Pronominal affixes

All Taba verbs having actor arguments carry affixes which cross-reference the number and person of the actor, examples of proclitics are shown above. In Taba, there are valence-changing affixes which deal with patterns of cross-referencing with three distinct patterns. The dominant pattern is used with all verbs having an actor argument. The other two patterns are confined to a small number of verbs: one for the possessive verb, the other for a few verbs of excretion. This is discussed further in Possession below.

Adnominal possession

Adnominal possession involves the introduction of an inflected possessive particle between the possessor and the possessed entity; this inflected possessive, formally categorised as a 'ligature', is cross-referenced with the number and person of the possessor. This ligature indicates a possessive relationship between a modifier noun and its head-noun. In Taba, adnominal possession is distinguished by reverse genitive ordering, in which the possessor noun precedes the noun referring to the possessed entity.^[13]

In many contexts the possessor will not be overtly referenced.

Example of reverse genitive ordering in Taba:

Obligatory possessive marking

In Taba, alienable and inalienable possession is not obligatorily marked by the use of different forms, though this is common in many related languages. However, there are a number of seemingly inalienable entities which cannot be referred to without referencing a possessor.^[14]

For example:

Verbal possession

Verbal possession in Taba is generally indicated through the attaching of the causative prefix ha- to the adnominal possessive forms. The possessor then becomes actor of the clause, and the possessed entity becomes the undergoer.^[15] This method of forming a possessive verb is very unusual, typologically, and is found in almost no other languages.^[16]

Negation of declaratives using te

Declarative clauses are negated using the particle te, which follows all other elements of the clause except for modal and aspectual particles (these are discussed below).^[20] Examples (15a) and (15b) show negation of an actor intransitive clause, while (16a) and (16b) give negation of a non-actor bivalent clause (i.e. a clause with two undergoer arguments); te has the same clause-final placement regardless of the clause structure.

Negation of complex sentences can be ambiguous — see example (17), where te can operate on either just the complement clause khan 'I'm going' or to the whole clause complex kalusa khan 'I said I'm going':^[21]

Negative existential clauses^[21]

Te can serve as the predicator of a negative existential clause, with no verb required. It can occur immediately following the noun phrase that refers to whatever is being asserted as non-existent, as in (18):

However, a discourse marker is generally interposed between the noun phrase and te. This marker expresses something about how the non-existence of the noun phrase's referent relates to the discourse context, or alternatively indicates the speaker's attitude towards the proposition.^[21] In (19), the discourse marker mai (glossed as 'but') is used to indicate that the non-existence of tea, sugar and coffee in the household described by the speaker is counter to one's expectations that a normal household would have these items:

Complex negative modal / aspectual particles^[22]

Taba has three complex negative particles which, in addition to negation, express mood or aspect; these are formed by the modal and aspectual particles attaching onto te as clitics. The three particles are tedo (realis negative), tehu (continuative negative), and tesu (potential negative).

tedo (realis negative)^[23]

Tedo is a compound of te and the realis mood marker do, and expresses a more emphatic negation than plain te. In (20), it is used to emphasize the absolute nature of the prohibition against making alcohol in the Muslim community of the speaker:

tehu (continuative negative)^[24]

Tehu is a compound of te and the continuous aspect marker hu, and can be roughly translated as 'not up to the relevant point in time': this may be either the time of utterance (i.e. 'not yet', 'still not'), or some other time relevant to the context of the utterance, as in (21). Unlike the potential negative tesu, tehu does not express any expectations about the likelihood of the negated event or state occurring in the future.

Tehu also often appears at the end of the first clause in a sequence of clauses, indicating whatever is referred to by the first clause has not still occurred by the time of the event(s) or state(s) referred to by the following clauses.

tesu (potential negative)^[25]

Tesu is formed by suffixing -su, expressing the potential mood, to te. Although tesu is similar to tehu in that it encodes the meaning 'not up to the relevant point in time', it also expresses an expectation that the event referred to will occur in the future: this expectation is made explicit in the free translation of (23).

Tesu shares with tehu the ability to be used at the end of the first clause in a sequence of clauses, and also carries a similar meaning of incompletion; in addition, it encodes the expectation that the event referred to by the first clause should have happened by the event(s) of the following clauses. This expectation does not need to have actually been fulfilled; the breakfast that was expected to be cooked in the first clause of (24) was, in reality, never cooked due to the ensuing eruption.

