Action words in the Philippine language
While other word categories in Ilocano are not as diverse in forms, verbs are morphologically complex inflecting chiefly for aspect. Ilocano verbs can also be cast in any one of five foci or triggers. In turn, these foci can inflect for different grammatical moods.
Reduplication.
An important aspect of Ilokano verbal morphology is reduplication. Reduplication in verbal paradigms consists of repeating the first /(C1)V(C2).../ sequence of phonemes of the root as required by the form resulting in a bimoraic or heavy syllable. Or, the first /(C)V/ is repeated as is the case for indicating plural actors.
 Basic form: gatang "buy"
 Reduplicated form: gatgatang
 Basic form: aramat "use"
 Reduplicated form: ar-aramat
The glottal stop as the second consonant of the sequence (C2) is lost. Two strategies can be applied to maintain the weight of the reduplicated syllable. Either the vowel (V) is lengthened (compensatory lengthening) or the first consonant (C1) is doubled (geminated).
Basic form: sao "say"
Reduplicated form: sasao 
"or"
sassao 
Basic form: dait "sew"
Reduplicated form: dadait 
"or"
daddait 
Aspect.
Due to having Austronesian alignment, Ilocano verbs chiefly inflect for aspect, and not for tense.
Inflectional Pattern.
Verbs inflect for the following: 
In the typical verbal paradigm, Neutral and Perfective forms are not reduplicated, whereas the Imperfective and the Past Imperfective are reduplicated. The Imperfective and the Past Imperfective are marked for initiation.
In a typical paradigm the chart would appear as the following:
[AFFIX] is the verbal affix. [AFFIX+N] is the verbal affix modified for initiation. In many of the paradigms, the mark of initiation is N, for example, nag-, na-, and -in-. [CVC] is the reduplicated syllable of the root.
Future.
The future is not encoded with a particular verbal form. It is shown by affixing the enclitic -(n)to to the neutral form of the verb. The enclitic is not very cohesive. When it attaches, the personal pronoun enclitics intervene. If the preceding morpheme ends in a vowel, the form is -nto, otherwise, -to.
Examples:
 Kitaen "to see (something)"
 kita[Root: see] + en[Patient Focus]
 Kitaento "to about to see (something)"
 kita[Root: see] + en[Patient Focus] + to[Fut. Part.]
 Kitaennanto "He/she will see (something)"
 kita[Root: see] + en[Patient Focus] + na[3rd Person Singular Ergative] + nto[Fut. Part.]
 Kitaendakto "They will see me"
 kita[Root: see] + en[Patient Focus] + dak[3rd Per. Plu. Erg./1st Per. Sing.] + to[Fut. Part.]
Focus.
Ilocano, like other Philippine languages, has an Austronesian morphosyntactic alignment. The verb is capable of tracking ("focusing)" on particular noun phrases within the sentence. Ilokano verbs are capable of focusing on noun phrases with the following thematic roles: Agent, Patient, Commitative, Directional, Benefactive, Thematic and Instrumental.
The Agent focus requires only one noun phrase. According to Galvino (2000), the affixes in the Agent focus are "Intransitive", because the verb form does not require another noun phrase to complete its meaning. The noun phrase is the agent or the experiencer of the action.
The remaining foci, Patient, Commitative, Directional, 
Benefactive, Thematic and Instrumental require the presence of two theta roles: the agent noun phrase and the focused noun phrase. Galvino (2000) terms these as "Transitive".
Potentially, all roots can be cast into all of the foci. Due to the semantics of the root, however, not many do in practice. Roots can differ in meaning when cast into different foci. The difference can be a slight nuance to almost opposite in meaning. For example, if the root dalus "clean" is cast in the Patient focus, the resulting meaning is "to clean (something)". But, if cast in the Directional focus, the resulting meaning is "to clean (something) off", the focused noun phrase becomes the area affected instead of the object affected.
Agent Focus.
