Dusun Phrase Structure

Phrase structure is the division of sentence into parts, or constituents, and the division of these constituents into subparts. For instance, the sentence “The boy went to the forest”, as represented in the table below, is made of two main constituents, “The boy” and “went to the forest”. The second constituent is in turn, divided into two parts, went and to the forest, which is divided even further, into to and the forest.

 The Borneo jungle

• The Dusun phrase structure follow a different pattern since the normal English S – V – O structure is non-existent in the Dusun construction. 

 

 

• A typical Dusun sentence follows the V – S – O structure.

• * Note that hilo’d is a contracted form of hilo id. “Id” is a grammatical particle which functions to denote position such as; 

An Iban man

An Iban woman and her child

Penan men

1. Honggo ih Kudingking? (Where is Kudingking?)

A typical Dusun house

• Hilo’d lamin – (there) in the house or
• Id lamin – in the house.
• Id suang – inside
• Id labus – outside
• Id siriba – downstairs
• Id sawat – upstairs
• Id dumoh – in the rice field.

Phrasal Category – Adjective Phrase

Dusun Adjective Phrase: Verb + Subject + Object  

Phrasal Category – Adverbial Phrase

 Dusun Adverbial Phrase: Adverbial + Subject + Verb

Photos courtesy of:

• borneo-sarawak.travel
• ahbengsworld.blogspot.com
• destination360.com
• wc-zope.emergence.com
• beautifulkk.com