Totoli language

Totoli
Native to	parts of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia
Native speakers	25,000 (2001)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian (MP) Celebic (?) Tomini–Tolitoli (?) Tolitoli Totoli
Language codes
ISO 639-3	txe
Glottolog	toto1304
ELP	Totoli

Totoli (also known as Tolitoli) is a Sulawesi language of the Austronesian language family spoken by 25,000 people of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Grammar

Voice

Totoli has a symmetrical voice system.^[2] In the examples below, i Winarno mongusut kunji motorna is an actor voice construction, while kunji itu kusuti i Winarno is an undergoer voice construction.

I

HON

Winaro

PN

moN-kusut

AV-look.for

kunji

key

motor=na

scooter=3S.GEN

I Winaro moN-kusut kunji motor=na

HON PN AV-look.for key scooter=3S.GEN

'Winarno is looking for the keys of his scooter.'^[2]: 1

kunji

key

itu

DIST

kusut-i

look.for-UV.2

i

HON

Winaro

PN

kunji itu kusut-i i Winaro

key DIST look.for-UV.2 HON PN

'The keys are being looked for by Winarno.'^[2]: 1

The syntactic pivot can be placed before the predicate, as shown:

gaukan

king

no-gutu

AV.RLS-make

ponguman

story

itu

DIST

gaukan no-gutu ponguman itu

king AV.RLS-make story DIST

'The king made this announcement.'^[3]: 142

kopi

coffee

ia

PRX

ni-pogutu

RLS(UG)-make

i

PN

Andris

Andrew

kopi ia ni-pogutu i Andris

coffee PRX RLS(UG)-make PN Andrew

'Andrew made this coffee.'^[3]: 143

References

1. Totoli at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Riesberg, Sonja (2014). Symmetrical voice and linking in Western Austronesian languages. Walter de Gruyter.
3. Adelaar, K. Alexander; Himmelmann, Nikolaus, eds. (2005). The Austronesian languages of Asia and Madagascar.

• Bracks C (2024). Compound Intonation Units in Totoli Postlexical prosody and the prosody-syntax interface (pdf). Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.10559070. ISBN 9783961104369.