The pseudo-verbs you already know, working as a system
Beginner lesson 16 gave you buri, bisa, kailangan, dapat, sukat and malyari as "wants, needs and ability." Forman groups them formally and calls them pseudo-verbs, a term borrowed from the Tagalog literature.
What makes them a class is negative: they are "identified formally by the severe restrictions on or absence of co-occurring affixes." They do not conjugate the way real verbs do. Instead they take a second regular verb as a complement.
| Pseudo-verb | Meaning |
|---|---|
| kailangan | need |
| dapat, sukat | should |
| bisa | want |
| buri | like |
| malyari | possible |
E ko bisang maniwala. — I don't want to believe it.
E ne buring dinan. — She doesn't want to give it.
dapat munta — ought to go
kunwari palakwan — pretend to leave someone
Two things to notice in those first two sentences.
The linker is doing the joining — bisa + -ng + maniwala, buri + -ng + dinan. This is the same a/-ng from lesson 10, connecting a pseudo-verb to its complement instead of an adjective to a noun.
And the negator e sits at the very front, with the pronouns immediately after — exactly the word order beginner lesson 13 established.
E ko bisang maniwala contains a word you can now take apart: maniwala is maN- + tiwala ("belief"), with the nasal assimilation from lesson 5 turning t into n.
Three lessons ago that was an opaque vocabulary item.
A second group of two-verb phrases has an ordinary verb in first position — typically saup ("help"), subuk ("try") or turu ("teach").
Pasaup kang magdala keng seli mu.
Have someone help you carry what you bought.
Subuknan teng pagana ning tibi.
Let's try to turn the TV on.
Aturu mu lang manyalitang Kapampangan?
Could you teach them to speak Kapampangan?
That last sentence is a nice summary of the tier so far:
| Piece | What it is |
|---|---|
| Aturu | a- ability form (lesson 8) of turu |
| mu la | doer + object pronouns |
| -ng | the linker joining the two verbs |
| manyalita | maN- + salita, with s → ny (lesson 5) |
And Pasaup in the first is a causative pa- from lesson 9 — "cause someone to help."
A verb can take a descriptive qualifier, usually of manner or time.
Maglakad lang makanyan. — They walk like that.
E me ipusit makanyan. — Don't squeeze it like that.
Makanyan — "like that" — is the maka- descriptive from lesson 8, here qualifying how the action is done. It is one of the most useful words in conversational Kapampangan, because it lets you refer to a manner you have just seen without naming it.
Forman notes that "the role of a verb in a clause may be intensified by repeating" it. You saw this in lesson 8 without comment:
Makasanting ing mibablas mung mibablas.
Always changing your clothes makes you look nice.
mibablas mung mibablas — "changing and changing." The doubling carries "repeatedly, habitually, always." It is the same instinct as the doubled roots in the recent-completion construction of lesson 7, used for a different effect.
There are also verb phrase substitutes, which let you avoid repeating a verb phrase already established:
— Minta ka? Did you go?
— Ali ku. No, I didn't.
(rather than E ku minta, "I didn't go")
Ali ku stands in for the whole verb phrase. Forman notes that otherwise an overt verb phrase is negated with preposed e-.
Why "pseudo-verb"? Because they occupy verb position but resist verbal affixes. The term is Bowen's, coined for Tagalog and applied here by Forman.
Can I chain three? Yes — Forman has a section on three-verb phrases. In practice they are built the same way, with linkers.
Is makanyan rude? Not inherently, but "like that" can imply criticism in Kapampangan as in English. Tone carries it.
Verb chaining is how you say anything complicated about intention, attempt or assistance. It also shows the tier's pieces working together — a causative, an ability form, two assimilations and a linker, all in one short question about teaching someone Kapampangan.
Next: Comparative and Superlative, the last B1 lesson.