Valency is the participant frame licensed by a verb construction: how many core participants it has and what roles they play. A giving event, for example, can involve a giver, an item, and a recipient. Filipino voice morphology then selects one of those participants as the ang-marked pivot while the remaining participants receive forms such as ng, ni, sa, or kay.
Valency is not a count of every phrase in a sentence. Time, reason, and manner phrases can be added without changing the verb's core participant structure. Nor is an affix a simple label meaning “subject” or “object.” A root combines with an established affix family to create a construction with its own meaning, aspect paradigm, and marker frame. All unlabelled forms below are neutral contemporary Filipino.
Participant roles and common frames
The labels below describe semantic roles. They are not interchangeable with English grammatical relations.
| Role | What it contributes | Illustrative form | Possible pivot in |
|---|---|---|---|
| actor | initiates or controls the event | nagbigay | actor voice |
| theme/patient | moves or is affected | ibinigay | patient/undergoer voice (theme pivot) |
| recipient | receives a transferred item | binigyan | locative voice (recipient pivot) |
| beneficiary | benefits from the event | ipinagluto | benefactive voice |
| location/goal | site or endpoint of an event | pinuntahan | locative voice |
| instrument | means used to perform an event | ipinambukas | instrumental voice |
These associations are tendencies within particular lexical families, not a machine for inventing words. The precise meaning of -an, i-, ipang-, and other morphology must be learned with an attested verb and its frame.
One giving event, three alignments
The root bigay provides a controlled comparison. All three clauses can describe closely related situations, but they organize the three participants differently.
Nagbigay si Aling Tess ng kumot kay Ramil bago lumamig ang gabi.
Aling Tess gave Ramil a blanket before the evening grew cold.
Actor-voice nagbigay makes the giver si Aling Tess the pivot. Ng kumot is the conveyed theme, and personal recipient kay Ramil is marked by kay.
Ibinigay ni Aling Tess kay Ramil ang makapal na kumot.
Aling Tess gave Ramil the thick blanket.
Ibinigay selects ang makapal na kumot as the pivot. The actor is ni Aling Tess, and kay Ramil remains the recipient.
Binigyan ni Aling Tess ng makapal na kumot si Ramil.
Aling Tess gave Ramil a thick blanket.
Recipient-voice binigyan selects si Ramil as pivot. The giver is ni Aling Tess, and the item is ng makapal na kumot. English can use nearly the same translation for all three, so translation alone cannot reveal the Filipino structure.
Valency belongs to a construction, not a bare root
The root luto evokes cooking, but its established derivatives package participants differently.
Nagluto si Nena ng tinola para sa mga bagong dating.
Nena cooked chicken soup for the newcomers.
Actor-voice nagluto makes si Nena the pivot. The food is a non-pivot patient, and para sa mga bagong dating expresses a beneficiary without making it the pivot.
Ipinagluto ni Nena ng tinola ang mga bagong dating.
Nena cooked chicken soup for the newcomers.
Benefactive ipinagluto promotes ang mga bagong dating to pivot. The food remains ng tinola and the actor becomes ni Nena. The ipag- family is established here, but it is misleading to memorize “ipag- means for” as an unrestricted rule. Roots differ in which benefactive formations sound conventional.
Similarly, tulog can form one-participant matulog “sleep” and causative magpatulog/patulugin “cause someone to sleep.” The added causer changes valency; a new participant is built into the construction rather than simply mentioned as background.
Natulog agad ang bata pagkapatay ng ilaw.
The child fell asleep as soon as the light was turned off.
Pinatulog ni Lando ang bata bago dumating ang mga bisita.
Lando put the child to sleep before the guests arrived.
The second clause has causer ni Lando and caused sleeper ang bata. Its patient/undergoer-voice causative form cannot be predicted just by translating English put to sleep word for word.
Core participants versus optional information
Compare a destination selected by the lexical construction with an added time phrase:
Pinuntahan namin ang munisipyo pagkatapos ng tanghalian.
We went to the municipal hall after lunch.
Pinuntahan presents the destination ang munisipyo as pivot and the travelers as namin. Pagkatapos ng tanghalian merely locates the event in time. Removing the time phrase leaves the participant frame intact; replacing or omitting the destination changes what pinuntahan conventionally presents.
Arguments can nevertheless be omitted when discourse makes them recoverable. An omitted participant is still licensed by the construction.
—Naibigay mo na ba kay Sinta? —Hindi pa; ibibigay ko pag-uwi niya.
