Revisiting the Morphological Features and Syntactic Constituents of Ibanag Literary Texts: A Meta-Synthesis of Related Literature

Abstract

Researches on the Ibanag language and literary texts have long been explored by researchers. This paper deals with the meta-synthesis of published and unpublished papers dealing with the grammatical constituents of Ibanag literary texts focusing specifically on its morphological features and syntactic constituents. Using a systematic review of literature employing the inclusion-exclusion criteria, this paper reviewed and assessed the evidence for the existence of these morphosyntactic patterns through explicit review of the accessible documents and information. Hence, it was found that in terms of morphology, vowel loss, vowel change and reduplication were found among the literary texts. As to syntax, it was revealed that in non-verbal clause, the nominal clauses, adjectival clauses, the existential clauses, the locative clauses, and the prepositional clauses are present. As for the verbal clauses, intransitives and transitives are evident. Furthermore, intransitives have monovalent and divalent or bivalent, whereas transitives have divalent and trivalent.