CEBUANO VISAYAN SYNTAX

The spoken thought is completed in the sentence of a language. The structure of the
sentence is called syntax by linguists: word order.

Hence, word order, the basic unit of syntax, makes up distinct linguistic arrangements of
content-words and function-words, that build up the minimal syntactic groups, the sentence builder
(1) phrases and (2) clauses.

Each basic syntactic unit is a combination, at least, of two content-words with or without
function-words that convey a basic unit of meaning.

There are usually four basic syntactic structures among languages: modification structure,
predication structure, complementation structure and coordination structure.

I. THE MODIFICATION STRUCTURE

The modification structure is made up of a head (the word modified) and a modifier (the word that
modifies). In other words, the modification structure is a phrase, as in:

In analyzing the syntactic structure of modification, three steps are followed.

 II. THE PREDICATION STRUCTURE

The Cebuano Visayan structure of predication is made up of the word order starting from
the predicate (the action or being) and is followed by the subject (the doer of the topic)
corresponding to the two basic parts of a sentence.

Steps in analyzing the predication structure.

 III. THE COMPLEMENTATION STRUCTURE

Steps in analyzing the complementation structure.

The whole sentence A is analyzed.

 IV. THE COORDINATION STRUCTURE

The coordination structure is made up of a function-word and a content-word. Function

words are usually conjunctions and prepositions, that join or relate the content-word, as in:

Steps in analyzing the coordination structure.