# tilapong



## Qcumber

What does it mean? I came across this stem in the following sentence.
*Nakita ni Fidel ang tumilapong upos ng sigarilyo bago tuluyang naghari ang dilim*
(Teodosio, 2004: Sa dalampasigan ng ibayong dagat)
= Fidel saw the cigarette butt  that _____________ before the darkness continued to take over.
It's not in my dictionary.


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## epistolario

Qcumber said:


> What does it mean? I came across this stem in the following sentence.
> *Nakita ni Fidel ang tumilapong upos ng sigarilyo bago tuluyang naghari ang dilim*
> (Teodosio, 2004: Sa dalampasigan ng ibayong dagat)
> = Fidel saw the cigarette butt  that _____________ before the darkness continued to take over.
> It's not in my dictionary.


 
The root word is *tilapon*, which is related to *tapon*-to throw away:

*tapon* - intentional throwing away
*tilapon* - unintentional, it was thrown away by itself, without anyone doing so (I'm not sure of my English)


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## Qcumber

ffrancis said:


> The root word is *tilapon*, which is related to *tapon*-to throw away:
> *tapon* - intentional throwing away
> *tilapon* - unintentional, it was thrown away by itself, without anyone doing so (I'm not sure of my English)


So the -*il*- infix would give an unintentional value to the root.
Very interesting. Do you happen to know other such derivatives?
Thanks a lot.


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## Pinyot

Nope, tilapon is the root word.


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## Qcumber

Pinyot said:


> Nope, tilapon is the root word.


And what does it mean for you?


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## epistolario

Pinyot said:


> Nope, tilapon is the root word.



I'm not sure but I think, you're right because, referring to the past, we say *tumilapon*. We add -um- which is a _gitlapi_. We only add prefixes and suffixes if it is a root word, right?


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## Qcumber

ffrancis said:


> I'm not sure but I think, you're right because, referring to the past, we say *tumilapon*. We add -um- which is a _gitlapi_. We only add prefixes and suffixes if it is a root word, right?


A Tagalog verb may be based on a two-syllable item, e.g. *súlat* "written piece" > *sumúlat* "to write", or a derivative of more than two syllables, e.g. *matáy* >* hi-matáy* "faint" > *mahimatáy* "to faint, to swoon". There is no limit. You can even use expressions, e.g. *bákit hindî?* "why not?" > *Nagbábákit-hindî ká ná namán!* "You start again with your 'why not?'s!"

*Tilapon* having three syllables is obviously derived from a two-syllable item. What could it be?
1) *lapon > ti-lapon*
2) *tapon > t-il-apon*
3)* tilap > tilap-on*

*Lapon* is not recorded in my dictionaries.
The suffix -*on *doesn't exist in Tagalog. (It does exist in other Philippines languages.)

*Tápon* "waste" is a know term.
Your idea that *tilápon* could be derived from *tápon* is not bad.
Now how would you translate the sentence I quoted in my initial post?

*Nakita ni Fidel ang tumilapong upos ng sigarilyo bago tuluyang naghari ang dilim*


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## danilo1975

<il> is what's called a fossilzed infix in Tagalog. There are several of these in Tagalog and throughout Austronesian. they were noticed by the early austronesianists who tried to adduce a function for them but it appears to be impossible to assign them any consistent meaning. they take the form <ar>, <al>, <ag>, and are occasionally found with other vowels, as in tilapon.


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## epistolario

Qcumber said:


> Now how would you translate the sentence I quoted in my initial post?
> 
> *Nakita ni Fidel ang tumilapong upos ng sigarilyo bago tuluyang naghari ang dilim*


 
Fidel saw the cigarette butt that had been accidentally thrown away before it grew dark.


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## Qcumber

ffrancis said:


> Fidel saw the cigarette butt that had been accidentally thrown away before it grew dark.


Thanks a lot, Francis. That's clear now.


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## Qcumber

danilo1975 said:


> <il> is what's called a fossilzed infix in Tagalog. There are several of these in Tagalog and throughout Austronesian. they were noticed by the early austronesianists who tried to adduce a function for them but it appears to be impossible to assign them any consistent meaning. they take the form <ar>, <al>, <ag>, and are occasionally found with other vowels, as in tilapon.


Yes, I noticed these fossilized / fossil infixes a long time ago.
Don't you think it odd that a modern speaker should use -*il*-, one of these fossil infixes, to coin the derivative *tilápon* "inadvertently discard" from *tápon* "discard", and that another modern speaker should understand the value of this affix?


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## danilo1975

But you're assuming that the word tilapon was recently coined. Its more probable that the words with frozen infixes were simply lexicalized at the time when those infixes were still productive, that is to say, a long time ago.  the form and its corresponding meaning were then simply added to the lexicon of the language as a separate entry. modern speakers don't necessarily make the connection between tapon and tilapon, even though they would notice the apparent similarity. and no speaker could give you a consistent function for <il>, or any other frozen infix.


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## Qcumber

danilo1975 said:


> But you're assuming that the word tilapon was recently coined. Its more probable that the words with frozen infixes were simply lexicalized at the time when those infixes were still productive, that is to say, a long time ago. the form and its corresponding meaning were then simply added to the lexicon of the language as a separate entry. modern speakers don't necessarily make the connection between tapon and tilapon, even though they would notice the apparent similarity. and no speaker could give you a consistent function for <il>, or any other frozen infix.


Yet, you may have noticed Francis gave me an interpretation of -*il*- above.
The term *tilapon* is not entered in my dictionaries.
This is a fascinating case.
Somehow I have the impression -*il-* in *tilápon* is perceived as the equivalent of -*in-*, and this derivative is used as the base of the verb *t-um-ilápon*.

*Nakita ni Fidel ang tumilapong upos ng sigarilyo bago tuluyang naghari ang dilim*

I don't grasp why this form is used instead *tinápon: ang tinapong upos ng sigarilyo. *


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