¹ Our transcription uses the following symbols: aeiuˀ ptkbdgmnŋlrs. In exclamations and foreign words there are also h and c (much as in English church); in foreign words also j (much as in English judge) f v o. Further, we use y, w for nonsyllabic positional variants of i, u.

The accent mark over a vowel indicates lengthening, high pitch, and stress. Words and phrases which contain no vowel of this kind have a weaker and unstable stress (without lengthening or marked rise of pitch) usually on the last or next to last vowel indifferently, but in some instances on an earlier vowel; in no case are they stressed on a vowel followed by single consonant plus vowel; thus, napintas ‘beautiful’ is weakly stressed on the last or next to last vowel, indifferently, and silid ‘room’, daga ‘earth, land’ are weakly stressed on the last vowel.

We mark open juncture by space or hyphen. The phrase finals (,; :) and sentence finals (. ? !) are well marked, especially by features of pitch; before them a word or phrase with indifferent stress usually has its weak stress on the last vowel.

Where we write no consonant before an initial vowel or between vowels, a weak variety of the glottal stop (varying toward zero or y, w) is to be understood: ásu ‘dog’, naimbag ‘good’; contrast dáˀit ‘sewing’, salˀit ‘lightning’, agaˀˀárak ‘smelling of rum’, with stable glottal stops.

Our data were obtained from Mr. Severino Montano of Laoag, Ilocos Norte, a student in the Yale School of Drama. Apart from errors of recording, they suffer from the defects that are inevitable when speech forms are presented ad hoc and when texts are dictated.

Needless to say, this sketch gives only the main outlines of the syntax and omits many interesting features. It represents a part of studies in Malaysian (and related languages) carried on at Yale University under the auspices of the National School of Modern Oriental Languages and Civilizations.

² Mr. Montano remarked that these plurals with da are never used in the presence of the persons named.

³ In this and some of the following examples, some final vowels (maŋrugí, intú, dí, lá) were recorded with the high stress and lengthening which are peculiar to open syllables: this implies close juncture with the following word, and properly our transcription should leave no space. However, we have left spaces before all words which seem to be preceded prevalently by open juncture.