Focus system in non-Philippine languages

[Vanish8080 at aol.com]

Hello AN-LANG listers,

Tagalog and other Philipppine languages have a focus system where the
nominative form of the noun is focused on by certain affixes attached to a
verb.

Anyway, while looking at a passage in Sundanese, I noticed a phrase that says
DUMADAKAN AJA ANGIN. I do not know Sundanese, but DUMADAKAN looks like that
it has -UM- as in infix while the rootword is DAKAN.  This is similar to the
-UM- infix in the languages of the Philippines.

So my question is, does the focus system exist in Austronesian languages not
from the Philippines?  And if so, could you list a sample of affixes or
trigger markers used?

Also, it seems that Chamorro has such a system - is this right?

Thanks,

--Chris Sundita


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