Tagalog Voice/Focus System Reference

Tagalog (and most Philippine languages) organizes its clauses around a voice or focus system rather than a simple active/passive split. The verb carries an affix that announces which participant is the grammatical topic, and that topic noun is flagged with the marker ang (or si for names). This tool lays out the four core voices side by side so you can see the affix, the ang-marked argument, and a worked example for each.

How it works

A Tagalog clause has one privileged argument — the ang-phrase (the topic or “focus”). The verb’s affix selects which semantic role that argument plays:

• Actor focus — affixes -um- (infix) or mag- (prefix). The doer is ang.
• Object focus — affix -in. The thing acted upon is ang.
• Locative focus — affix -an. The location or goal is ang.
• Beneficiary focus — affix i-. The one benefiting is ang.

Non-focused arguments take other markers: the non-focused actor takes ng, and a non-focused location takes sa. So when you shift the affix, the markers on the surrounding nouns shift too. The same root — for example bili (buy) — runs through all four voices: bumili (the buyer is focus), bilhin (the goods are focus), bilhan (the seller/place is focus), ibili (the beneficiary is focus).

Example and notes

Take luto (cook). Actor focus: Nagluto ang lalaki ng adobo — “The man cooked adobo,” with the man as ang. Object focus: Niluto ng lalaki ang adobo — “The man cooked the adobo,” now the dish is ang. Beneficiary focus: Ipinagluto ng lalaki ang bata ng adobo — “The man cooked adobo for the child,” with the child as ang. The action never changes; only which participant is spotlighted does. Aspect (begun, completed, contemplated) is layered on top via reduplication and the n-/-in- realis markers, which is why surface forms vary.