Tombonuwo (Tambonuo) is a Paitanic language spoken in the Pitas and Labuk-Sugut Districts of northwest
Sabah
Sabah () is a state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indonesia to the south. The Federal Territory o ...
,
Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
.
Phonology
Consonants
The phonemes are voiceless. All other expressions are voiced.
Vowels
is often pronounced as unrounded .
is neutralized to in a pre-stressed syllable.
Morphology
Focus
Sabahan languages are characterized by "focus" morphology, which marks a syntactic relationship between the predicate of a clause and the "focused" noun phrase of the clause
(see
Austronesian alignment
Symmetrical voice, also known as Austronesian alignment, the Philippine-type voice system or the Austronesian focus system, is a typologically unusual kind of morphosyntactic alignment in which "one argument can be marked as having a special relat ...
).
Tombonuwo has four focus categories, conventionally labelled "actor", "patient", "referent" and "theme".
Focus is marked by affixation on the verb.
* Actor: ''-um-'' / ''m(u)-''
* Patient: ''-on'' (Present tense) / -∅ (Past tense)
* Referent: ''-an''
* Theme: ''i-''
Tense and aspect
The only marked tense in Tombonuwo is past tense.
* Past tense: ''n-'' (''-in-'')
* Stative: ''o-''
* Perfective: ''ko-''
* Non-volitional past tense: ''n-o-''
* Accomplishment: ''n-o-ko-''
Demonstratives
* Near the speaker:
* Far from the speaker:
* Medium distance from the speaker:
References
Paitanic languages
Languages of Malaysia
Endangered Austronesian languages
{{Austronesian-lang-stub