Cebuano grammar

Cebuano grammar encompasses the rules that define the Cebuano language, the most widely spoken of all the languages in the Visayan Group of languages, spoken in Cebu, Bohol, Siquijor, part of Leyte island, part of Samar island, Negros Oriental, especially in Dumaguete, and the majority of cities and provinces of Mindanao.
Cebuano has eight basic parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, particles, prepositions and conjunctions. Cebuano is an agglutinative yet partially inflected language: pronouns are inflected for number, and verbs are inflected for aspect, focus, and mood.

Morphosyntactic alignment

Cebuano, along with many other Philippine languages, are sometimes considered ergative or nominative in alignment, both being incorrect and correct as it has features of both systems.
Cebuano verbs are morphologically complex and take on a variety of affixes reflecting voice, quality, aspect, mood, and others. Cebuano arguably follows Austronesian alignment. Basically, verbs conjugate by using these affixes according to which argumentative role the noun in the direct case has. This noun in the direct case can be the doer of the action, the recipient of the action, the purpose for the action, or the means by which the action was made possible; which are all argumentative roles. The direct case hides the noun's otherwise-evident argumentative role, which the verb then makes up for by conjugating with specific affixes that indicate which argumentative role the noun in the direct case has. Some Cebuano grammar teachers call the noun in the direct case the topic of the sentence, but some others call it the focus, voice, or trigger; as the verb and the other nouns in the sentence have all their noun markers and affixes change accordingly.
Cebuano has four voices:

the active voice a.k.a. the agent trigger
the passive voice for direct objects a.k.a. the patient trigger
the passive voice for indirect objects and/or locations a.k.a. the ''circumstantial trigger
the passive voice for instruments a.k.a. the instrument trigger.

The direct case morpheme, which marks the topic in Cebuano, is ang or si''.

Agent trigger

Here, the agent/doer Maria is marked with si, the personal direct noun marker. The prefix Mo- indicates that the noun in the direct case is also the agent/doer, which would not have been known otherwise.

Patient trigger

Here, the patient/object Bugás is marked with ang, the general direct noun marker. The suffix -on indicates that the noun in the direct case is also the patient/object, which would not have been known otherwise. Babaye is marked with sa, the general indirect noun marker which indicates that babaye is not in the direct case but is still the agent/doer of the sentence. Via context and common word order, it is evident that láta is not the agent despite it being marked with sa as well. It is not the first noun in the sentence and nor can a can cook rice on its own.

Circumstantial trigger

The circumstantial trigger affixes select for location, benefactee and/or goal topics.

With location subject

Here, the location/indirect object láta is marked with ang, the general direct noun marker. The suffix -an indicates that the noun in the direct case is also the location of the action, which would not have been known otherwise. Babaye is marked with sa, the general indirect noun marker which indicates that babaye is not in the direct case but is still the agent of the sentence. Bugás is marked with the general oblique indefinite marker og, indicating that it is neither the noun in the direct case nor the agent noun, but rather that it is the direct object of the sentence.

With benefactee subject

Here, the indirect object or benefactee ''Pedro is marked with si, the personal direct noun marker. The suffix -an indicates that the noun in the direct case is also the indirect object of the action, which would not have been known otherwise. Maria is marked with the personal indirect noun marker ni, which indicates that Maria is not the noun in the direct case but is still the agent of the sentence. Kalamáy is marked with the general oblique indefinite marker og, indicating that kalamáy'' is neither the noun in the direct case nor the agent/doer, but rather, it is the direct object.

With goal subject

Here, it is similar to the circumstantial trigger in that the goal subject Perla is also the indirect object of the sentence. Perla is marked by si, the personal direct noun marker, and is known to be the indirect object of the sentence due to the verb suffix -an, which indicates that the noun in the direct case would be the indirect object of the sentence.

