Grammar and Inference in Conversation
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Grammar and Inference in Conversation
Studies in Discourse and Grammar Studies in Discourse and Grammar is a monograph series providing a forum for research on grammar as it emerges from and is accounted for by discourse contexts. The assumption underlying the series is that corpora reflecting language as it is actually used are necessary, not only for the verification of grammatical analyses, but also for understanding how the regularities we think of as grammar emerge from communicative needs. Research in discourse and grammar draws upon both spoken and written corpora, and it is typically, though not necessarily, quantitative. Monographs in the series propose explanations for grammatical regularities in terms of recurrent discourse patterns, which reflect communicative needs, both informational and socio-cultural.
Editors Sandra A. Thompson University of California at Santa Barbara Department of Linguistics Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA
Paul J. Hopper Carnegie Mellon University Department of English Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
Volume 18 Grammar and Inference in Conversation: Identifying clause structure in spoken Javanese by Michael C. Ewing
Grammar and Inference in Conversation Identifying clause structure in spoken Javanese
Michael C. Ewing University of Melbourne
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia
8
TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Michael C. Ewing Grammar and Inference in Conversation : Identifying clause structure in spoken Javanese / Michael C. Ewing. p. cm. (Studies in Discourse and Grammar, issn 0928–8929 ; v. 18) In English with examples in Javanese. Originally presented: as author’s dissertation (Ph.D) - University of California, Santa Barbara. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. Javanese language--Dialects--Indonesia--Cirebon (Kabupaten)-Grammar. 2. Javanese language--Dialects--Indonesia--Cirebon (Kabupaten)--Clauses. 3. Javanese language--Dialects--Indonesia--Cirebon (Kabupaten)--Discourse analysis. I. Title. II. Series. PL5164.E95 2005 499’.2227’095982--dc22 isbn 90 272 2628 8 (Hb; alk. paper)
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© 2005 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
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Table of contents
Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Grammar and discourse 1 1.2 Cirebon Javanese 4 1.3 Data collection 8 1.4 Organization of this study 12 Chapter 2 The morphology of predicates 2.1 Predicates 15 2.2 Verbal predicates: Intransitive clauses 16 2.3 Verbal predicates: Transitive clauses 29 2.4 Non-verbal predicates 52 2.5 Predicate morphology and clause structure 60 Chapter 3 The morphology of nominal expressions 3.1 Form and function of nominal expressions 63 3.2 Nominal expressions 65 3.3 Modification 91 3.4 Case marking 112 3.5 Summary 117 Chapter 4 Information flow 4.1 Introduction 119 4.2 Ideas in the mind 121 4.3 Referentiality 144
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4.4 Configurations of information flow properties 152 4.5 Summary 155 Chapter 5 Constituents and constituent order 5.1 Constituency 157 5.2 The intonation unit 159 5.3 Prosodic clusters 168 5.4 Constituent order 177 5.5 P-trigger clauses 188 5.6 A-trigger clauses 206 5.7 Hierarchical constituency 216 5.8 Summary 220 Chapter 6 Clauses and interaction 6.1 Working together 223 6.2 Differing amounts of morphosyntax 224 6.3 Tracking referents in extended discourse 234 6.4 Summary: Clauses and interaction 245 Chapter 7 Conclusion 7.1 The clause in Cirebon Javanese conversation 247 7.2 What are arguments? 250 7.3 What are clauses? 252 Notes References Appendix Author index Subject index
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Acknowledgements
This study was first presented as a PhD dissertation and has now come out as the present volume. Such a process cannot be completed without help from many different sources. First I wish to thank my dissertation committee at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Marianne Mithun, Bill Ashby, Susanna Cumming, Jack Du Bois, and Sandy Thompson, and the entire community in the Linguistics department at UCSB, who made my graduate study an especially rewarding experience. And at the beginning it was Gini Gorlinski and Jim Collins who helped convince me I should set off on that journey in the first place. The fieldwork which is the foundation of this study would not have been possible without the dedication, support, friendship, and good-humor of Uli Mashuri and Sirep Dody, who patiently worked with me on all aspects of data collection throughout my stay in Cirebon. Indah Mulatsih also spent many hours helping me with my research and providing stimulating conversation. I also wish to thank the many others who helped me in my research while I was in Cirebon: Elang Tomi, S. Sadiyana, Moch. Hasan Sadili, Ani Suparni, Asmadi, and Majaji. I am especially indebted to Elang Yusuf Dendabrata, his family, and the extended family of Kecirebonan for taking me into their home and giving me the friendship and support that made my time in Cirebon much richer than it would have otherwise been. Thanks also to all those whose words have become the data for this study. My research in Cirebon was funded by a Fulbright-Hayes research grant and a Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research pre-doctoral grant. I wish to think A. Dahana, Sri Dahana and Nelly Paliama for their friendship and support. Thanks to the Indonesian Science Foundation (LIPI), Atmajaya Catholic University of Jakarta and especially Macelino for their sponsorship during my fieldwork in Cirebon. Various forms of support from both the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Melbourne, before and after fieldwork, made it possible to complete the study. A fellowship
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with the International Institute for Asian Studies at Leiden University allowed me to begin the process of editing the dissertation for publication. Complementing this academic and financial support is the invaluable personal support and friendship that I have received from many places. I wish to express my thanks to those who first guided me in my study of Cirebon: to Richard North and Pamela Rogers Aguiñiga, whose love of Cirebon first inspired me to learn more about its culture, and to my teachers, Undang Sumarna, Abay Subarja, Otong Rasta, and Sujana Arja, who have patiently led me to more fully appreciate the beauty of its art. In Cirebon, as well as the support of Elang Yusuf and his family, I wish to thank Endo Suanda and Matthew Cohen for their friendship and collegiality. I want to thank my fellow students in the UCSB Linguistics Program, especially the first class, for a great time. In Leiden the friendship Ben and Djum Arps and Carmencita Palermo made my stay that much nicer. In Australia, the encouragement and companionship of Sander Adelaar, Margaret Florey, Linda Hibbs, Barb Kelly, Lewis Mayo, Simon Musgrave, Helen Pausacker, and especially Brett Hough have kept me going. Sander, Margaret and Simon gave a big push at the end. Miriam Lang, Elisabeth Riharti and Any Woods provided valuable help with the final manuscript and Chandra Jayasuriya provided cartography. A double round of thanks goes to Sandy and Susanna and for dinners, coffee, and conversation over the years and for encouraging me to get this published. Finally, thanks to my family, my parents, Paul and Barbara Ewing and my sisters, Nancy Ewing and Ann Kendall for their love. To all of these people and to many others unnamed, I wish to apologize for any mistakes I may have made during this project and for any shortcomings in the final result and I thank for them all for their support, without which anything that may be of value in this study could not have been achieved.
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Acknowledgements
Map Cirebon and the major languages of Java
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Chapter 1
Introduction
The language of conversation is incremental and collaborative, produced in the context of the physical, social, and cognitive demands of real time face-to-face interaction. The linguistic structures that we may be accustomed to studying in written or planned discourse often take on very different characteristics when produced during natural conversation. This study examines one type of grammatical organization, the transitive clause. It investigates how transitive clauses are played out in the context of Cirebon Javanese conversation and demonstrates that grammatical clause structure does not exist independently of the meaning that is interactionally constructed by conversationalists. As speakers, conversationalists make use of a range of grammatical, semantic, and interactional resources in producing clauses. As hearers, they must be constantly attuned to these grammatical, semantic, and interactional cues in order to identify the structures they hear. In this introduction I will first discuss the general approach to linguistics that informs the present study and comment further on the clause in conversation. I will then provide a general overview of Cirebon Javanese, followed by a discussion of the methodology used in this study, including data collection, representation, and analysis. The chapter ends with an overview of the contents of the rest of the book.
