Janet L. Allen: Nouns and Verbs—word classes or functional categories? An answer from Kankanaey, a Northern Philippine language

Form and function are two ways of approaching language analysis. A formal approach to words would classify nouns as different from verbs. A functional approach to the same words would look for referential and predicating functions. Words in Austronesian languages in general, and Kankanaey (a Northern Philippine language) in particular, are more insightfully analyzed from a functional perspective. This study shows that the same word forms are used for different functions in Kankanaey clauses. This presentation will look at reference and predication in Kankanaey, using the Role and Reference Grammar model.