A Graininar of Acehnese Mark Durie A thesis submitted in February, 1984 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy· of the Australian National University. Copyright 1984 Mark Durie Except where otherwise indicated this thesis is the original work of the candidate. Vi 0\ . , , ,Y,\A(\~, (Mark Durie) . l Table of Contents Acknowledgments ill Conventions V 1. Introduction 1 I.I. The Place of Acehnese in Indonesia and South-east Asia 1 1.2. Previous Linguistic Studies of Acehnese 5 1.2.1. Phonology and Lexicography 5 1.2.2. Morphology and Syntax 7 1.3. Acehnese Literature 8 1.4. Methodology and Goals g 1.5. A Special Note for the Reader 11 2. Phonology 12 2.1. General Phonological Characteristics 12 2.2. Phonetic Inventory 13 2.2.1. Consonant Phones 13 2.2.2. Vowel Segments 20 2.3. Phonemic Inventory 22 2.3.1. Consonant Phonemes 22 2.3.2. Vowel Phonemes 25 2.4. Phonotactics 26 2.4.1. Syllable and Word Structure 26 2.4.2. Distribution of Phonemes 26 2.4.3. Nasality as a Prosody 28 / 2.4.4. Nasalisation as a Regional Feature 32 2.5. Orthography 33 3. Morphology 35 3.1. Words and Phrases 35 3.1.1. The Word 35 3.1.2. The Phrase 36 3.1.3. Clitics 37 3.1.4. Words with Double Stress 37 3.1.5. Statistical Distribution of Word Types 38 3.2. Morphemes 38 3.2.1. Affixes and Stems 38 3.3. Conditioned Morphological Variation 3g 3.3.1. Allomorphy Within the Word 40 3.3.1.1. Frication of %p% 40 .. 11 3.3.1.2. Frication of %t% 41 3.3.1.3. Rounding of %w % 41 3.3.1.4. Vowel nasalisation 42 3.3.1.5. Syllabic denasalisation 42 3.3.2. Allomorphy Within the Phrase 43 3.3.2.1. Diphthong reduction 43 3.3.2.2. Rounding of %w% 43 3.3.2.3. h epenthesis 44 3.4. Free Morphological Variation 45 3.4.1. Syllable Loss 45 3.4.2. Vowel Alternation 46 3.5. Reduplication 46 3.5.1. Emphatic Reduplication 47 3.5.2. Phonological Patterning of Reduplication 51 3.5.3. Syllable Reduplication 52 3.6. Juxtaposition of Opposites 53 3.7. Parts of Speech 53 4. Verbs 55 4.1. Formal Characteristics 55 4.2. Verbal Argument Types 56 4.2.1. Variable Argument Frames 57 4.3. Incorporated Nominals 58 4.3.1. Locative Adjunct Incorporation 5g 4.3.2. Detransitivising Undergoer Incorporation 60 4.3.3. Possessed Head of Undergoer Incorporation 60 4.3.4. Locative Undergoer Incorporation 62 4.4. Verbal Semantics 64 4.4.1. Agents and Undergoers 64 4.4.2. Datives 72 4.4.3. Subgroups of Intransitive Verbs 73 4.4.4. Metaphorical Agency 7g 4.5. Verb Derivation 84 4.5.l. TEU- 85 4.5.2. PEU- 92 4.5.3. MEU- 101 4.5.3.l. Non-controlled MEU- 102 4.5.3.2. Controlled MEU- 104 4.5.4. -EUM- 111 4.5.4.l. Formation 111 114 - 4.5.4.2. Function 4.5.5. G/- 118 4.5.6. Onomatopoeic Derivatives 118 111 4.6. \,Yhy not Adjectives? 119 4.6.1. Morphological Criteria 119 4.6.2. Semantic Criteria 120 4.6.3. Syntactic Criteria 121 4. 7. Verbs Used Nominally 122 5. Nominals 125 5.1. Formal Characteristics 125 5.2. Internal Structure of NP's 126 5.3. Possession 127 5.3.1. Formal Characteristics 127 5.3.2. Semantic Correlates 127 5.4. NP's as Predicates 129 5.4.1. Nominal Predicate Relations 130 5.5. Pronouns 136 5. 5 .1. Formation of Pronouns 137 5.5.2. Plural Reference 138 5.5.3. Used with Demonstratives 139 5.5.4. General Use and Meaning 139 5.5.4.1. Group reference 145 5.5.4.2. Mixing levels 145 5.5.4.3. Clash of person 146 5.5.4.4. Special use of reflexives 147 5.5.5. Function of Clitic Forms 147 5.5.5.1. Proclitics 148 5.5.5.2. Enclitics 148 5.5.5.3. Inanimate use of third person clitics 150 5.6. Titles 151 5.7. Demonstratives 153 5.7.1. Semantic Correlates 154 5.7.2. Used Pronominally 155 5.7.3. Allomorphy 156 5.8. Generics 158 5. 9. The Measure Phrase 159 5.9.1. Numerals 162 5. 