. Grammar and discourse Language is a means by which people co-construct shared meaning through interaction. This includes the kind of communication that might be characterized as sharing information, but it also involves expressions of stance, affect, and social relations. The resources of language include such symbolic systems of representation as lexicon, morphology, and syntax, but cannot be removed from the social, cognitive, and physically embodied context of human experience. Grammar is the systematic patterning of linguistic resources that emerges as speakers undertake to achieve their communicative goals again and again
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throughout the interactions of day-to-day life. In turn, speakers’ familiarity with these routinized patterns informs their on-going use of language in interaction. There is a growing body of literature on grammar viewed within its discourse, cognitive, and interactional contexts (e.g. Bybee & Noonan 2002; Chafe 1976, 1980, 1994; Cumming & Ono 1997; Du Bois 1985, 1987; Du Bois, Kumpf, & Ashbey 2003; Givón 1983, 2001; Hopper 1998; Hopper & Thompson 1980, 1984; Ochs, Schegloff, & Thompson 1996; Thompson 1988, 1990). A commitment to the study of language as part of its broader context of human experience has certain methodological implications. Foremost is the need to work with natural data in the form of corpora documenting language in use. Genre and channel of language, as well as social context and speaker needs and goals, are also elements that must be taken into account. Analysis is done by identifying recurrent patterns in discourse and finding correspondences between these patterns and speakers’ needs, including both immediate communicative needs within discourse and more long-range personal and social goals in the wider situation. Conversation is a very fruitful place to investigate language use for explanations of the patterning that emerges. It is not that other genres and channels are not also interesting and important to our understanding of language, but that the immediacy and pervasiveness of conversation means that this is where much of the dynamics of language formation can take place. It is for this reason that conversation is the type of language examined in this study. The clause has had an important role in almost all linguistic approaches to the study of language, whether looking at conversation or written discourse, planned or unplanned contexts of communication. By examining the clause in conversation, the main goal in this study is to investigate what grammatical resources are available to speakers of Cirebon Javanese and the extent to which these resources aid hearers in identifying clause structure. To this end I will most frequently be taking the perspective of the hearer in the analysis presented. I will not be focusing so much on how speakers use grammar to produce a clause, but rather, how hearers know what the structure of a clause is, based on morphosyntax, pragmatics and other cues. How do hearers sort out the referents that participate in an event or state expressed by a predicate, together with the roles these have in relation to that predicate, and thus ultimately the intention of their fellow interactant’s communication? We will see that in Cirebon Javanese, the amount of overt morphosyntax that speakers use is not at all constant, but is rather quite variable from one clause to the next. Some clauses may consist of explicitly produced clusters of verbs and nominals among which various morphological and syntactic re-
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Chapter 1. Introduction
sources are used to clearly and redundantly establish the relationships between the elements. There are other complete, finite, independent clauses in which the only element explicitly produced is a verb that expresses the basic meaning of the predicate with no indication of possible arguments or clause structure. While the work of establishing the structure expressed by a clause can be done grammatically, much of the time it is done implicitly and interactionally. The nouns, verbs, and overt morphosyntax that are often the heart of linguistic description and analysis are only a few among the many resources that speakers are consistently using and redeploying as they converse. What this means is that none of these resources can be described independently and that a full view of how these resources work and interact with each other can only be observed in discourse. It is not the case that speakers provide all the information necessary for understanding a clause. To a large extent, the hearer must also be actively engaged in the production and interpretation of clauses at all times. All of the grammatical resources discussed in this study are used some of the time, but rarely do all come into play at the same time. The linguistic resources that are used in any particular clause generally only suggest certain aspects of a possible interpretation of its structure. A more complete understanding of what the speaker is communicating can usually only be made in the actual context of interaction and by an actively engaged hearer using inferencing and world knowledge. Even then some meanings may only emerge over time and other meanings may always remain underdetermined. We need to be able to describe and understand language in dynamic terms that reflect the intricacies of conversational interaction in real time. This allows us to make generalizations about the patterning that emerges from language in use and to look for explanations for this patterning in the cognitive and social context of that use. The present study is a small step in that direction. It essentially comprises an outline of the details that such a description would have to take into account when trying to characterize the clause in Cirebon Javanese conversation. The general finding is that, when seen unfolding in conversational interaction, the clause is not the unified whole that one may expect from accounts of the grammar of planned language; rather it is an aggregate of various morphosyntactic resources, which speakers use to give cues about the structure of the meaning that they are attempting to communicate. Such aggregates can vary dramatically in terms of the amount of morphosyntactic marking used and the extent to which they explicitly and redundantly indicate the structure of what is being communicated. In all cases the hearer must play an active role in interpreting the speaker’s intent in order for communication to occur with reasonable success.
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. Cirebon Javanese The perspective outlined above has to do with the nature of human language in general, and the general conclusions with which this study ends are not unique to Cirebon Javanese. Nonetheless, certain characteristics of Cirebon Javanese do make it particularly interesting for study from both descriptive and theoretical perspectives. Among these are the fact that it makes extensive use of both “tighter” morphosyntactic and “looser” periphrastic and paratactic resources in its language organization (see Cumming & Englebretson 1998 and Englebretson 2003 for a similar point about Indonesian). Cirebon Javanese is also interesting because of the somewhat peripheral position its speakers have between larger political, social, and linguistic groups. This has meant there has been little codification or standardization and that dynamic variation is apparent in many aspects of the language. Javanese is the most widely spoken regional language in Indonesia and is the Austronesian language with the largest number of first-language speakers. There are some 70 million speakers, most of whom live in the provinces of Central Java and East Java, although a history of migration since Dutch colonial times means that communities of Javanese speakers live throughout the Indonesian archipelago and as far away as Surinam in South America (Ogloblin 2005). The royal courts of Yogyakarta and Surakarta in Central Java have long been considered centers of power, whether political, social, spiritual, or cultural, both by the Javanese themselves and by non-Javanese communities, including the old colonial government, modern Indonesian society, and international academia. This has meant that the Javanese language as spoken in these areas of Central Java is the de facto standard amongst the numerous varieties, which differ by regency, district, and even village across the island.1 The city and the regency of Cirebon are located in the province of West Java on the north coast of the island, about 200 kilometers east of Jakarta and 350 kilometers northwest of Surakarta. There were probably more than two million speakers of Cirebon Javanese in the area at the time I conducted fieldwork there in 1993–1994.2 The majority of the population of West Java are speakers of Sundanese, a language related to but distinct from Javanese. A recurrent theme in linguistic and cultural descriptions of Cirebon is the fact that it lies on the border between Javanese and Sundanese speaking areas, and there is a popular belief that the language of Cirebon is a mixture of Sundanese and Javanese (Ayatrohaedi 1991). In fact, its lexicon and morphosyntactic system are clearly Javanese, albeit with some possible influences from Sundanese and Malay, as well as innovations of its own. The people of Cirebon themselves rec-
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ognize this, calling their language basa Jawa ‘Javanese language’ and referring to themselves as wong Jawa ‘Javanese people’. The people, culture, and language of the Javanese in Central Java, to the east of Cirebon, are referred to as Jawa wétan ‘eastern Javanese’ by the Javanese of Cirebon. The language of Central Java is sometimes just called basa wétan ‘eastern language’. I will refer to the variety of Javanese spoken in the city of Cirebon and the surrounding districts in the regency of Cirebon as “Cirebon Javanese”. I will refer to the language of the cultural centers of Yogyakarta and Surakarta as “Standard Central Javanese”. Speakers of Cirebon Javanese report that they generally do not have too much difficulty understanding speakers of Standard Central Javanese, although they claim that regional lexicon makes the Cirebon language almost incomprehensible to speakers from Central Java. Standard Central Javanese has been fairly extensively described, both linguistically and pedagogically (Arps, Bogaerts, van der Molen, Supriyanto, & van den Veerdonk 2000; Keeler 1984; Ogloblin 2005; Ras 1985; Robson 1992; Uhlenbeck 1978). Regional varieties of Javanese are described in numerous small monographs from the Indonesian government Language Center (e.g. Baribin 1987; Iskandarwassid 1985; Soedjarwo 1987; Soetoko 1981), but these varieties are still rarely mentioned in the international linguistic literature. Kartomihardjo (1981) and Smith-Hefner (1983, 1988) have written about varieties of Javanese found in East Java, and Robson (1985) discusses features of non-standard Javanese used in rural areas, many of which are similar to elements found in Cirebon. Uhlenbeck (1964) contains references to work on other regional varieties. Smith (1926) appears to be the only source specifically on Cirebon Javanese published outside of Indonesia. Nothofer’s (1980) dialect survey of West Java includes interesting comparisons of data from Cirebon Javanese and the surrounding Sundanese area. Ayatrohaedi (1985) is primarily concerned with the Sundanese spoken in the Cirebon district, but does include some information on the Javanese of the area, while Ayatrohaedi (1991) discusses the sociolinguistic situation of Cirebon Javanese vis-à-vis Sundanese and Indonesian. There have been a few honors theses written in Indonesia on Cirebon Javanese (Mulatsih 1990; Nanang 1983; Ruliana 1989), but to date no major works on the language have appeared. The present study focuses specifically on conversational material because of its interactional immediacy and its role in the shaping of grammar, but there are other important genres and channels through which people use Cirebon Javanese. While manuscripts exist of written Cirebon Javanese from the twentieth century and before, these are not widely available. Currently most speakers of Cirebon Javanese are literate in Indonesian, but not in their first language.