Unlike the modal and aspectual markers which are used to form the other complex negative particles, su is not attested as a free morpheme elsewhere; however, it is likely related to the optional final -s of the modal verb -ahate(s) 'to be unable', which appears to be derived historically from te having fused onto the verb -ahan 'to be able'.^[26] When used with a final -s, as in (25b) compared with (25a), this modal verb encodes the same meanings expressed by tesu:

Negation of imperatives using oik

Imperative clauses are negated using the admonitive particle oik. This particle appears to be derived from a verb oik 'to leave something behind'; however, this verb requires actor cross-referencing, whereas the particle is never cross-referenced.^[27] Bowden (2001) posits that the imperative use of oik has developed from the use of the independent verb in serial verb constructions, with the morphological elements being lost in the process of grammaticalization.^[28] The particle is shown in (26), while the verbal use (with cross-referencing) is shown in (27):

Using negative particles as question tags

Yes–no (polar) questions can be posed with either positive or negative polarity; positive polarity questions operate in much the same way as in English, while negative polarity questions, which are formed using forms of the negative marker te as question tags, work in a different manner.^[29] An example of a positive polarity question is given below in (28a), while (28b) shows a negative polarity question:

The answers to the positive polarity may be either Jou/Ole ('Yes, I do smoke') or Te ('No, I don't smoke'); when responding to the negative polarity question, the answers are either Jou/Ole ('Yes, I do not smoke'), Te ('No, I do smoke').^[29]

Root forms

Root forms ne and dia have a deictic function with respect to the speaker, and can express the speaker's physical, textural, temporal or even emotional and spiritual distance from something. These forms, when used on their own, occur immediately after the noun phrase to which they refer, much like the equivalent forms in many other Malayo-Polynesian languages.^[32] Examples of the root forms functioning as such can be seen below:

Demonstrative root forms in Taba, like in most other languages, can also be used to refer to concepts previously mentioned in a conversation, as per the following example:^[31]

Although the demonstrative roots are a closed class and most clearly mark deixis, they also belong to a slightly larger class of deictics, including the directional root ya ('up'). When this directional root is used deictically, it implies that both the speaker and hearer hold some common knowledge about the referent.^[31] Directionals will be discussed in further detail in the next section. See below an example of ya functioning deictically:

Demonstrative pronouns

Taba has four demonstrative pronouns, each formed through the affixation of a pronoun to the demonstrative root.^[31] This process, as well as the rough English translation for each pronoun is outlined in the table below:

Taba's demonstrative pronouns can also be used to refer to a concept previously mentioned in a conversation, or a series of previously described events, as shown in the next two examples:

Locative nouns

Taba has two locative nouns, formed by the prefixation of a-. The formation of these nouns and their rough English translations can be found in the table below:

Here are two examples showing the locative nouns in use, occurring after the noun to which they refer:

Similative nouns

Taba has eight similative nouns, which differ between the language's three registers. Many other Austronesian languages have similative noun equivalents,^[33] but Taba is unique in that it has such a high number. The eight different forms can be found in the table below, where the labels ascribed to each register by Taba speakers are as such: biasa ('normal'), alus ('fine/respectful') and kasar ('coarse').^[31]

Below is an example of a similative noun occurring naturally in a conversation:

Similative nouns in Taba can also occur as single-word utterances and as adverbs,^[31] as in the following examples:

Essive forms

Essive directionals in Taba, as stated above, signify static location in a particular direction. These forms can have a larger range of functions when compared with the other directionals. Namely, they can occur as verb adjuncts, both with a locative phrase and alone.^[31] They can occur either before or after a verb, or to modify a noun phrase. Shown below is an example of the essive forms being used in a sentence:

Allative forms

Allative directional forms in Taba express movement towards a particular direction. These forms can occur on their own, after the verb as an adjunct, or at the head of a locative phrase.^[31] Examples of these two functions occurring in natural speech are shown below:

Venitive forms

Venitive directional forms in Taba express movement away from a particular direction. These forms are much freer in word order and can occur at many different places within a clause, serving to modify verbs, as seen in the next two examples:^[31]

Venitive forms can also occur in utterances without any verbs, such as in the following example:

The suffix -ma, used to form venitive directionals is likely derived from the word *maRi ('come'), that has been reconstructed for Proto-Austronesian.^[31][34]

Nominalised forms

Nominalised directional forms in Taba signify parts of an object that are oriented towards a particular direction. These forms are always possessed by and occur after the noun relative to which the location is being expressed.^[31] This is illustrated in the following two examples: