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
Siya is a third
person singular
Form
pronoun
Ex:
Siya refers to male
or female gender.
Function/Meaning
Ex:

English
He and she are third
person singular
pronouns.
Ex:
He refers to male
gender.
She refers to female
gender.

Distribution/Positio
n

Siya occurs in the

beginning of a
sentence.
Ex:

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.
Theres 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 thats 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 thats siya