Tombonuwo language

Tombonuo
Lobu
Native to	Malaysia
Region	Sabah
Ethnicity	Tambanuo
Native speakers	10,000 (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[2]

Tombonuwo (Tambonuo) is a Paitanic language spoken in the Pitas and Labuk-Sugut Districts of northwest Sabah.^[3][4] Tombonuwo is apparently also the name

Phonology^[5]

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^[6] (see Austronesian alignment).

Tombonuwo has four focus categories, conventionally labelled "actor", "patient", "referent" and "theme".^[7] 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^[7]

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^[7]

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

References

1. Tombonuo at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Tombonuo". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. King, Julie (1984). The Paitanic language family. Languages of Sabah: a survey report (Canberra: Australian National University). p. 146. ISBN 0858832976.
4. Lobel, Jason William (2013). Philippine and North Bornean languages: issues in description, subgrouping and reconstruction (PDF) (PHD dissertation). Manoa: University of Hawai'i. p. 370.
5. King, John Wayne (1993). Tombonuwo phonemics. Phonological descriptions of Sabah languages (Kota Kinabalu: Sabah Museum). pp. 97–106. ISBN 9789839638059.
6. Boutin, Michael (1988). Problems in analyzing focus in the languages of Sabah. Borneo language studies I: Sabah syntax papers (Dallas: SIL). p. 54. ISBN 0883122146.
7. King, John Wayne; Levinsohn, Stephen (1991). Participant reference in Tombonuo. Thematic continuity and development in the languages of Sabah (Canberra: Australian National University). p. 76. ISBN 0-85883-406-5.