—Have you given it to Sinta yet? —Not yet; I'll give it when she gets home.
The item is omitted in both turns because the speakers know what it is. Kay Sinta supplies the personal recipient in the question; niya identifies that same person in the time clause. Omission does not turn naibigay/ibibigay into a one-participant verb.
Animacy, specificity, and marker choice
Personal recipients normally use kay/kina when named and sa-forms for common noun phrases or places. That distinction reflects phrase type, not valency: both can fill a recipient or goal role. Animacy affects which interpretations are plausible; an inanimate place can be a goal, while a true recipient is normally animate or institutionally personified.
Specificity and discourse also influence voice choice, but there is no formula stating that every definite English object must be an ang phrase. In actor voice, a contextually identifiable patient can still appear with ng. In patient voice, the selected patient is an ang pivot. See the dedicated actor-voice marker page and patient-voice marker page for those discourse patterns.
Aspect preserves the participant frame
Within the bigay patient/undergoer i- family, completed ibinigay, incompleted ibinibigay, and contemplated ibibigay present different event phases. They retain the same basic alignment: giver in an ng/ni form, conveyed item as ang pivot, and recipient in a sa/kay phrase.
Ibinibigay ni Omar sa barangay ang sobrang gulay tuwing Biyernes.
Omar gives the surplus vegetables to the barangay every Friday.
The incompleted form has a habitual reading because of tuwing Biyernes. Filipino did not add an English present-tense ending, and ibinibigay does not agree with Omar.
Common Mistakes
Giving both giver and item ang marking
❌ Ibinigay ang guro ang sertipiko kay Mila.
Incorrect — in this patient/undergoer-voice frame, the item is the pivot and the giver requires ng marking.
✅ Ibinigay ng guro kay Mila ang sertipiko pagkatapos ng programa.
The teacher gave Mila the certificate after the program.
The correction identifies ang sertipiko as theme pivot, ng guro as actor, and kay Mila as recipient.
Treating -an as one invariant English preposition
❌ Binigyan ni Pio sa Lira ang payong.
Incorrect — binigyan already selects the recipient as pivot, so sa Lira conflicts with the frame.
✅ Binigyan ni Pio ng payong si Lira dahil malakas ang ulan.
Pio gave Lira an umbrella because the rain was heavy.
Here -an participates in a lexicalized recipient-voice verb; it does not simply translate English to.
Inventing an English past ending
❌ Ibinigay-ed ni Lora ang susi sa katiwala.
Incorrect — ibinigay is already completed and never takes English -ed.
✅ Ibinigay ni Lora sa katiwala ang susi bago siya umalis.
Lora gave the caretaker the key before she left.
Confusing an optional time phrase with a core argument
❌ May tatlong pangunahing kalahok ang pangungusap na ‘Natulog ang bata sa papag kagabi.’
Incorrect analysis — the bamboo bed and last night are setting information, not core participants of natulog.
✅ Natulog sa papag ang bata kagabi matapos ang biyahe.
The child slept on the bamboo bed last night after the trip.
Only the sleeper is a core participant of this natulog construction; place, time, and preceding circumstance are adjunct information.
Key Takeaways
- Valency describes the participants licensed by a particular verb construction.
- Voice selects a pivot from that participant frame; it does not create English subject–object agreement.
- The same root can yield constructions with different valency through established derivation.
- Omitted arguments remain part of the understood frame when discourse recovers them.
- Record every verb with roles and markers, because one citation form hides the root's larger construction family.
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Start learning Filipino →Related Topics
- Intransitive and Transitive UsesA2 — Distinguish one-participant events from constructions with an actor and an affected participant without confusing transitivity with Filipino voice.
- Multiple Possible Verbs from One RootA2 — Explore how one Filipino root can support several established verbs with different voices, participant frames, aspect paradigms, and lexical meanings.
- Verb Paradigms as Aspect-and-Voice FamiliesA2 — Read Filipino verb paradigms as intersecting choices of event aspect and participant voice rather than as English tense conjugations.
- Actor VoiceB1 — Use actor voice to select an actor, experiencer, or moving participant as pivot while marking patients and obliques appropriately.
- Patient VoiceB1 — Use patient voice to select an affected or delimited participant as pivot while retaining the actor as a core ng-series phrase.
- Marker Choice with Patient-Voice VerbsA1 — Choose ang, ng, and personal markers with patient-voice verbs by treating the patient as pivot and the actor as non-pivot.