ngowan

Part of speech: temporal adverb; discourse adverb

Notes:

The primary meaning of ngowan is present-time ‘now’, but the word has undergone a natural discourse extension from:

NOW → NEXT STATE → THEN → CONSEQUENTLY / AND SO

Thus English then is sometimes the best translation even though the Boie’nen form is historically and semantically associated with ‘now’.

This should not be treated as contradictory polysemy. The speaker mentally advances the narrative reference point so that the next event becomes the discourse “now.”

Compare Rinconada Bikol nguwān ‘now; today’ and Central Bikol ngunyan ‘now’, as well as Tagalog ngayon. Boie’nen ngowan therefore belongs to a widespread Philippine ‘present-time’ lexical family, although its exact historical derivation requires further comparative work.

Related words:

nyadto — formerly; previously; back then

kina — later; subsequently

kinaodma’ — tomorrow

kina’sa — day after tomorrow