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There is now, however, a movement to produce modern written Cirebon Javanese, primarily through weekly columns and occasional articles or short stories on a special Cirebon culture page of the weekly Indonesian-language newspaper Mitra Dialog (formerly Pikiran Rakyat Edisi Cirebon) and a local edition for Cirebon of the Jawa Pos group of papers, called Radar Cirebon. And Cirebon Javanese is now used on the internet in discussion forums for wong Cerbon ‘Cirebon people’, mostly students studying in Jakarta or abroad.3 Prior to the post-World War II independence of Indonesia from the Dutch, Javanese was taught in schools using texts from Central Java. The Indonesian national government strongly promotes education in and use of the national language, Indonesian; nonetheless, regional languages are also protected by national policy. Until recently the decision on what regional language to teach in schools was based largely on provincial needs. Thus in West Java, where Sundanese is the most commonly spoken regional language, all schools, including those in the Cirebon area, taught Sundanese as the “regional” language. During the past decade local districts have been allowed to included local cultural content (muatan lokal) in the curriculum; in Cirebon this has been taken as an opportunity to include instruction in Cirebon Javanese. This initiative has had a slow beginning, due to the effort involved in producing texts and training teachers, many of whom are not speakers of the language. In addition, one of my research assistants reported that children in his village did not take the Cirebon Javanese lessons very seriously. Their attitude was that it was not important since they already spoke the language and they felt that mastering Indonesian was much more important to their future welfare. Nonetheless, the initiative to implement Cirebon Javanese lessons in schools is one sign of a growing sense of regional identity among the people of Cirebon. Although literacy in Cirebon Javanese is still low and there are few opportunities open to most speakers to read in the language, this is not to say that informal, unplanned conversation is the only genre of language that speakers are exposed to or engage in. The Cirebon area has a rich tradition of oral literature forms, many of which are still practiced and enjoyed by speakers of Cirebon Javanese. These include wayang kulit (shadow puppet performances), masrés (historical dramas), and various types of recited poetry (Cohen 1997). Because of their planned nature and more literary characteristics, these genres exhibit an elaborated vocabulary and a variety of grammatical forms that are not normally found in the conversational material presented in this study. A complete study of the Cirebon Javanese language would clearly need to include the language of both oral performance and the literary manuscripts as well as conversational language. The present study, then, is only a look at one type of
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language used in Cirebon, and any conclusions made here need to be viewed in this context. A further aspect of Javanese (Cirebon and Standard), which is not dealt with extensively in this study, has to do with the system of social speech styles or speech levels. Geertz (1960) introduced the speech styles of Central Java to the American academic community and there has been a growing body of literature on the topic since (Errington 1985a, 1988; Keeler 1984, 1987; Moedjanto 1986; S. Poedjosoedarmo 1968, 1969; Siegel 1986; Suharno 1982; Wolfowitz 1991). Earlier discussions of Javanese often portrayed speech styles in rigid, formulaic terms, but Errington (1988) demonstrates that the Javanese speech styles are very fluid in expressing complex social relationships. Speech styles involve the choice of vocabulary, similar to the choice between polite and familiar second person forms in European languages (Brown & Gilman 1960), but over a range of hundreds of different lexical items. Researchers use a variety of terms to describe subtle differences in speech style use. In academic discussions of Standard Central Javanese, the terms ngoko, madya, and krama are used for low, middle, and high speech styles, which express a speaker’s appraisal of his or her relationship to the addressee. Krama andap and krama inggil are deferential vocabulary used to express a speaker’s relationship to a particular referent. Some researchers differentiate as many as nine speech levels (S. Poedjosoedarmo 1968, 1969; Suharno 1982). In contrast, the term most commonly used by speakers of Standard Central Javanese themselves to refer to all types of language using polite vocabulary is basa, literally ‘language’. This is in contrast to omong Jawa ‘Javanese speech’, referring to the common, non-polite, speech of everyday interaction and personal thoughts. Polite speech styles are used in Cirebon, although they are not as developed nor as widely used as those in Central Java. A common theme in discussions I had with people in Cirebon about speech styles was that there always seemed to be another group who used them more correctly. Many said that speech styles were more elaborate in Central Java. Within Cirebon itself, city residents would say the ‘high’ speech styles were still strong in the villages, while people form the countryside would say that the urban aristocracy still used polite forms. Young speakers said they could not use the speech levels as well as older speakers, who in turn said people of an earlier generation had had better control of them. The use of refined language is clearly a marked activity and one that can be used for evaluating the social and cultural standing of other groups vis-àvis oneself. In Cirebon, the term bebasan is used for all types of language use employing polite vocabulary of any kind. When pressed for a contrasting term for non-bebasan language, people would offer such terms as basa kasar ‘coarse
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language’, basa pasaran ‘market language’, basa slang ‘informal language’, and basa biasa ‘common language’. In daily use Cirebon speakers, like those of Central Java, seem most frequently to refer to the non-bebasan style as basa Jawa, ‘Javanese language’. When it is necessary to make a distinction here I will use the terms “bebasan” and “common speech style”. The focus of this study is, however, not on speech styles. Almost the entire database used here is in the common speech style, with the exception of a few lines used in storytelling, joking, or in formulaic expressions. I have therefore not included a description of speech styles in Cirebon, although differences will occasionally be noted in passing.
. Data collection Between March 1993 and August 1994, as part of my fieldwork in Cirebon, I collected approximately eighty audio tape recordings of speech events involving extended discourse in the city and regency of Cirebon, some recorded by my research assistants and others by myself. These included informal conversations, storytelling sessions, interviews, and ceremonial events. The data for this study are from a corpus of audio tape recordings and transcripts of naturally occurring informal conversations recorded during this time. Tapes of relatively high audio quality were chosen for transcription. The transcripts follow the conventions of Du Bois, Schuetze-Coburn, Paolino and Cumming (1992, 1993). The discourse transcription conventions used in examples in this book are listed in the appendix. One of the central features of this transcription system is that each line of the transcript represents an intonation unit, “a stretch of speech uttered under a single coherent intonation contour” (Du Bois et al. 1992: 17). A more detailed discussion of intonation units, as well as other aspects of prosody in conversation, is found in Chapter 5. A first pass transcription was done for the majority of these tapes in handwritten form by research assistants. Of these initial transcripts, those representing a crosssection of settings and variety of speakers and interaction types were entered on computer by an assistant. A hard copy of each file was given to the original transcriber who checked it against the tape, correcting and refining as needed. At this stage the transcriber also made a free Indonesian translation. I then reviewed the transcripts for accuracy and for understanding. Next I worked very intensely with the original transcriber to make sure I understood as much as possible what was happening in the interaction. While many people assisted me in all aspects of this project, the tapes included in this corpus were all recorded
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and transcribed by Uli Mashuri and Sirep Dody, both male university students in their early twenties at the time. They are from Tenga Tani and Pejambon respectively, villages on the outskirts of the city of Cirebon. Of these recordings made during my fieldwork in Cirebon, I have chosen ten to be used as data in this study. These included nine spontaneous conversations and one example of an elicited story. These ten tapes total some six hours and include more than 23,000 intonation units. Of these, five conversations were used for detailed coding of the grammatical and information flow features that are discussed in Chapters 4 and 5. These five recordings were chosen to include both two-party and multi-party conversations. They also include selections from each of my research assistants’ villages, and selections with primarily female speakers and primarily male speakers. Most of the examples given here are from these five conversations, although a number of examples have also been take from the five other recordings in the extended database. Following are brief summaries of the settings, participants, and range of topics covered, first for the five coded conversations, and then for the remaining five recordings. At the end of the last free translation line of each example, the tape number is given, followed by the line number or numbers from which the example was taken. Personal names in the transcripts have been changed to protect the privacy of those who so graciously consented to help me in my research. I was present only at the recording of Tapes 105 and 121. The other tapes, including all five used for intensive coding, involved only native speakers of Cirebon Javanese, except as noted for Tape 108. The five coded conversations include: 107 Bi Nani ‘Aunt Nani’. Recorded mid-afternoon on the front porch of a home in Weru, on the outskirts of Cirebon. The family is sitting with a woman who goes door-to-door selling snacks. Speakers include: the snack seller in her mid-forties and three siblings: a man in his early twenties, and two women, one in her late twenties and the other thirty. The older sister’s two children are also present, and the younger sister’s husband joins the group for a short time. Topics include the food they are eating, jokes about the children, and stories and gossip about acquaintances. 111 Rongsokan ‘Secondhand goods’. On the front porch of a home in Pejambon in the evening. The early part of the recording mainly involves four unrelated men in their twenties and thirties talking on topics ranging from jobs and courtship to motorcycles and taxes, gambling, and a singing coffee mug. In the later part, four other men and a woman come and go, contributing to the discussion.
