Nominalization Patterns in Tombatu Language: A Generative Morphological Analysis of Affixal Noun Formation
Abstract
Regional languages preserve complex grammatical systems that reveal how communities organize experience, identity, and cultural knowledge. However, nominalization in Tombatu, an underdescribed Austronesian language of Minahasa, has not been systematically examined through an explicit rule-based morphological framework. This study addresses this gap by investigating the structural patterns, semantic functions, and generative mechanisms of affixal noun formation in Tombatu. Employing a descriptive-taxonomic design, data were collected over six months in Tombatu Village from proficient speakers through naturally occurring speech, elicitation, recording, note-taking, and informant validation. The final dataset found unique nominalized forms. These forms were classified into three major processes comprising 11 noun-forming prefixes, one noun-forming suffix, and 14 affix combinations, yielding 26 identified affixal configurations. The analysis applied Word Combination Rules, Derivation Rules, the Boundary Insertion Convention, and relevant morphological constraints. The findings show that prefixation exhibits the greatest structural and semantic variation in the dataset, producing agentive, person-denoting, instrumental, object-related, and result-related nouns. For example, /tapə-/ combines with /lukuʔ/ ‘to drink’ to form /tapəlukuʔ/ [tapəlukuʔ] ‘drinker’. Suffixation is more restricted, with /-an/ forming locative nouns, as in /tawoi/ ‘to work’ plus /-an/, which produces /tawoian/ [tawoian] ‘workplace’. Complex affix combinations form nouns denoting places, processes, objects, states, results, and entities. This study provides the first systematic generative account of Tombatu nominalization, expands empirical evidence for Austronesian word formation, strengthens regional-language documentation, and offers a linguistic basis for language maintenance and potential contrastive morphological activities in multilingual education.