A Contrastive Analysis of Tagalog and English Third Person Singular Pronouns

By: Paulo C. Dorongon

I. Description of ( L1) Tagalog Third Person Singular Pronoun

            A. Form

                          Siya is a Tagalog Third Person Singular Pronouns

            B. Function/Meaning

                           Siya refers to male or female genders

                           Example: Siya ay matalino ( He is intelligent)

                                                                       ( She is intelligent)

            C. Distribution/Position

                          Siya occurs in the beginning of the sentence

                          Example: Siya ay matalino ( He/she is intelligent)

II. Description of (L2) English Third Person Singular Pronoun

            A. Form

                         He and she are third person singular pronouns

                         Examples; He is rich; She is rich

            B. Function/Meaning

                         He refers to male gender

                        She refers to female gender

                        Example: He is happy.

                                       She is happy.

            C. Distribution/Position

                        He occurs in the beginning of a sentence

                        Example:                                                                   

                        She occurs in the beginning of a sentence.

                        Example:

III. Contrastive Analysis

	Tagalog	English
Form	Siya is a third person singular pronoun Ex:	He and she are third person singular pronouns. Ex:
Function/Meaning	Siya refers to male or female gender. Ex:	He refers to male gender. She refers to female gender. Ex:
Distribution/Position	Siya occurs in the beginning of a sentence. Ex:	He occurs in the beginning of a sentence. Ex: She occurs in the beginning of a sentence. Ex:

            As shown in the chart, there is only one (1) form for Tagalog third person singular pronoun while in English; there are two (2) forms. He refers to a male gender; she refers to a female gender.

Prediction of difficulty of Tagalog learners learning English

1.      There’s a possibility that Tagalog learners learning English will have difficulty on how or when to use “ he” or “ she” third personal pronouns since the counterpart of the said English third person personal pronouns in Tagalog is only one, and that’s “ siya”

2.      Tagalog learners might interchange the use of third person personal pronouns ( he, she) when speaking in English since the counterpart of the said English third person personal pronouns in Tagalog is only one, and that’s “ siya”