Tombonuwo language

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

Tombonuwo (Tambonuo) is a Paitanic language spoken in the Pitas and Labuk-Sugut Districts of northwest Sabah. Tombonuwo is apparently also the name

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t	d		g	k	ʔ
Fricative			s
Affricate				dʒ
Nasal	m		n		ŋ
Lateral			l
Trill			r
Semi-vowel	w			y

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

Vowels

	Non-back	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 (see Austronesian alignment).

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