Tombonuwo (Tambonuo) is a Paitanic language spoken in the Pitas and Labuk-Sugut Districts of northwest

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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