| Tombonuo | |
| Nativename: | Lobu · Mutangar Tombonuo |
| States: | Malaysia |
| Region: | Sabah |
| Ethnicity: | Tambanuo |
| Speakers: | 10,000 |
| Date: | 2000 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Speakers2: | 3,000 Lingkabau (2003) |
| Familycolor: | Austronesian |
| Fam2: | Malayo-Polynesian |
| Fam3: | North Bornean |
| Fam4: | Southwest Sabahan |
| Fam5: | Paitanic |
| Dia1: | Lingkabau |
| Iso3: | txa |
| Glotto: | tomb1244 |
| Glottorefname: | Tombonuo |
Tombonuwo (Tambonuo) is a Paitanic language spoken in the Pitas and Labuk-Sugut Districts of northwest Sabah, Malaysia.[1] [2]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Affricate | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Lateral | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Tap | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Semi-vowel | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ |
| Front | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| High | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Non-high | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ |
pronounced as //o// is often pronounced as unrounded pronounced as /[ʌ]/.
pronounced as //a// is neutralized to pronounced as /[ʌ]/ in a pre-stressed syllable.
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[4] (see Austronesian alignment).
Tombonuwo has four focus categories, conventionally labelled "actor", "patient", "referent" and "theme".[5] Focus is marked by affixation on the verb.
The only marked tense in Tombonuwo is past tense.