Tombonuwo language

Tombonuwo (Tambonuo) is a Paitanic language spoken in the Pitas and Labuk-Sugut Districts of northwest Sabah, Malaysia.^[2][3]

Tombonuo
Lobu · Mutangar Tombonuo
Native to	Malaysia
Region	Sabah
Ethnicity	Tambanuo
Native speakers	(10,000 cited 2000)[1] 3,000 Lingkabau (2003)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian North Bornean Southwest Sabahan Paitanic Tombonuo
Dialects	Lingkabau
Language codes
ISO 639-3	txa
Glottolog	tomb1244

Phonology[4]

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t̪	d		k g	ʔ
Fricative			s
Affricate				dʒ
Nasal	m		n		ŋ
Lateral			l
Tap			ɾ
Semi-vowel	w			j

The phonemes /p, t, k, s, ʔ/ are voiceless. All other expressions are voiced.

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i	u
Non-high	a	o

/o/ is often pronounced as unrounded [ʌ].

/a/ is neutralized to [ʌ] 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^[5] (see Austronesian alignment).

Tombonuwo has four focus categories, conventionally labelled "actor", "patient", "referent" and "theme".^[6] 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^[6]

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^[6]

• Near the speaker: itu
• Far from the speaker: iri
• Medium distance from the speaker: ono