Ambonese Malay has also become lingua franca in Buru, Seram, Geser-Gorom and the south-western Maluku Islands, though with different accents.
akang (kang; ang) From this table it follows that two factors determine whether a personal pronoun can be shortened: syntactic construction and syntactic position: These facts show that se, os 'you', dong 'you', ont'o, ant'o, ant'u 'he; she' and dong 'they' have developed into doublets which are functionally (but not semantically) on a par with their full forms, while other short forms (bet, al, kang, ang) are phonological variants with a more restricted distribution.
[3] It is also important to note a number of syntactic variations within the functions of personal pronouns in Ambonese: 1) The 3rd person single dia 's/he; it' can be shortened to di or de when it is in Subject position, or when it is head of a Noun Phrase (NP) in object position.
[3] 2) The 3rd person single antua (and angtua, ontua, ongtua) is also a modifier of head nominals in a phrase, thereby adding an aspect of deference.
This form links up with the demonstratives ini and itu for deictic reference: it occurs as a single attribute before nouns, and in combination with postnominal tu.
The following examples denote a concept "referent of pronoun plus persons who are alike":[3] De3Ssengnotdatangcomeliaseekat'ong-kat'ongREDUP~1PDe seng datang lia kat'ong-kat'ong3S not come see REDUP~1PHe doesn't come to visit people like us [3]Macangkindose-oseREDUP~2Sbaginilike thissengnotbisacandapagetakang3S.NMacang ose-ose bagini seng bisa dapa akangkind REDUP~2S {like this} not can get 3S.NPeople like you now can't get it [3]Ambonese Malay is a SVO (subject-verb-object) language.
Its basic word order has the subject in initial position, followed by the verb and then the object, as shown below.
Negation is predominantly expressed by five free morphemes that are treated as adverbs, modifying predicates, clauses or parts of the sentence as opposed to specific elements (such as single verbs or nominals).
These morphemes are listed below alongside their common variants and English equivalents: Constituent order Ambonese negators are typically positioned between the subject and the VO-group.
DerFromtadijust nowde3SsoPHAsemnobisacanktoatastoplei.alsoDer tadi de so sem bisa k atas lei.From {just now} 3S PHA no can to top also"Just now she already couldn't go up (the tree) anymore.
Seng moves rightwards in the clause, shifting the focus of negation to the word it immediately precedes.
In the second example, seng is integrated into the verb group itself, immediately preceding and placing the emphasis of negation on the verbal modifier bat'ul.
"[8]Seng is also used with the reduplicated interrogative pronoun apa, meaning 'what', in a fixed expression to denote 'nothing', or 'not anything': SengNoapa-apa.REDUP~whatSeng apa-apa.No REDUP~what"It's nothing; it doesn't matter.
It is typically regarded as a marker of emphatic negation, and can be used alongside seng and with reduplication to achieve even greater emphasis.
"[10]Dong3Psengnopikerthinkakang,3S.NkataCONJituthattarnobae.goodDong seng piker akang, kata itu tar bae.3P no think 3S.N CONJ that no good"They don't think about it,
"[12]It may also occur in sentences with contrastive stress, combined with the use of 'higher pitch and articulatory strength'[12] to articulate the constituents that are the focus of the negation.
"[13]Jangang does not occur in declarative or interrogative sentences but is used to express negative imperatives, as in the example below - 'don't go to China.'
Examples are (p. 24): In addition, there might be borrowed words from other indigenous languages, there is individual variation, and [ʔ] is occasionally heard (van Minde 1997, p. 24): Nasalised vowels happen expectedly before nasal consonants belonging to the same syllable.
24–25): Nasalisation is invalid past syllable-boundaries like for example (p. 24-25): According to van Minde (1997, p. 25), the high front unrounded vowel /i/ is always perceived as [i], and it always take place in non-final and final closed and open syllables.
Though /i/ can be replaced by /e/, it does not work in reverse thus it can’t be said the conflict between these two phonemes is negated in that position and environment (van Minde 1997, p. 25).
Examples are followed (p. 26): The phonemic status of /e/ versus /i/ is attested by the followed minimal pairs (p. 26): The examples illustrated distinctly that /i/ is resistant to /e/ in morpheme-final syllables, hence the change /i ≈ e/ in final syllables under the previous restrictions stated in the phonological rules cannot be clarified as neutralization (van Minde 1997, pp. 26–27).
The low central vowel in Ambonese Malay is perceived as [a] (or [ā] due to nasalization).
However, /u/ in final unstressed syllables (whether open or closed) consistently alternates with /o/ when in certain polysyllabic morphemes (van Minde 1997, p. 27).
The following examples prove this assertion (p. 28): The resistance between /u/ and /a/ is attested by: The mid back rounded vowel /o/ is seen as [o] (or [õ] due to nasalization).
Examples are followed (p. 29): Archiphoneme /U/ is proposed in unstressed position after a vowel other than /u/ and instantly before a syllable or morpheme boundary by van Minde (1997).
Examples are shown (p. 41): A significant number of polysyllabic words with non-final stress have a doublet without final /P, T, K/ in non emphatic speech (p. 41): In addition, van Minde (1997, p. 42) states that /P, T, K/ are “heavy archiphonemes” in this position and environment.
The archiphonemes /P, T, K/ have a voiceless unreleased realization in syllable-final position right before a stop, a nasal, fricative /s/, or the lateral /l/.
Example is shown (p. 42): Archiphoneme /N/ is also developed from the neutralization of the opposition between /m, n, ñ/ and /ŋ/ before their own homorgonaic obstruents /l/ (van Minde 1997, p. 42).
Example is shown (van Minde 1997, p. 48): The semivowels /w/ and /y/ happen in word-initial and word-medial position before a vowel.