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114 Ngerém déwék ‘Stop on my own’. A conversation between two male friends aged 23 and 24 in the morning in the bedroom of the younger one in Pejambon. The older of the two has recently gotten married. Topics of discussion cover college, girlfriends, hobbies, how the older friend got married and the families’ reactions, and stories about jobs, friends and furniture. 140 Jorokan ‘Dirty talk’. Five male friends, early to late twenties, sitting on a front porch in Weru late at night, talking about their girlfriends and how these women try to seduce the men, plans for a school trip, and various colorful denizens of the area. 151 Ning Pawon ‘In the kitchen’. The mother of a household in Pejambon is cooking in her kitchen in the late morning, helped by her two adult daughters. The older daughter’s two children, aged four and eight, are also present. They discuss food preparations, household issues, and stories about various neighbors. The additional recordings from the extended corpus, from which examples have also been taken, include: 105 Tédéng. A story elicited from Mr. Bambang Arifin by Uli Mashuri and myself. This story was recorded in Mr. Bambang’s home and was chosen by the storyteller after I asked for something about local history. The story explains why an area called Tédéng is known for supernatural events. 108 Demenan ‘Romance’. Seven male undergraduates at a private university in Cirebon; ages range from early twenties to thirty, from various villages in the region around Cirebon. All are native speakers of Cirebon Javanese, except Asep who is a native speaker of Sundanese, but is using Cirebon Javanese here. They are sitting in the canteen, waiting for their next class to start. During the first half of the conversation six men are present and talk on a number of subjects ranging from cultural traits of different parts of Cirebon, to plans for the holidays, allergies, and gossip about their friends and teachers. When the seventh man shows up, the others ask him about a date he recently had and he tells a long story about it. 121 Hana Caraka ‘Alphabet’. Recorded in a living room at one of the royal palaces in Cirebon, this is largely a discussion between a male member of the family in his late twenties and an elderly gentleman from the village. The older man is explaining various aspects of studying mysticism, including the symbolic importance of the Javanese alphabet. 134 Krenteg ‘Heartbeat’. Four male friends, mid-twenties, sitting on the front porch of a house in Weru, chatting. Topics include friendships and romance, mystical studies and spirit possession.
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Chapter 1. Introduction
135 Teng Kawis ‘In the garden’. This conversation occurs in a family’s garden plot in Weru, between an adult son in the family and an older man who works for the father. The older man’s wife is also present for part of the recording. They are speaking in Bebasan and the older man is talking about the garden and telling various stories about his encounters with the local government bureaucracy. One thousand intonation units or approximately fifteen to twenty minutes of each of the first five conversations listed above were extensively coded for the text counts presented in Chapters 4 and 5. In tapes 111, 114, and 140 the thousand intonation units were counted from the beginning of the recording. In the case of 107, the first few minutes were particularly noisy and so the section to be coded was taken after things had quieted down. In the case of 151, the father of the house was prominent in the first six minutes and so the segment to be coded was taken from after he had left, so that its speakers were predominately women. These segments were coded for clause structure, clause type and constituent order, for semantic and morphological properties of verbs, and for semantic, morphological, and information flow properties of nominal expressions. Details of the categories and values for which counts were made are given in Chapters 4 and 5, in which the results are discussed. Coding was done using a discourse data management tool, Paradise, developed by Susanna Cumming at the University of California at Santa Barbara using Paradox 7. Queries on the data were also done in Paradox, while graphic representation of the results was made using Microsoft Excel 97. This methodology is very different from that of most previous work on other varieties of Javanese. When I mention particular characteristics of Standard Central Javanese, it is intended only as general background. It should be remembered that published studies of Standard Central Javanese are often based on idealized data and so cannot be directly compared with generalizations for Cirebon Javanese made here, which are based on conversational discourse data. Similarly, observations made about Cirebon Javanese in this study should not be interpreted as claims about characteristics that are necessarily unique to Cirebon, as a lack of such observations about Standard Central Javanese could be a reflection of the lack of detailed discourse-based studies of that language at this time.
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. Organization of this study This is an investigation of transitive clauses in Cirebon Javanese conversation and is focused on how transitive clause structure is established during conversational interaction. Establishing clause structure involves both identifying referents that fill argument roles in the clause and identifying the specific roles these referents have in relation to the predicate. This is investigated in a step-by-step process. I begin with a account of the important morphosyntactic and discourse-pragmatic resources that are used in Cirebon Javanese to signal clause structure. For each of these resources I ask what it can tell the listener about the structure of clauses in discourse. This is followed by discussion of how these various resources interact together in establishing structure and communicating meaning. We see that none of these resources is individually necessary nor sufficient for establishing the structure of clauses. Rather, conversationalists must always rely on the constantly shifting interaction of morphosyntactic, semantic and pragmatic cues in making hypotheses about the clause structure intended by their interlocutors. Chapter 2 covers the morphology of intransitive and transitive verbs and other predicate types. Transitive verbs have certain prefixes and suffixes which can sometimes yield partial information about the structure of their clauses. Intransitive and non-verbal predicates have little or no morphological marking that aids the listener in determining the structure of their clauses. Chapter 3 looks at various types of nominal expressions and includes a discussion of unexpressed clause participants. Morphological marking on nouns is especially important in marking information flow properties, but only indicates clause structure in one type of construction and then only partially and sometimes ambiguously. In Chapter 4 we look at the pragmatic property of information flow. Information flow characteristics of various nominal expression types are discussed. While information flow characteristics do not themselves communicate details of clause structure directly, they do have an indirect association with that structure, as we will see in Chapter 5. Chapter 5 looks at constituents and constituent order. Constituent order is relevant to clause structure only among certain types of transitive clauses. In other clause types, constituent order tends to play a less important role in indicating clause structure. We see that constituent order is especially responsive to certain information flow properties and in turn that certain information flow properties are regularly associated with certain argument types; thus, information flow can act as an indirect cue for clause structure.
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Chapter 1. Introduction
In Chapter 6, examples of clauses in their discourse context are examined to show how the various morphosyntactic and information flow cues discussed previously interact and (partially) reveal clause structure. Even when all the cues are considered together, it is still the case that the structure of most clauses in Cirebon Javanese conversation is underdetermined, and that inferencing based on shared speaker knowledge is essential for interlocutors to identify the structure of clauses in interaction. Chapter 7 concludes this study by reviewing the findings and revisiting the notions of arguments and the clause to see how they might best be investigated in conversational discourse. As mentioned previously, there are many genres and channels of language use in Cirebon Javanese besides conversation. More literary language styles exhibit what might be thought by some to be a thicker, richer, tighter grammar than that found in conversation. To those of my teachers, consultants, readers, and friends who may be disappointed because they feel that I have somehow not given the Cirebon Javanese language due justice by only examining the informal and mundane language of daily conversation, I would like to ask their forgiveness. But I would also like to suggest that the mundane language of dayto-day talk, while at first seeming light and insubstantial, actually has a great deal of intellectual, scientific, and aesthetic interest to offer us. I hope that this investigation will help to reveal some of the richness of grammatical patterning in conversational Cirebon Javanese and so further deepen our understanding of the Cirebon language as a whole and of language more generally.