Verbs cast in this focus throw emphasis on the noun phrase with the agent or experiencer role in the sentence. Impersonal verbs and verbs describing natural phenomenon occur with this focus, for example Agar-arbis "It is drizzling".
Noun phrases in the agent role are introduced by the core forms of the articles, ti for common nouns and ni for personal nouns. The enclitic absolutive (-ak series) of personal pronouns replace these noun phrases. If the verb can take a direct object, it is marked by the oblique forms of the articles, deictives and pronouns, for example, Nangan iti saba "He ate a banana". Notice how the direct object is indefinite.
Patient role noun phrases (direct objects) of verbs are introduced by the oblique forms. In addition, Patients of verbs cast in the agent focus are indefinite.
There are four affixes in this focus category: ag-, -um-, mang- and ma-. Roots will prefer to take only one or some of the prefixes. In some cases the meaning changes from one affix to another, for example, ngisit, "black". If ag- is affixed, agngisit, the meaning is that of there is a likelihood of becoming black or to darken, for example Nagngisitka, "You darkened". However, with -um-, ngumisit, the meaning becomes more of a possibility or conjecture, Ngumisngisitkansa iti tengnat' aldaw, "You might get darker at midday".
Ag-.
The verbal prefix ag- is very productive and can verbalize a large number of roots. If a new word were to enter the language, most likely this is the prefix used to verbalize it, for example, the fictitious baz: agbaz "to "baz"".
If the root takes either ag- or -um-, the additional meaning of ag- are some of the following:
 ;um ;.
The verbal prefix ;um ;, is inserted, or "infixed", to the first syllable of the root.
Some of the meanings imparted using this infix are:
Ag- Versus ;um ;.
The affixes ag- and ;um ; are very similar. Many verbs take either and have little difference in meaning. Other verbs are drastically differentiated. Below is a chart contrasting the two.
Mang-.
The mang- prefix is used to denote the following:
The final nasal, , of the prefix commonly becomes the homorganic nasal of the first consonant of the root which disappears or remains.
This affix is used when it is necessary to make a normally transitive verb, a verb that commonly occurs with -en, -an or i-, intransitive for syntactic reasons. These verbs will take "mang-" in such instances.
Ma-.
There are few verbs with active meaning that use this prefix. Some of these are maturog ( ;turog), "to sleep", mapan ( ;pan), "to go", magna ( ;pagna "irregular formation"), "to walk". Because of the semantics of these roots, they cannot take a direct object.
In the continuous progressive form, the prefix participates in reduplication taking the first consonant as its final, unlike the other verbal prefixes.
Lastly, ma- is similar in form to the ma- potentive. They differ in terms of the series of pronouns they are able to take: ma- (agent) take -ak pronouns; ma- (potentives) take -ko.
Patient Focus: -En.
Verbs cast in this focus throw emphasis on the patient of the verb, in other words, the "direct object". Because of this, the misnomer "passive voice" has been applied to verbs in the patient focus.
Agents (or actors) for verbs cast in the true passive voice can be omitted. The English sentence The car was repaired yesterday is grammatical without the agent of the verb. This cannot be said of verbs in the patient focus. Patient focus verbs require both the agent and the object argument for grammaticality. The sentence Tinarimaan ti mekaniko ti kotse is more grammatical than *Tinarimaan ti kotse which lacks an agent.
Patients of verbs cast into this focus are definite. Both actor and patient are both marked by the core form of the article and deictives. For the pronouns, the ergative forms are used, in other words, the "-ko" series of pronouns. Since the core forms are used for both actor and patient, they are differentiated only by syntax: the actor follows after the verb as close as possible with the patient thereafter. If pronouns are used for both the actor and patient, a special set of pronouns are used. Consult the table of pronoun sequences for details.
