative index nominals to verbs results in the unusual development of "say" verbs and other verbs with locative and patient voice suffixes.