maayong buntag pod, pk!
i know some here who can explain this better, but they haven't appeared as of now (webmaster mol, hubag, bugsay, and others). meantime, bear with me.
you understand at this point that cebuano-visayan sentence construction is different from english in that the subject-verb-object (S-V-O) format is hardly used because it would sound awkward. rather, what is used is the verb-subject-object (V-S-O) format. thus:
English: I am going to the mall. (S-V-O format)
Cebuano: Moadto ko sa mall. (V-S-O format)
'Wrong' Cebuano: Ako moadto sa mall. (S-V-O format);
n.b., may be used in poetry but not in daily conversations.please note too that i use the term "cebuano-visayan" to particularize the specific language that you show in your post. this is so because there are many visayan languages (i use the word 'language' here in keeping with the word's definition, as against 'dialect'), the major ones of which are ilonggo, hiligaynon, waray, etc.---languages that make it difficult for visayans to communicate with each other!
and now to your sentences (in parentheses--literal translation):
Wala siya niadto. (Was not he/she there then.) - She/He was not there then OR She/He was not there at that time. Sometimes, this is used simply to mean "She/He did not go" and is understood as such, in context.
Wala siya muadto. (Did not she/he go.) - She/He did not go.
Dili siya niadto. (Is not she/he then.) - She/He is/does not then; She/He is/does not before. Again, this is used and understood, in context. She likes durian? Now, yes. Dili siya niadto. (She did not, before.)
Dili siya muadto. (Is not she/he going.) - She/He is not going.
I thought that wala negates a past action but I have come across examples where wala negates verbs beginning with mu-.
wala, like
dili, negates past, present and future actions actually.
I'm confused!
my personal experience (this "trying hard" soul wants to learn as many languages as she can, and had failed) is that i fail miserably when i try to learn another language through the academic (i.e., grammatical) approach. immersion is still the best. exposure to the language, listening to radio broadcasts and tapes, communicating with local speakers, learning 5 to 10 new words a day-- they do the trick. grammar follows in the natural course of things. i'm a believer that language existed long before grammarians were born.
i hope i did not muddle your confusion some more. hinaot nga wa nako makutaw ug samot ang imong kalibog.
i can hardly wait for the webmaster, hubag and bugsay to share their knowledge on this. they are the cebuano-visayan gurus as far as i can make out.
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