The Morphological Processes Involved in the Lexicon of Iligan City’s Tambal Binisaya

Tambal Binisaya refers to the folk medicine used in Iligan City, Philippines. These medicines have been used for decades by mananambals or local folk healers and residents from low-income groups. However, because of modern treatments, the locals have started to move away from Tambal Binisaya. Because of this, many residents have become unfamiliar to Tambal Binisaya and the terms used in the trade. Thus, this ethnolinguistic study looked into the lexicon of Tambal Binisaya, specifically word formation processes involved in the names of these folk medicines. In doing so, the researcher employed interviews, observations and field notes in data gathering. Based on the results of the study, it was found that the morphological processes used are: affixation, enclitization, reduplication, metanalysis, compounding, blending, borrowing and coining. It is concluded that there indeed lies a rich trove of lexical items in Tambal Binisaya which should be given more societal and academic attention.