deleted through ellipsis or previously known context. Object pronouns Object pronouns are very similar looking to independent pronouns, appearing to be abbreviations of the independent pronoun as seen in the pronoun paradigm above. Object pronouns behave similarly to the object NP, occurring in the same syntactic slot, however only one or the other is used, both cannot be used simultaneously as an object argument – which is unusual in Oceanic languages as many languages have obligatory object pronominal cross-referencing on the verb agreeing with NP object. Possessive pronouns Possessive pronouns substitute for NP possessor, suffixing to the possessed noun in direct possessive constructions or to one the four possessive classifiers in indirect constructions. Direct possession Indirect possession Negation Negation in Tamambo involves the use of a negative particle; negative verb and negative aspectuals (semantics of time) to change positive constructions into negative ones. Negation and the VP The negative particle -te and negative aspectual tele 'not yet' and lete 'never' can appear in the same slot of the Verb Phrase, illustrated below: Both the negative aspectuals appear to be derived from the tense-aspect marker le and the negative particle -te. All the optional modifiers in the VP are mutually exclusive thus; the negative morphemes allow no modifiers between them and the head of the VP. Negative particle -te The negative particle -te which expresses negative polarity on the verb is a bound morpheme, meaning it must be attached to the subject pronominal clitic. The negative particle also occurs immediately before the verb noted in example [105]. Furthermore, example [105] demonstrates what Jauncey terms a 'negative progressive'; a way of expressing the negative in the present tense such as 'he's not doing it' using the negative particle -te. Negative aspectuals The negative aspectuals are used to refer to different aspects of time. The aspectual lete 'never' is used to refer to event times that are prior to speech time noted in example [107] and [100]. The negative aspectual tele 'not yet' is used only where the events are referring to an event time prior to or simultaneous with speech time noted in example [106] and [103]. Negation and modality In Tamambo, modality can be expressed through the future marker –mbo and the two 3SG subject pronouns, mo (realis) and a (irrealis). In Tamambo realis is 'the grammatical or lexical marking of an event time or situation that has happened (or not)