Bergaño's analysis of the focus system, set against Forman's
Bergaño opens by warning against the Latin assumption. "No pienses que una raíz sólo tiene una pasiva como lego, que no tiene más que legor" — do not think a root has only one passive, as Latin lego has only legor.
| Name | Marked by | Because |
|---|---|---|
| pasiva de i | prefixed i | the letter goes in front |
| pasiva de an | suffixed an | the letters go after |
| pasiva de anan | suffixed anan | same reason; often an stands for it |
He adds that a root may take more than one of them — some take two, some only one, "porque su significación no da lugar a más," because the meaning allows no more.
That single sentence is the eighteenth-century version of what Forman says two centuries later: which affixes a root takes is lexical, and you learn it root by root.
Bergaño gives rules by the shape of the root.
| Root | Means | Future | Preterite |
|---|---|---|---|
| aral | teach | iaral | inaral |
| sulat | write | isulat | sinulat |
| tun | cook | itun | tinun |
| salicut | hide oneself | isalicut | silicut |
He notes that in this first passive the i is never prefixed to preterites, and that presents and futures often drop it too, especially in words of more than two syllables.
Sinulat should look familiar — beginner lesson 11 gave it to you as "wrote," and B1 lesson 1 as a goal-focus completed form. Bergaño derives it here as a preterite of the first passive. Three descriptions, one word.
The preterite rules depend on the root's shape:
| Root shape | Rule |
|---|---|
| monosyllable | in inserted right after the first consonant |
| trisyllable | first vowel changes to e or i |
| disyllable with two consonants after the first vowel | insert in |
| plain disyllable (sulat, sulut) | unpredictable |
On the plain disyllables, Bergaño writes: most of those that take um in the active future insert in here; the rest either insert in or change the first vowel to e or i. And then:
"No hay más remedio que examinar uno por uno, o ir al Vocabulario."
There is no remedy but to examine them one by one, or go to the dictionary.
That is the same conclusion Forman reaches from his four classes of -an verbs, and the same conclusion B1 lesson 1 passed on to you. Two grammarians, 235 years apart, arriving at "look it up."
Note also the vowel changing to e or i — the a→e and u→i changes of B1 lesson 4, recorded in 1736.
| Bergaño (1736) | Forman (1971) | This course's B1 |
|---|---|---|
| activa | Action-Actor predication | actor focus |
| pasiva de i | Action-Goal with i- | lesson 1 |
| pasiva de an | Action-Goal with -an; also locative | lessons 1 and 3 |
| pasiva de anan | roughly the locative and referential | lesson 3 |
| — | Action-Beneficiary | lesson 2 |
The mapping is close but not exact, and the gaps are informative. Bergaño has no separate beneficiary category; he folds those cases into his passives. Forman has no category called "passive" at all.
A fair question, and the answer is not "the modern one."
It makes the marker swap obvious. If you call it a passive, then of course the agent steps back and the patient steps forward — that is what passives do. Learners often grasp the ing/ning alternation faster through this framing.
It does not imply markedness. An English passive is a marked, less common choice; Kapampangan goal focus is neither. Calling it a passive imports a connotation the language does not have.
It also handles the range of focused roles better. Location, instrument, beneficiary and reason are not comfortably "passives" of anything.
Two competent descriptions of one system, using incompatible vocabularies, both useful. That is normal for a well-studied language and it is worth internalising, because it changes how you read any grammar.
When a grammar tells you Kapampangan "has a passive" or "has no passive," it is telling you about its own analytical framework at least as much as about Kapampangan.
Should I call it a passive? Not in modern writing — "focus" or "predication type" is standard and carries fewer wrong implications. But know what older sources mean.
Is the third passive still used? The -anan form is recorded by both Bergaño and Forman, but Bergaño notes an often stands in for it even in his day.
Why do the vowel changes appear in both grammars? Because they are real and stable. A sound change documented in 1736 and still there in 1969 is a solid fact about the language.
You now have two independent analyses of the central system of Kapampangan grammar, and can move between them. That is what lets you read any source on the language, of any date, without being captured by its terminology.
Next: Protocompuestos — the derivational system Forman does not treat.