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Chapter 2
The morphology of predicates
. Predicates In this study, the clause is defined as a dependency relationship between a predicate and its arguments. Across languages predicates are typically associated with verbs. Cirebon Javanese predicates may be represented by verbs, but need not be; noun phrases, prepositional phrases, and various other adverbials can serve as non-verbal predicates. In this chapter I first describe three types of predicates found in the Cirebon Javanese conversational data: intransitive verbs, transitive verbs, and non-verbal predicates. In each case the morphological characteristics of each type of predicate are described and the extent to which this morphology provides interlocutors with information about clause structure is discussed. A fuller discussion of transitive clause structure, including the expression of arguments, constituency, and how clauses as whole entities are played out in the conversational data, is developed in later chapters. Macro-roles are meta-terms for discussing systems of grammatical relations found in diverse languages. Dixon (1979) and Comrie (1981) employ a letter notation consisting of A, P (or O), and S for macro-roles. In their systems A refers to the more agent-like argument in a transitive clause, P (or O) refers to the more patient-like argument of a transitive clause, and S refers to the single argument of an intransitive clause. In the following discussion, I will refer to these macro-roles as A, P, and S. This terminology is not without its cross-linguistic difficulties. For example, grammatical systems based on an agent-patient distinction which cuts across transitive and intransitive clauses suggest splitting or doing without the S category (Durie 1985; Mithun 1991). The three way distinction is, however, appropriate and useful for Javanese. Verbs of transitive clauses have fairly consistent morphological marking that is sensitive to the two macro-roles A and P. In contrast, intransitive clauses are a varied lot and exhibit little or no morphological marking that has to do with the argument structure of the clause. S in Javanese does not have clear internal categorial characteristics, and the predi-
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cates of intransitive clauses may involve monomorphemic or morphologically complex verbs, nominals, prepositional phrases or various types of adverbials. Recognizing a category of S in Javanese is still useful as a way of distinguishing the varied group of intransitive constructions from the relatively structured set of transitive constructions involving the arguments A and P. The terms A, S, and P are called macro-roles because they are at a higher level of organization than semantic micro-roles such as agent, patient, recipient, experiencer, cause, and the like. The referent of a given A or P argument might have any one of various micro-roles depending on the specific semantics of the predicating verb involved. The usefulness of these macro-role labels lies in the fact that they allow us to contrast the two arguments involved in semantically transitive clauses. These macro-roles have a continuity of denotation across grammatically variable structures such as variations in voice, at the same time maintaining a contrast with the single argument of semantically intransitive predicates. This enables us to develop an understanding of the grammatical instantiation of these roles in specific language contexts without having to prematurely categorize them with terms like ergative or accusative or with concepts like subject and object. Intransitive verbal constructions are introduced in Section 2.2 of this chapter. Section 2.3 contains a discussion of transitive clause constructions, including the voice system. Finally, non-verbal predicate types are briefly covered in Section 2.4.
. Verbal predicates: Intransitive clauses A range of morphological types are associated with intransitive verbs in Cirebon Javanese and are reviewed below. The first subsection looks at monomorphemic intransitive verbs. Other intransitive verbs display a range of morphological processes and are discussed in the second subsection. While we will see later in Section 2.3 that most transitive verbs have morphology that tells interlocutors something about both their argument structure and the semantics of their arguments, for the majority of intransitive verbs, information about the structure of the clause of which they are the predicate is only inferable from their semantics rather than being indicated by morphology.
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Chapter 2. The morphology of predicates
.. Monomorphemic intransitive verbs Many intransitive verbs are monomorphemic and thus morphology does not play a direct role in indicating the structure of the clauses in which such verbs occur. It might be suggested that the very lack of morphology is in fact an indication that these are intransitive verbs, since the majority of transitive verbs do have some morphology that indicates their transitive structure. Nonetheless, this is not categorically the case: as will be shown in Section 2.2.4 there are in fact occurrences of monomorphemic verbs in transitive clauses. Thus, while lack of verbal morphology is a strong indication that the clause in question is intransitive, interlocutors will still need to rely on other semantic and discourse cues to reliably establish this fact. While intransitive clauses are not the focus of this study, a few examples of monomorphemic intransitive verbs are given here in order to contextualize later discussion of transitive clauses and their arguments. Intransitive verbs have a single core participant, which may or may not be explicitly expressed. Unexpressed participants (sometimes called zero anaphora) will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3 on the Morphology of Arguments. In the following examples, verbs are labeled V and their single core argument, if expressed, is labeled S. (See the Appendix for a note on orthography.) S
V
(1) M: lakiné balik . husband-def return ‘her husband returned.’ (140:518) S
V
(2) H: Namun tiangé wis teka si. if pole-def already arrive part ‘If the poles [for the power lines] have already arrived.’1 (111:2087) S
V
(3) W: .. Tapi setelaé kita kawin nu, but after.ind-def 1sg marry that.med wadu. gosh
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V ibur Di. upset Di ‘But after I got married, gosh, (everyone) was upset, Di.’2 (114:680–682) V (4) D: . . . Kang penting , rel important V S .. seneng wong loro Wan. happy person two Wan ‘What’s important is that the two of them are happy, Wan.’ (114:786–787)
When oblique arguments occur in intransitive clauses, they are usually marked with a preposition. Note that sometimes in English the same meaning may be expressed with a grammatically transitive construction. S
V
OBL
(5) U: Anaké Bi Ira ka kawin bari wong Amerika ta? child-def aunt Ira that.dis marry with person America qu ‘Is Bi Ira’s daughter married to an American?’ (107:1131) V
OBL
(6) O: Kenal beli bari Man Basuri ? know neg with uncle Basuri ‘Do (you) know Man Basuri or not?’ (107:784) S (7) B:
V
Isun nu takon 1sg that.med ask
OBL ning wong= biasa adol= , to person usual sell
.. nangka-nangka ka. jackfruit-redup that.dis ‘I asked the person who usually sells jackfruit, like that.’ (111:2021–2022)
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Chapter 2. The morphology of predicates
S
V
OBL
(8) D: .. Tapi kita seneng ning Épié , but 1sg happy to Epi-def ‘But I like Epi,’ (140:1076)
As it happens, in addition to the intransitive forms seen here, some of these verbs also serve as the base for structurally transitive forms. Some of these are discussed in Sections 2.3.3.1 and 2.3.3.2 below. .. Intransitive verbal morphology In addition to the monomorphemic verbs discussed above, there are many intransitive verbs in Cirebon Javanese that have affixes, reduplication, or a combination of these. Some of the morphology commonly associated with intransitive verbs is discussed in this section. Because neither intransitive verbs nor the details of the Cirebon Javanese system of derivational morphology are the focus of this study, the following is not a complete catalog of possible morphological forms that one might find among intransitive verbs, nor are the semantic nuances of the different forms spelled out in detail. This discussion is merely to illustrate both their form and semantic implications as regards clause structure, mainly as background against which to give the later discussion of transitive clauses more depth. The morphology discussed includes the prefixes a-, N- and m-, the suffix -an, the circumfix ke-/-an, reduplication, and partial reduplication. ... The nasal prefix Many intransitive verbs take a nasal prefix, N-. This prefix is realized as ngbefore vowels and liquids, and as a nasal homorganic with the initial consonant of the base in most other cases; if the initial consonant of the base is voiceless or /w/, the consonant is elided. Some examples of intransitive verbs with the nasal prefix include: S
V
(9) W: isuné ngomong ning rabié sun nu. 1sg-def n-talk to wife-def 1sg that.med ‘I talked to my wife.’ (114:1264)
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S
V
(10) D: .. % Srié nyéwot Jok. Sri-def n-angry Jok ‘Sri was angry, Jok.’ (108:2025)
As has been mentioned before, the single participant of an intransitive clause need not be expressed explicitly, as in the following examples: V (11) B: .. Noli ndekem ning pawon. then n-sit in kitchen ‘Then (I) work in the kitchen.’ (107:922) V (12) T: Noli nunggu ning uma baé Din wis. then n-wait in house just Din already ‘Then all (you) have to do is wait at home, Din.’ (111:657)
The intransitive prefix N- is homophonous with a prefix that occurs on some transitive predicates (see Section 2.3.2.1). This homophony means that simply the presence a nasal prefix is not in itself sufficient to indicate the grammatical (in)transitivity of the clause that the verb occurs in. Interlocutors must rely on the semantics of the verb itself together with other grammatical and pragmatic cues in order to identify the sort of clausal structure the verb is participating in. ... The prefix mA small class of intransitive verbs takes the prefix m-. This prefix is found only on intransitive verbs. Verbs with m- are often, though not exclusively, verbs indicating motion or manifestations of physical presence. For example, the base form referring to the notion of stopping is andeg. The derived form mandeg, with the intransitive prefix m-, means ‘stop (intransitive)’ with its single argument referring to that which itself stops. This is illustrated in example (13). (13) W: . . . Kaya-kaya ya, like-redup yes V .. beli bisa mandeg . neg can m-stop
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Chapter 2. The morphology of predicates
