This grammatical marker appears in several languages of the central and southern Philippines, but thus far is attested outside the Philippines only in Malagasy (Dempwolff (1934-38) reconstructed *ba based on reflexes in Tagalog and Malagasy, and I have been able to extend his documentation very little). All languages that contain a reflex of *ba are verb-initial, and in all cases the reflex of *ba is postverbal. Panganiban (1973:93) gives Tagalogba in the Manila-Bulacan area, but ga or bagá in Kumintang. Reid (p.c.) speculates that Tagalogba is a reduction of earlier *bagá, and attempts to relate this interrogative marker to Ilokanobagá ‘say, tell, speak, declare, utter, relate’ and similar forms in other northern Philippine languages. Ilokanobagá, however, almost certainly reflects *bajaq ‘say, relate, announce’, and the broader comparative evidence suggests that Kumintang Tagalogbagá is compounded of earlier monosyllables.