Tagalog verbs change shape depending on who the sentence is 'about'

Beyond marking tense, a Tagalog verb takes different affixes depending on whether its subject is the doer, the thing acted on, the location, or even the instrument of the action, the 'voice' or 'trigger' system found across Philippine and many Austronesian languages. A single root can surface in half a dozen distinct verb forms depending only on which participant the sentence foregrounds.

— Paul Schachter, Fe T. Otanes, Tagalog Reference Grammar — University of California Press, 1972
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