S motor kuen Di. motorcycle that.med Di ‘It was like the motorcycle couldn’t stop, Di.’ (114:331–333)
In contrast, the form diandegaken ‘stop (transitive), cause to stop’, has morphology typical of transitive verbs: the P-trigger prefix and causative suffix (see Section 2.3). When transitivizing morphology is used with roots that take m- in their intransitive form, we would expect the appropriate form of the nasal prefix to be applied to the base. This is indeed what is reported for Standard Central Javanese, thus m-anjing > manjing ‘go inside’ and N-anjing-aké > nganjingaké ‘put something inside’. In Cirebon Javanese, however, there is a tendency toward back-formation resulting in some roots being perceived as having initial /m/ or /p/. This process is ongoing and not stabilized as the following sets of acceptable forms indicate. (14) Cirebon Javanese mélu mélui dipélui
Standard Central Javanese mélu ‘join’ ngéloni ‘join with’ diéloni ‘to be joined by’
mudun ngudunaken / mudunaken diudunaken / dimudunaken
medhun ‘descend’ ngedhunaké ‘lower’ didhunaké ‘to be lowered’
manjing manjing ‘enter’3 nganjingaken / manjingaken nganjingaké ‘put inside’ dianjingaken / *dimanjingaken dianjingaké ‘to be put inside’
Other examples of intransitive verbs with m- include: S
V
(15) D: . . . Dadang baé sering manjing tolian ngroko. Dadang just often.ind m-enter then n-smoke ‘Even Dadang comes inside and smokes.’ (114:526) V (16) D: Numpak mobil ta mlaku . n-ride car or m-walk ‘Do (we) take transport or walk?’ (108:3751)
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(17) R: Terus diangkat, then di-elevate V muni . m-sound ‘then when (you) pick (it) up, (it) makes a sound.’ (111:1671–1672)
The prefix m- is a reliable indicator of an intransitive clause. This is unlike the nasal prefix, which is homophonous with a transitive prefix and can thus be ambiguous in some contexts. The single participant of a verb with m- must also be semantically appropriate to fulfill the role of agent or cause of a physical manifestation of movement or sensory stimulus. This fact helps interlocutors locate a possible referent for the single participant of such a verb from among those available in the discourse. Chapters 3 and 4 will discuss unexpressed participants and Chapter 6 will discuss how interlocutors identify the referent of such unexpressed participants in conversational interaction. ... The suffix -an The suffix -an can be used to indicate a state involving a characteristic associated with the base of the verb. When a verb ending in -an functions as a predicate, the implication is that there is a single core participant whose referent displays this characteristic. The base may be a noun as in (18), where béwok ‘beard’ serves as the base for béwokan ‘bearded’. (18) D: Tampangé serem, appearance.ind-def frightening.ind béwokan, beard-an . . . lemu. fat ‘His appearance is frightening, bearded, fat.’ (111:1080–1082)
A verb may also serve as the base of an -an form. Example (19) illustrates the telic verb pegat ‘get a divorce’. Compare this with the stative form pegatan ‘be divorced’ in (20). (19) R: Toli kan, then part
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Chapter 2. The morphology of predicates
dadi kan, so part cemburu. jealous ‘Then you know, so you know, (he) was jealous. Dadié pegat. therefore-def divorce ‘So (he) got divorced.’ (140:348–351) (20) B: pegatan oli setaun. divorce-an already one.year ‘(we)’ve been divorced for a year.’ (111:205)
The base of an intransitive verb with -an can also be an expressive. Expressives are words conceived by speakers of Cirebon Javanese as being onomatopoetic of the event or state they describe.4 They are often used in conjunction with a lexical item that has the same meaning in order to engender a certain immediacy to what is being said. Expressives can also be used alone as predicates (see Section 2.4.4), or they may serve as the base of a verb with -an to mean that the single argument of the clause is in the process of experiencing that which is being expressed by the base. Grembul is an expressive representing the feeling of a group of people walking together. Grembulan in example (21) is a verb meaning ‘to walk together in a group’. (21) A: .. Engkoé boca, later child papat grembulan. four expr.together-an sebuté enem. sometimes six ‘There will be four kids together, sometimes six.’ (107:930–931)5
Much of the morphology that occurs with intransitive verbs in Cirebon Javanese is also used in the derivation of lexical items in other word classes as well. The suffix -an also occurs in noun formation. Cantél ‘to hang’ yields cantélan ‘a hanger’, rongsok ‘used’ yields rongsokan ‘second hand goods’. Indeed, the suffix -an is one of the more frequently occurring morphemes in Cirebon Javanese. Many adverbials, linkers, and other grammatical words often have
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synonymous forms both with and without -an, apparently without any difference in meaning: arep, arepan ‘fut’; bokat, bokatan ‘if ’; sok, sokan ‘often’; temen, temenan ‘very, extremely’; tes, tesan ‘after’; wani, wanian ‘until’. In addition to the future tense markers arep and arapan, there is a reduced form of the latter: pan. Occasionally speakers add a second -an to this shortened version yielding panan. Of the five phonological segments in panan, only one is a retention from the original arep. ... The circumfix ke-/-an The circumfix that combines the prefix ke- and the suffix -an indicates that the single argument of the verb thus affixed is in some sense affected by this action or is a non-volitional participant in the event. This single argument is often portrayed as a patient. In example (22) the state of remembering or recalling is portrayed as occurring involuntarily to the referent of the single argument. (22) D: masi kelingan lu=d. still ke-remember-an voc ‘(I) still remember, man.’ (140:1722)
As with -an, ke-/-an also participates in nominal derivations: sugi ‘rich’ yields kesugian ‘wealth’; wali ‘saint’ yields kewalian ‘saintly knowledge’. ... Full reduplication Full reduplication is a common morphological process occurring in a wide range of word classes in Cirebon Javanese. It can indicate a variety of functions that are cross-linguistically typical of reduplication, such as intensification, progressive or imperfective aspect, multiplicity, and similarity (cf. Moravcsik 1978). In (23) both kabar ‘news’, or in this context ‘say, tell news’, and dolan ‘play’ are reduplicated. Kabar-kabaré gives a sense that the news source is some indeterminate person or persons, while dolan-dolan suggests no specific goal, just going out for a good time. (23) W: Pribén, how kabar-kabaré, news-redup-def sering dolan-dolan ngalor beli? often play-redup n-north neg ‘So what’s going on, they say you go hang out to the north, don’t you?’ (114:396–397)
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Chapter 2. The morphology of predicates
A word that incorporates reduplication with the suffix -an adds one of these nuances to the descriptive quality of the form. Thus from adus ‘bathe’, the reduplicated form in example (24) expresses the fact that the children involved are swimming aimlessly, that is, playing. (24) P: ning kalié, in river-def adus-adusan. bathe-redup-an ‘(they) were playing around in the river.’ (151:215–216)
From gitar ‘guitar’, gitar-gitaran means, in this context, spending time learning to play the guitar. (25) D: .. Ya lagi masi gitar-gitaran beli_h?6 yeah when still guitar-redup-an neg ‘Yeah when (I) was still playing around on the guitar you know?’ (114:33)
Full reduplication is also used to derive other classes of words: agem ‘wear, use’ yields agem-agem ‘amulet’; angen ‘long for’ yields angen-angen ‘dream’. Reduplication also has an inflection function discussed in Chapter 3 on nouns. ... Partial reduplication A number of intransitive verbs have a form of partial reduplication consisting of initial doubling of the first segment of the base followed by a schwa. Partial reduplication does not seem to be productive or have a clear unified meaning in modern Cirebon Javanese. (26) W: kacék rong dina maning wewara ng wong tua isun. different two day more c6-inform to parent 1sg ‘two days later I told my parents.’ (114:861)
The verb in example (26) has the base wara, which in the transitive form diwarakaken means to give information to someone. In the form with partial reduplication, the meaning is to request permission (i.e. by informing a higher status person of one’s intentions). The base of the verbs in example (27), layad, refers to attending a funeral, which in the Javanese context would typically mean visiting at the home of the deceased. (27) W: apan lelayad ’é, fut c6-attend.funeral quote
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munié konon. say-def like.that.med Ngelayad wong mati. n-attend.funeral person dead ‘she said (she) was going to a funeral, (she) was going to attend the funeral of a dead person.’ (114:3105–3108)
In this story the protagonist, who had forgotten to take her identification card when she went out, is essentially trying to work her way out of an ID check by a policemen. The quoted speaker first presents herself to the policeman as saying she is on her way to attend a funeral, using the intransitive lelayad with partial reduplication. This is then upgraded to the transitive form ngelayad, which takes the deceased as the referent of the P argument, presumably in order to strengthen the case that she should not be subjected to the ID check. Like the other morphology applying to intransitive verbs, partial reduplication can also derive nouns: baku ‘basic’ yields bebaku ‘basis’ and gedé ‘large’ yields gegedé ‘important person’. ... Summary: Intransitive verbal morphology In this section we have looked at some of the more common types of morphology associated with intransitive verbs in Cirebon Javanese. This has included m-, which is a dedicated intransitive verb marker, and N-, which is an intransitive verb marker, but which is homophonous with a transitive verb prefix. We have also reviewed some of the derivational morphology that can occur with verbs that function as the predicate of intransitive clauses. Much of this morphology can also be used in the derivation of lexical items in other word classes as well. This means that in Cirebon Javanese, this derivational morphology in itself does not uniquely identify forms as belonging to a specific word class, for example intransitive verbs or nouns. While there are tendencies regarding the word classes associated with different morphological forms, the actual outcome of a derivation is specific to each lexical item and reinforced by its usage within discourse. The multifunctional nature of derivational morphology has been noted as a characteristic of the Austronesian languages of western Indonesia (Himmelman 2005). In Cirebon Javanese this derivational morphology itself gives interlocutors minimal information about the structure of the clauses in which such derived forms occur.