What can be considered the patient of an English verb, may be cast in a different theta role in Ilocano. Take for example, the English phrase The student saved the file. In this phrase, the file is the noun phrase in the patient role (the direct object). In Ilocano, however, the same noun phrase would be cast in the thematic role and the verb in the thematic focus, instead, Indulin ti estudiante ti file because of the semantics of the verb. In the Ilocano mind, the file is being "transferred to a safe place".
Use of this affix imparts the following meanings:
Commitative Focus: Ka-.
Verbs in the comitative focus denote that the verb action is shared between parties. The focused noun phrase is with whom the agent is partaking the action. Similar to the below, these behave more like nouns.
Directional Focus: -An.
The focused noun phrases of directional verbs are treated as places or destinations. When a person is the focus, a notion of direction (either "to" or "from") or an affected party is implied, for example, suratan "to write to someone", takawan "to rob from someone" (compare with tawaken "to steal" something). In addition, the focused noun phrase is treated as an area that is affected by the verb.
Verbs of cleaning, dalusan, "to clean", labaan, "to launder", sagadan, "to sweep", are in this focus as the focused noun phrases are considered as an area affected. It is possible to use "-en" with these roots, but notice in the following sentences how the affix alters the focus and meaning: (with "-an") Dinalusak ti sala. "I cleaned the living room." versus (with "-en") Dinalusko ti rugit ti sala. "I cleaned the dirt in the living room.""
Meanings:
Thematic Focus: i-.
The focused noun phrases of thematic verbs are transferred or whose location or state is affected in some way by the semantics of the root. An analog of this idea of transference, verbs of "saying" are commonly use this affix. What is said becomes the focused element and is thought of as being transferred from one person to another.
Examples of roots that commonly take this form:
Benefactive Focus: i ; ;an.
The focused noun phrases of the benefactive verbs are usually persons. The verb is performed on their behalf or for their benefit. In English, this would correspond to the "indirect object" or prepositional phrases introduced with "to", "for" or "because of".
As with non-actor verb forms, the core forms of the article and the deictives, and the ergative, or "-ko", forms of the personal pronouns mark the actor. The focus, in this case the benefactor, is marked with the core forms and the absolutive, or "-ak" forms of the personal pronouns. If there is a direct object, it is marked with the oblique forms, for example, Igatanganto ni nanang ni ading iti sapatos "Mother will buy shoes for (my) little sister".
Morphologically, the benefactive focused form is a combination of the prefix 'i-' and the suffix '-an'.
Meanings:
Instrumental Focus: Pag-.
The basic sense of the instrumental focus is the use of "something" to accomplish the root's meaning; it is the tool or the means of achieving that end. That "something" is then cast in the absolutive case. For example, dalus, "clean space", pagdalus, "to use" something "to clean with".
Again, the actor is marked with the core forms or ergative, with pronouns (i.e., "-ko"), and the instrument, with core forms, and absolutive with pronouns, for example, Pagdalusan ni tatang ti drapo "Father uses the rag to clean with".
Pag-, behaves more like a verbal noun than a verb and sometimes translates as the implement, the reason or the theme of the root instead. Because of this, formations with this affix are lexicalized, thus becoming a derivational affix in some instances.
Meanings:
Imperative Mood.
The imperative mood of the verb is used for giving commands or making requests.
The difference between the infinitive use and the imperative use is the accompaniment of a personal pronoun. These are the second person pronouns (singular or plural) and the first person plural inclusive.
Examples:
 Manganka "Eat". (Second Person Singular)
 Idissoyo ditoy "Put it down here". (Second Person Plural)
 Aginanata bassit "Let's rest a while". (First Person Dual)
Imperative verbs do not inflect for aspect. Thus, they are not required to "agree" with the verb of the main clause when they occur in subordinate clauses.
 Imbaga ni nanang a manganka "Mother told you to eat."
Potentive Mood.
The potentive mood of verbs denotes the following regarding the speaker's attitude regarding the event:
Intransitive: Maka-, Makapag- and Makai-.
The prefixes Maka-, Makapag- and Makai- corresponds to the following actor focus prefixes in the