Completed magpa- causatives replace initial mag- with nag- while retaining pa: magpaluto → nagpaluto, magpakain → nagpakain, and magpaayos → nagpaayos. The form presents the causing, permission, or arrangement as bounded and keeps the causer as actor pivot.
This is not an English past-tense conjugation. Past time is common, but context can give a present-result or future-relative interpretation.
Forming nagpa-
| Root | Basic | Completed | Underlying event | Typical completed reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| luto | magpaluto | nagpaluto | someone cooks | had or let someone cook |
| kain | magpakain | nagpakain | someone eats | fed or allowed to eat |
| gawa | magpagawa | nagpagawa | someone makes or repairs | commissioned work |
| tulog | magpatulog | nagpatulog | someone sleeps | put someone to sleep |
| ayos | magpaayos | nagpaayos | someone fixes or arranges | had something fixed |
No reduplication appears in the completed form. Nagpaayos is written solid in standard Filipino; do not insert a hyphen merely because pa and ayos meet at a vowel boundary.
Nagpaayos si Lorena ng bentilador sa tekniko kahapon.
Lorena had a technician repair the fan yesterday.
Nagpatulog ang nars ng pasyente bago isinagawa ang pagsusuri.
The nurse put a patient to sleep before the examination was performed.
The causers si Lorena and ang nars are pivots. The technician is a service provider; the patient in the second sentence is the participant caused to sleep.
Completed does not simply mean past
Nagpakain si Pio ng mais sa mga manok kaninang umaga.
Pio fed corn to the chickens this morning.
Kaninang umaga places the bounded feeding event in past time. With na, a completed arrangement can matter to the present:
Nagpagawa na ako ng ekstrang susi, kaya may magagamit ka.
I've already had an extra key made, so you'll have one to use.
Completed nagpagawa corresponds naturally to an English present perfect because the new key is relevant now.
It can also occur inside a future condition:
Kapag nagpalinis na kami ng tangke, saka namin ito pupunuin.
Once we have had the tank cleaned, only then will we fill it.
The cleaning arrangement is bounded before the projected filling. See completed aspect for this relative-time logic.
Causation and direct action remain different
Gumawa si Ruel ng kabinet para sa silid-aralan.
Ruel made a cabinet for the classroom.
Nagpagawa si Ruel ng kabinet sa karpintero para sa silid-aralan.
Ruel had a carpenter make a cabinet for the classroom.
The controlled pair keeps gawa and completed aspect but changes valency. Gumawa presents Ruel as direct maker. Nagpagawa presents him as causer and adds the carpenter as causee.
Actor voice in the causative selects Ruel, not the person doing the carpentry. This point is easy to miss when both English clauses use Ruel as grammatical subject.
Voice remains separate from causation
Compare two completed causatives:
Nagpaluto si Alma ng isda kay Nilo para sa mga bisita.
Alma had Nilo cook fish for the guests.
Ipinaluto ni Alma kay Nilo ang isdang dinala ng mga bisita.
Alma had Nilo cook the fish brought by the guests.
Nagpaluto selects causer si Alma as pivot. Ipinaluto selects the caused theme ang isda as pivot and marks Alma with ni. Both contain causative pa and completed aspect; voice determines the pivot. The shorter (informal) variant pinaluto also occurs widely for ipinaluto in contemporary Filipino.
Questions, negation, and connected use
Hindi nagpasulat ang tagapamahala ng bagong ulat dahil sapat na ang naunang bersiyon.
The manager did not have a new report written because the earlier version was sufficient.
Negation does not remove the completed form; it denies that the bounded causative event occurred.
—Nagpatingin ka ba kahapon? —Oo, nagpatingin ako sa doktor sa klinika ng bayan.
—Did you see a doctor yesterday? —Yes, I consulted a doctor at the town clinic.
Here nagpatingin has its established service meaning “seek an examination/consult.” The medical professional is expressed with sa doktor, not treated as a mechanically derived causee from English “see.”
Lexical restrictions and ambiguity
A root is a family of constructions, and one citation form hides the system. Uwi has umuwi “go home,” mag-uwi “take something home,” and causative magpauwi, which context may interpret as “send/let someone go home” or “have someone take something home.” Because magpa- can be built over different direct-action families, it can neutralize distinctions visible without the causative.
Nagpauwi ang punong-guro ng mga bata nang lumakas ang ulan.
The principal sent the children home when the rain grew stronger.
The context selects the caused-motion reading. Do not assume that nagpauwi always has one English valency.
Service forms also lexicalize. Nagpagupit ordinarily means “had one's hair cut,” and nagpagamot means “sought treatment/had someone treated.” Their completed form is regular, but their participant interpretation comes from usage.
Common Mistakes
Keeping magpa- for a bounded event
❌ Magpalinis si Dena ng bodega noong Sabado.
Wrong for the intended completed statement — magpalinis is the basic form.
✅ Nagpalinis si Dena ng bodega noong Sabado.
Dena had the storage room cleaned on Saturday.
Noong Sabado supplies past time; nagpalinis supplies completed aspect.
Stacking actor-voice prefixes
❌ Nagmagpagawa si Felix ng bagong tarangkahan.
Incorrect — completed magpa- replaces mag- with nag-; it does not add nag- before the whole basic form.
✅ Nagpagawa si Felix ng bagong tarangkahan.
Felix had a new gate made.
The completed form contains one actor-voice prefix sequence, nagpa-.
Adding English -ed
❌ Nagpaayos-ed kami ng sirang tubo kahapon.
Incorrect — English -ed cannot attach to completed nagpaayos.
✅ Nagpaayos kami ng sirang tubo kahapon.
We had the broken pipe repaired yesterday.
The Filipino form already marks a bounded event.
Mixing actor-voice markers
❌ Nagpakain ni Lorna ang mga bisita ng sopas.
Incorrect — nagpakain selects the causer as pivot, so Lorna needs si rather than ni.
✅ Nagpakain si Lorna ng sopas sa mga bisita.
Lorna served soup to the guests.
The correction makes Lorna the causer pivot, soup the food, and the guests the caused eaters/recipients.
Key Takeaways
- Form completed causative actor voice by replacing magpa- with nagpa-.
- Do not reduplicate pa in the completed form.
- Completed aspect is bounded event view, not a dedicated past tense.
- Nagpa- keeps the causer as pivot while adding the underlying event's participants.
- Root families and service meanings can make an otherwise regular form lexically ambiguous.
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Start learning Filipino →Related Topics
- The magpa- causative actor voice: Function and DistributionB1 — Understand how magpa- adds a causer, selects that causer as pivot, and covers causing, permitting, arranging, and obtaining services.
- The magpa- causative actor voice: Incompleted-Aspect FormationB1 — Build incompleted magpa- causatives with nagpapa- for ongoing, repeated, habitual, and backgrounded causation.
- The magpa- causative actor voice: Contemplated-Aspect FormationB1 — Build contemplated magpa- causatives with magpapa- for unbegun plans, predictions, and conditional arrangements.
- Completed AspectA2 — Use completed or perfective verb forms to present an event as a bounded whole while keeping aspect distinct from past tense and voice.
- Valency and Participant StructureA2 — Map the actors, patients, recipients, locations, beneficiaries, and instruments licensed by Filipino verb constructions and their voice frames.
- The ipa- causative patient voice: Completed-Aspect FormationB1 — Form completed ipa- causatives with ipina- while keeping the caused theme as pivot and the causee in a sa/kay phrase.