9 .1.1. Ordinals 163 5.9.2. Classifiers 163 5.9.3. Measure Nouns 164 5.9.4. Quantifiers 168 5.9.5. Measure Phrase Floating 169 5.10. Nominal Derivation: -EUJV- 171 _ 5.10.1. Formation 172 5.10.2. Function 175 . IV 6. Epistemological Classifiers 179 6.1. Introduction 179 6.2. Related Words 182 6.3. Allomorphy and Free Variation 183 6.4. Usage 184 6.4.1. To Form Verbs 184 6.4.2. As Nominals 186 6.4.2.1. With deictics 187 6.4.2.2. To head a relative clause 189 6.4.2.3. To form negatives 190 6.4.2.4. To form indefinite pronominals 190 6.4.3. To Form Interrogatives 195 6.4.3.1. Knowledge complements 197 6.4.3.2. Exclamations 197 6.4.4. With Pronominal Enclitics 198 7. Prepositions 200 7 .1. Formal Characteristics 200 7.2. PP's as Predicates 200 7 .3. Prepositional Seman tics 201 7.3.1. bak 201 7.3.2. dalam 204 7.3.3. di 205 7.3.4. keu 205 7.3.5. ngo·n 207 7.3.6. u 208 8. Clausal Syntax 209 8.1. Basic Clause Structure 209 8.1.1. Ambient Clauses 210 8.2. Core Roles 210 8.2.1. Possessor Focus Constructions 214 8.2.1.1. Semantic correlates 215 8.2.2. The Place of Acehnese in Syntactic Typology 216 8.2.3. Mixed Languages and the Notion of 11Subject11 219 8.2.4. Acehnese as a Subjectless System 222 8.3. Word Order 224 le 8.3.0.1. 227 8.3.1. Ordering of Adjuncts 229 8.4. Intonation 231 - 8.5. Ellipsis 232 8.5.1. Undergoer Clitic Referencing 235 V 8.6. Argument Cliticisation 240 8.7. di 242 8. 7 .1. Function 246 8.8. Adjuncts 246 8.8.1. Nominal Adjuncts 247 8.8.2. Prepositional Adjuncts 250 8.8.3. Verbal Adjuncts 250 250 8.9. Vocative 8.10. The Reflexive 251 8.10.1. Agent == Undergoer 252 8.10.2. Core Role == Peripheral 253 8.10.3. Agent== Possessor of Undergoer 254 8.10.4. Core Role == Possessor of Peripheral 254 8.10.5. An exception 255 8.11. The Comparative 255 8.11.1. Superlative with si 257 8.11.1.1. Formation 257 8.11.1.2. Use 258 260 8.12. Operators 8.12.1. With Predicates 260 8.12. 2. Modifying non-Predicates 264 9. Syntax Beyond the Clause 267 9.1. Relative Clauses 267 267 9.1.1. The Matrix Clause 9.1.1.1. Headed clauses 267 268 9.1.1.2. Headless clauses 270 9.1.2. Within the Relative Clause 9.1.2.1. Core relativisation 271 9.1.2.2. Peripheral relativisation 274 9.1.2.3. Propositional relative clause 276 277 9.1.3. Relative Focus 9.2. Verb Serialisation 277 9.2.1. Strong Serialisation 277 9.2.2. Weak Serialisation 279 9.3. 11Ambient11 Embedded Clauses 281 9.4. Complementation 281 9.4.1. Intransitive Complements 285 9.4.1.1. Undergoer complements 285 9.4.1.2. Ability adjunct complements 288 290 _ 9.4.1.3. Dative complements 0.4.2. Transitive Undergoer Complements 293 9.4.2.1. Jussive complements 296 Vl g_5_ Adjunct Clauses 297 g_6. Conjunctions 298 g_6.l. Subordinating 2g8 g_6.2. Co-subordinating 299 g.6.3. Coordinating 2g9 g_7_ Non-Declarative Sentences 300 g.7.1. Questions 300 9.7.1.1. Yes/No Questions 300 9.7.1.2. Other Questions 302 9.7.1.3. Rhetorical doubting questions 305 9.7.2. Orders 305 9.7.3. Illocutionary Markers 307 9.7.3.1. bah 'just let' 307 9.7.3.2. beu=== 'I want' - bek 'I don't want' 308 9.7.3.3. boh===/ be:h 'I exhort' 309 9.7.3.4. meu(ng)=== 'it is surprising' 310 9. 7 .3.5. nyo=== / nyiJ 'I believe, I agree, yes' 310 9.7.4. Negative Affirmative Sentences 310 9.8. Exclamations, Tags, Interjections and Responses 310 9.8.1. Exclamations 310 9.8.2. Interjections 311 9.8.3. Tags 311 9.8.4. Responses 312 Bibliography 313 Index 319 .. vu List of Figures Figure 2-1: Voice Onset Timing of Stops 16 Figure 2-2: Murmured Consonants 17 Figure 2-3: Formant Plot of Oral Monophthongs 23 Figure 8-1: Syntactic Types 217 Vlll List of Tables Table 2-1: Syllable Initial Consonants 14 Table 2-2: Syllable Final Consonants 15 Table 2-3: Monophthongs 20 Table 2-4: Diphthongs 21 Table 2-5: Consonant Phonemes 24 Table 2-6: Phonemic Analyses of Nasality 30 Table 5-1: Pronouns 136 Table 5-2: Clitic Pronouns 137 Table 5-3: Reflexive Pronouns 137 Table 5-4: Demonstratives 153 Table 6-1: Epistemological Classifiers 179