La partícula daw en el chabacano de Zamboanga

Abstract

[Abstract] The aim of this paper is to describe the meanings of daw and its variants dao and dol in Zamboanga Chabacano, a Spanish-based creole language spoken in and around Zamboanga City. As a result of the contact between Spanish and Filipino languages, Chabacano retains a significant number of particles of Filipino origin, including daw, which is present in the Filipino languages that constitute the main substratum or adstratum of the varieties of Creole, and whose origin has not yet been clarified. However, it does not appear to be a simple transposition of the uses of homonymous particles from Filipino languages to Zamboangueño. Instead, the Zamboanga Chabacano particle has developed its own usage patterns, showing a greater influence from Visayan languages than from Tagalog. The study of the function of daw in the latter, together with the characterisation of the three main meanings of the Zamboanguean particle —evidential and epistemic, comparative modal and politeness with imperative verbs— will allow us to analyse the semantic evolution it has undergone in creole.