Instrument trigger

Here, the instrument lapis is marked with ang, the general direct noun marker. The prefix I- indicates that the noun in the direct case is also the instrument used to complete the action, which would not have been known otherwise. Linda is marked with the personal indirect noun marker ni, which indicates that Linda is not the noun in the direct case, yet is still the agent of the sentence. Súlat is marked with the general oblique indefinite marker og, indicating that súlat is neither the noun in the direct case nor the agent/doer, but rather, it is the direct object.
To avoid ambiguity;
Súlat - is a noun which refers to the word letter.
Sulát - is a verb which means to write.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Pronouns are inflected for person, number and case. Just like most Philippine languages, Cebuano has no gender-specific pronouns. There are no gender distinctions that are made for the third person singular: he, ''she, and they are all translated in Cebuano as siyá.
The three cases are direct, indirect, and oblique. The noun markers and pronouns follow their own particular set of rules for syntax and grammar.
The indirect case also functions as a genitive.

Postposed meaning it comes after the noun: irô nakò.
Preposed meaning it comes before the noun: akóng irô''.
Usage of full and short forms

The short forms are used most often in conversation. However, the full forms must be used when they occur on their own as a predicate.
Examples :
But...
Akó si Juan.
Akó mao'y moadto ngadto sa Banawa.

First person plural: clusivity

In Cebuano, like most other Austronesian languages, the first person plural forms encode clusivity. This distinction, not found in most European languages, signifies whether or not the addressee is included.

Demonstratives

Cebuano demonstratives are as follows:

Adverbs

Deictics

Deictics, words such as here and there, reference locations between the speaker and addressee. In addition to the same four-way distinction of proximity for demonstratives, deictics can express three tenses:

Present: "X is here/there now"
Past: "X was here/there"
Future: "X will be here/there"

The present and future tense forms can precede or follow the words or phrases they modify by linking with nga. The past tense forms, however, only have a past meaning if they precede their words or phrases. If they follow, they convey no tense.
The allative forms are always tenseless. They follow the words or phrases they modify and can substitute equivalent past forms. In addition, they show movement or motion to the relative location which past forms cannot.

	Present	Past	Future	Allative
Proximal	diá adiá	dirí	arí	ngarí
Mesioproximal	niá aniá	dinhí	anhí	nganhí
Mesiodistal	naa anaa	dihâ dinhâ	anhà	nganhà
Distal	tuá atuá	didtó	adto	ngadto

Nouns

Cebuano nouns fall into of two classes: personal and general. Personal nouns refer to persons or personified objects and animals and names. All other nouns fall into the general category. Nouns do not inflect for case or number: Case is shown using case markers; the plural number is show with the particle mga.

Case

Cebuano nouns assume three cases based on their role in a sentence:

Direct – This is the case of focus or topic. This case is used in both actor-focus and non-actor focus verb forms. This case follows the Austronesian alignment. The verb partly conjugates according to the argumentative role inherit within the noun that is marked by this case.
Indirect – This is the case of the actor/agent/doer in non-actor focus verb forms. This is also the case of possession/ownership and works similar to the genitive case.
Oblique – A peripheral case; this is the case of the indirect object, the direct object, and/or the instrument in both actor-focus verb sentences and non-actor focus verb sentences, when the noun it modifies is also not the focus/topic. It is used to mention anything beyond the topic or focus other than the indirect case that might still be important for context and communication. Simply put, it is to mark any noun that is neither the actor/agent/doer nor the topic/focus of the sentence.

*Archaic.
^†For example, "Siláy niadto" or "Unsay atò?".
The use of sa vs. og in the indirect and oblique case is a matter of definiteness when the noun is the object of an actor-focus verb. Compare the following examples.

Mipalít si Juan sa sakyanán. John bought the car.
Mipalít si Juan og sakyanán. John bought a car.

In example sentence 1, the car that John bought is particular. It may have been a car he was thinking about buying or one that the speaker was selling John. In 2, the speaker may or may not know the specifics about the car in question.
Sa and og can both be used for the roles of the genitive case, but only sa can be used for the actor or agent case. Og is used for adverbs as well.