Tagalog Pronouns and the Divas that They Are

In the last chapter, you learned about the types of Tagalog pronouns and how they swap in for nouns. In this chapter, we’ll look at how these divas mess sentences. Tagalog pronoun word order doesn’t always follow the neat verb → actor → object pattern you might expect. Instead, pronouns demand more in terms of placement. By the end of this lesson, you’ll see that word order in Tagalog isn’t rigid. It’s flexible and expressive.

Vocabulary:

• lalaki → man
• babae → woman
• pisngí → cheek
• lapis → pencil
• eskwelahán → school
• eleksyón → elections

Verbs:

• hatíd → take/bring someone to somewhere
• sundô → fetch
• suntók → punch
• kurót → pinch
• hirám → borrow
• ayà → invite

Tagalog Pronoun Word Order

In the Basics Section of this guide, we learned a specific sentence order that goes like this: verb → actor → object. Consider this sentence.

Sinuntók ni Manny si Floyd. → Manny punched Floyd.

This sentence is an object-focus sentence with Manny as the non-focus actor and Floyd as the focus object. Both are proper nouns, and they follow the order verb → actor → object.

This structure still works most of the time. But what happens when these nouns turn into pronouns? Check this out:

Sinuntók niyá si Floyd.

This sentence has the non-focus actor Manny turned to the pronoun niyá. Now, let’s turn focus-actor Floyd into a pronoun instead.

Sinuntók siyá ni Manny.

You thought it’s going to be “Sinuntók ni Manny siyá.”, right? From verb → actor → object, the order flipped to verb → object → actor. As it turns out, Tagalog pronouns will almost always take the second place in a sentence order. Whether they’re the actor or the object, focus or non-focus, pronouns will demand the second slot in the sentence, if possible. Such divas 💅 Let’s check out more examples.

Examples:

• Susunduín ng lalaki ang babae sa office. → The man will fetch the woman at the office.
• Susunduín niyá ang babae sa office. → He will fetch the woman at the office.
• Susunduín siyá ng lalaki sa office. → The man will fetch her at the office. (lit. She will be fetched by the man, at the office.)

NOTE: In the last sentence, translating it literally in English will give you the passive voice. Take note that Tagalog uses the concept of focus and not the active and passive voice feature that is present in English.

Both Participants as Pronouns

When both the actor and object are pronouns, Tagalog pronoun word order still kicks in, they both crowd into the second slot. However, they still follow the same order actor → object as we learned with nouns.

• Susunduín ng lalaki ang babae sa office. → The man will fetch the woman at the office.
• Susunduín ko ang babae sa office. → I will fetch the woman at the office.
• Susunduín siyá ng lalaki sa office. → The man will fetch her at the office.
• Susunduín ko siyá sa office. → I will fetch her at the office.

In the last item, ko (non-focus actor) goes before siyá (focus object). It retains the actor → object order.

More examples:

• Iháhatid ko sila sa airport. → I will take them to the airport.
• Iháhatid niyá kami sa airport. → He/she will take us to the airport.
• Iboboto namin siyá sa eleksyón. → We will vote for him/her in the elections.
• Kinurót niyá ako sa pisngí. → He/she pinched me on the cheek.
• Hinatíd niyá siyá sa eskwelahán. → He took him/her to school.

The Placement of Sa Pronouns — Target Participants

Replacing a sa target participant noun with a sa pronoun is as straightforward as you can get. But placing it in the sentence has more mechanics into it. This subsection offers a sneak peek as to why word order isn’t really strict in Tagalog sentences.

Let’s take this example. Let’s convert the actor Andrew into a pronoun.

• Humirám si Andrew ng lapis kay Kevin. → Andrew borrowed a pencil from Kevin.
• Humirám siyá ng lapis kay Kevin. → He borrowed a pencil from Kevin.

Nothing new.

Next, we’ll convert the target participant Kevin into a pronoun. If we are going to follow the rules above, it will go like this:

• Humirám sa kanyá si Andrew ng lapis. → He borrowed a pencil from Kevin.

The sentence above is correct and commonly used. However, Tagalog is such a flexible language where word order in a sentence depends on how important a part of it is to the speaker. So, you actually have the power to arrange the participants in a sentence! It just depends on which participant you want to put emphasis on.

• Humirám sa kanyá si Andrew ng lapis. (verb → target → actor → object)
• Humirám sa kanyá ng lapis si Andrew. (verb → target → object → actor)
• Humirám si Andrew ng lapis sa kanyá. (verb → actor → object → target)
• Humirám si Andrew sa kanyá ng lapis. (verb → actor → target → object)
• Humirám ng lapis sa kanyá si Andrew. (verb → object → target → actor)
• Humirám ng lapis si Andrew sa kanyá. (verb → object → actor → target)

Actors and Targets are Both Pronouns

On sentences where the actor and the target are both pronouns, only these two orders are commonly used:

• Humirám siyá ng lapis sa kanyá. (verb → actor → object → target)
• Humirám siyá sa kanyá ng lapis. (verb → actor → target → object)

These participant orders are valid, but they sound unnatural and awkward to say.

• Humirám sa kanyá siyá ng lapis. ❌ (verb → target → actor → object)
• Humirám sa kanyá ng lapis siyá. ❌ (verb → target → object → actor)
• Humirám ng lapis sa kanyá siyá. ❌ (verb → object → target → actor)
• Humirám ng lapis siyá sa kanyá. ❌ (verb → object → actor → target)

All Participants as Pronouns

Inayà ni Julia si Liza kiná Kathryn. → Julia invited Liza to Kathryn’s [and company’s place].

In this sentence, Julia is the non-focus actor, Liza is the focus object, and Kathryn is the non-focus target. If we are to replace all these participants into pronouns, you’ll get something like this: (Let’s say I’m Liza)

• Inayà niyá ako sa kanilá. → She invited me to hers. (her and family’s place)

In this case, the only sentence order that doesn’t sound awkward is this:

• verb → actor → object → target

Conclusion

At this point, you know why Tagalog pronouns nearly always sit in the second position and how sentence order shifts depending on emphasis. In short, word order in Tagalog is flexible, not rigid. That wraps up our look at pronoun placement.

In the next chapter, we’ll move past pronoun drama and start adding style to our nouns—with Tagalog adjectives!