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Chapter 2. The morphology of predicates
.. Existential constructions The existential verb ana can be used to introduce a new, non-identifiable referent into discourse. This may be done by asserting existence of a certain class of referents as in (28), in which the speaker is apologizing for something he just said which might have been seen as offensive. (28) W: .. Ana omongan kang= éna=k, exist talk-an rel pleasant ya= ana kang blénak. yes exist rel unpleasant Ya njaluk dimaklumi baé konon. yes n-request di-understand-i just like.that.med ‘There’s pleasant talk and there’s unpleasant talk. (I) just hope (you)’ll understand (me).’ (114:583–584)
Ana may also introduce a particular referent into the discourse, as with the customer in (29), who will be the subject of an anecdote. (29) T: Mésuk ana wong tuku ya? this.morning exist person buy yes ‘This morning there was a customer, right?’ (151:406)
Whether the new referent being introduced is presented as a general class or a particular entity, it is often situated in time, as in example (29) above, or in space, as in example (30) below. (30) M: boko= ana wong ning pawon lu, if exist person at kitchen that.med tinggal lunga baé. remain go just ‘if there’s someone in the kitchen, then it just remains for (me) to leave [since whoever they are, they’ll be a better cook than I]’. (151:104–105)
The existential construction can also be used to affirm the presence of an identifiable referent, as in (31), in which students who have been waiting at the canteen realize it is time to go to class. (31) D: .. Ana pak gurué jé. exist Mr. teacher-def part ‘Hey, the teacher’s here.’ (108:3554)
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Some constructions with ana involve a second noun phrase and form a kind of possessive construction as seen in (32). (32) D: Kita Minggu apan ana acara. 1sg Sunday fut exist activity ‘I have plans on Sunday.’ (108:3508)
To indicate non-existence, Cirebon Javanese has a dedicated negative existential verb. This has two variants, both commonly used, laka and langka. As with the positive existential, the negative form can be used with both non-referential and referential entities. In (33) the negative existential is used with a nonreferential noun phrase and indicates the total non-existence of any referent expressed by that noun phrase. (33) B: .. Langka wong dagang kénén ni. neg.exist person sell like.this this ‘There won’t be anyone selling this kind of thing.’ (107:660)
Used with a referential noun phrase, the negative existential means that the referent in question is not present in a given location, although still existing in the world. In (34) the speaker is reporting that his girlfriend’s parents were not at home when he went to visit her. (34) D: .. Wong tuaé laka Umar. parent-def neg.exist Umar ‘Her parents weren’t there, Umar.’ (108:3678)
.. Summary: Intransitive verbal predicates There is a wide range of verb types that take a single participant in Cirebon Javanese. Intransitive verbs may be monomorphemic, in which case there is no morphology to give any indication of their argument structure. There are also intransitive verbs that have verbal morphology or derivational affixation. The fact that a given word represents an intransitive predicate in a given clause is usually not indicated directly by its morphology. The fact that a verb is serving as the predicate of an intransitive clause must be inferred from other sources, although it maybe be reinforced by morphological information which is consistent with the implied grammatical structure. The only morpheme among those discussed above that is an unambiguously dedicated intransitive verb marker is m-. The intransitive prefix N- is homophonous with a transitive marker and other affixes found with intransitive verbs can be used to form nouns. In addition, the semantic role of the single participant of an intransitive
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clause is usually known solely by the semantics of the verb and not indicated by the verbal morphology. This inference may be supported by certain types of morphology on the intransitive verb, but this morphology usually does not categorically signal information about argument semantics, again with the exception of m-, which does indicate that the referent of its single argument should be capable of a physical presence.
. Verbal predicates: Transitive clauses The distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs is important in Cirebon Javanese. Morphologically, transitive verbs participate in a paradigm of prefixes that has usually been understood by grammarians as expressing alternations in diathesis and has often been described with terms like passive and active or patient-focus and actor-focus. Since none of these ways of describing transitive clause systems is well suited to Javanese or other languages of the area, many linguists use an alternative terminology based on the notion of trigger. This terminology was first introduced by Fox (1982) and has been used by many researchers working with Austronesian languages (Cumming 1991; Englebretson 2003; Ewing 2005a; Wouk 1996). I will use this trigger terminology in my discussion of Javanese transitive clauses. The two macro-roles associated with transitive clauses are A and P. There are a number of constructions in Javanese, such as relative clauses and other types of clause combining, in which the argument that forms the link between the two clauses, sometimes called the pivot (Foley & van Valin 1984), plays a grammatically significant part in the construction. The macro-role of the linking noun phrase triggers the use of certain verbal prefixes in the subordinate clause, and thus this argument is referred to as the trigger of the clause. These verbal prefixes are not limited to clause combining contexts, but can also be found in all types of transitive clauses. In the present study, any clause whose grammatical structure and verbal morphology is consistent with one whose P argument has the role of trigger will be referred to as a P-trigger clause and the relevant morphology on the verb can be called a P-trigger prefix. Similarly, any clause whose grammatical structure is consistent with one whose trigger is the A argument can be called an A-trigger clause and the corresponding verb morphology is the A-trigger prefix. A voice distinction of this type is common in many other Western Austronesian languages. Two different approaches have generally been taken by researchers investigating the voice systems of Western Austronesian languages.
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There are those who treat these systems asymmetrically, as either accusativepassive or ergative-antipassive alternations, depending on which clause type is considered more basic. Others treat the alternation as symmetrical, without involving a change in valency (see discussion in Himmelman 2002; also G. Poedjosoedarmo 2002 for Javanese). In the present study I follow the latter approach and regard this alternation as valency-neutral. This enables us to investigate these two constructions in some detail on a relatively equal basis. I am not claiming that they are equivalent in their discourse, functional, or grammatical properties. Indeed, one aim of the present study is to examine the structural as well as discourse functional differences between these two transitive clause types, and in so doing I am better able to answer the question of how best to characterize them. The verbal morphology of P-trigger verbs is discussed in Section 2.3.1 below. The verbal morphology of A-trigger verbs is discussed in Section 2.3.2. In addition to the P-trigger and A-trigger prefixes, many verbs of transitive clauses also have certain applicative suffixes associated with their transitivity. These suffixes are discussed in Section 2.3.3. .. P-trigger constructions When the trigger of a transitive clause is the P argument, the verb may be marked with the prefix di- or tak-, or the verb may be unprefixed. Each of these types of marking is discussed below. ... The prefix diWhen a P-trigger verb occurs with a prefix, this prefix is di- if the agent is second or third person. In Cirebon Javanese the prefix di- is used in both bebasan and common language. This is unlike Standard Central Javanese, in which the high style dipun- contrasts with the common style di-. When the agent of a prefixed P-trigger verb is first person, the prefix may be either di- or tak- (see Section 2.3.1.2 for discussion of tak-). No morphophonemic changes occur with di-. If the P argument is explicitly expressed, it is not overtly marked for case. If the A argument is explicitly expressed, it is frequently, although not obligatorily, marked with the preposition ning (teng in the bebasan speech level). In P-trigger clauses with overt arguments, there are a variety of orders in which constituents can occur. However, constituent order is a moot point for the many examples of P-trigger clauses whose participants are not explicitly expressed. Constituency and constituent order are discussed in Chapter 5.
