When to use it
Use it to ask whether guests, family or a group reached their destination last night.
“Did they arrive last night?” · The sentence in English
In “Did they arrive last night?” ‘Did’ carries the past and ‘arrive’ stays bare.
- Did
- auxiliary verbdo · tense: past · auxiliary that makes a question in the past
- they
- pronounpersonal pronoun, third person plural
- arrive
- verbarrive · form: base form (infinitive without "to") · after "did" the verb stays in its base form
- last
- adjectiveadjective; "last night" means the night before today
- night
- nounnoun
“Dumating ba sila kagabi?” · The sentence in Filipino
In “Dumating ba sila kagabi?” the verb ‘Dumating’ (arrived) comes first, and the question particle ‘ba’ follows it directly. ‘kagabi’ is one word for ‘last night’.
- Dumating
- verbdating · focus: actor (um-) · aspect: perfective (done) · um- + dating 'arrived'
- ba
- particlequestion particle after the first word
- sila
- pronounpronoun 'they'
- kagabi
- adverb'last night', a single word
What changes from one language to the other · English × Filipino
Filipino starts with the verb, English with ‘Did’. English's two words ‘last night’ are the single Filipino word ‘kagabi’.
Example conversation
— Dumating ba sila kagabi?
— Did they arrive last night?
— Oo, mga alas-onse.
— Yes, around eleven o'clock.