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Examples (35) through (37) illustrate P-trigger constructions with the verbal prefix di- and third person agents marked with the preposition ning. As it happens, these examples all have PVA constituent order. P
V
A
ditinggal ning Éli , (35) M: Kan mamang ku part father that.med di-leave by Eli ‘Eli walked out on dad you know,’ (151:999) P
V
A
(36) W: sewaktu kita di= .. digonjaki ning boca-boca ka= , when.ind 1sg di- di-tease-i by child-redup that.dis ‘when my friends were teasing me,’ (114:1021) P (37) P:
V
Bi Marsam Aunt Marsam A
dipai seg=a sun. di-give rice 1sg.quote
.. ning Naning ku . by Naning that.med ‘Marsam was given some rice, I said, by Naning.’ (151:878)
In addition to having fully expressed A arguments, all of the above examples also have fully expressed P arguments. We will see later that this is actually an unusual situation with P-trigger constructions. More common are cases where the P or A argument, or both, are not explicitly expressed, as in examples (38) through (40). Example (38) is taken from a story about the magic powers utilized by two rival gangs. V
A
(38) A: Yong dikroyok wong aké , although di-attack people many beli .. wani kabé. not brave all. ‘Although (the Gunungjati folks) were attacked by a large number of people, none (of those attackers) had the courage [to fight the Gunungjati folks].’ (108:320)
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The interlocutors’ shared knowledge makes it clear to the participants in the conversation that the group of people being attacked (the referent of the P argument) is the gang from Gunungjati, although this is not explicitly expressed as part of the clause containing the verb dikroyok ‘attack’. The attackers are explicitly expressed, but without the preposition ning. It is again shared knowledge that allows the interpretation in the second clause that it is the attackers who lack courage. (See Chapter 6 for a more detailed discussion of the story from which example (38) is taken.) (39) W:
V
P
bisa diwakilaken wong tua ku melalui pamané ta=, can di-represent-aken parent that.med through.ind uncle-def or ‘The father can be represented by the uncle or. . . ’ (114:832)
In example (39), the P argument, the trigger, is expressed after the verb. The person who is understood to be acting as representative, that is, the referent of the A participant, is the uncle. It is not entirely clear, however, that the noun phrase pamané ‘the uncle’ should in fact be called the grammatical A argument at this point because it is marked with the borrowed Indonesian verbal preposition melalui ‘through, by way of ’. V (40) D: Dadi sengaja di=teken . so intentionally di-pressure.ind ‘So (he) intentionally pressured (you).’ (111:302)
In example (40) the verb is expressed with concomitant adverbial information but without explicit core participants. Both the referent of the P argument (the addressee) and the referent of the A argument (the addressee’s future brother-in-law) are identifiable from the context and not explicitly expressed at this point. In the previous examples of di- constructions, the agents were third person. As it happens, Standard Central Javanese prescriptively associates di- marked verbs with third person agents, and there are dedicated prefixes for first and second person agents (see discussion in Section 2.3.1.3). Standard Central Javanese speakers will nonetheless use di- when first or second person agents are understood, but these are evaluated by speakers as ‘less direct’ than their corresponding forms with first or second person agent prefixes (Elisabeth Riharti, p.c.). In Cirebon Javanese, the A argument of a di- construction can be second person with no such feeling of indirection. Indeed, Cirebon Javanese has no
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second person A prefix form corresponding to the Standard Central Javanese kok-. In (41) the di- form verb is used with a second person A referent, which is explicitly expressed in a prepositional phrase. (41) W: Seolah-olah – as.if.ind Apa kang perna dicerita`enang ning énté ka, what rel ever di-tell-nang by 2sg that.dis ‘It’s like – what you once talked about,’ (114:637)
In speaker U’s question in (42) the A argument of the di-marked verb is not explicitly expressed. (42) U: Baliké dijak? return-def di-invite ‘On the way back (you) invited (her friend)?’ D: .. Baliké takjak. return-def tak-invite ‘On the way back (I) invited (her friend).’ (108:2613–2624)
Because U is seeking confirmation about what his interlocutor, D, did in a story D is relating, it is clear that the referent of the A argument is the second person D. This is confirmed for us when D answers, using the P-trigger form of the verb with the first person tak- prefix (discussed in Section 2.3.1.2 below). In Cirebon Javanese, the prefix di- can also be used when the referent of the A argument is first person. Again this contrasts with Standard Central Javanese which prescriptively only uses the prefix tak- for first person A in P-trigger clauses. Speakers of Standard Central Javanese would consider the use of di- with an unexpressed first person A participant to be indirect, and with an expressed first person A argument as ungrammatical. In Cirebon Javanese, although the prefix tak- is also available, the use of di- with first person A arguments is not unusual. The expression of the argument can be made explicitly with a first person pronoun, as in example (43), in which the speaker is comparing his spiritual teacher’s advice with advice he had received in a dream. (43) S: tepat bari= .. omongan anu. exact with speech ws konon. like.that.med
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V Kang diimpinang , rel di-dream-nang A .. a- ning kita . by 1sg ‘what that person said was exactly like what I had dreamed about.’ (134:1018–1019)
The first person A argument of a di- marked verb need not be explicitly expressed, as in example (44). Because, as we have seen, di- marked verbs can explicitly and directly have first person agents, the use of di- with an unexpressed first person agent is no less direct than any other use of unexpressed agents. (44) D: Ning dangdut seneng. to k.o.music happy V Wis di=geluti , already di-wrestle-i ya wis, yes already sampé= lawas la. until long emph ‘(I) like dangdut. (I)’ve already struggled at (it) for a long time.’ (114:41)
Kinship terms are used for personal pronominal reference and these can occur as explicit reference to first person A arguments of di- marked verbs, as in example (45). (45) B: . . . Teka ning Tédéng, arrive at Tedeng V A . . . arloji= sing dienggo bapa ki, watch rel di-wear father this .. padahal bapa lagi ning epit. although.ind father prog on bicycle . . . mencelat. fall
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‘When (I) arrived at Tedeng, the watch I was wearing, and I was riding a bicycle, fell off.’ (105:139–142)
The verbal prefix di- gives us information about the structure of the clause in which it occurs, but this information is rather minimal. It indicates that the event expressed by the verb is being coded as a transitive event, implying that at least two associated participants are differentiated: one viewed as more agent-like and the other as more patient-like relative to each other. However, no further information about the referents of the A and P arguments is directly knowable through the occurrence of the prefix di- on the verb. No cross-referencing for person or other feature of either the A or P argument is associated with di- in Cirebon Javanese. And, while it is understood that the P argument is, under some situations at least, given a certain syntactic privilege, this information alone is not necessarily enough to uniquely identify its referent. Often both the P and A participants are unexpressed and, when expressed, may occur in various positions vis-à-vis the verb. While the prefix di- instructs the listener that there are two core arguments for which referents can, at least potentially, be located, the use of di- in itself is not sufficient for interlocutors to unambiguously identify the referents of these arguments. ... The prefix takIn the previous section we have seen that when the agent of a P-trigger construction is first person, the verb may be prefixed with di-. In Cirebon Javanese the prefix tak- is also used, as an alternative to di-, in P-trigger constructions with a first person agent. The agent need not be expressed with an explicit free pronoun, as illustrated in (46). Speaker P has just been interrupted by her adult daughter, who is starting to supply details to a story that P is telling. P is reclaiming the floor and ownership of the story. (46) P: Engko. later. V Takceritaknang ndingin. tak-tell-nang now ‘Just a second. (I)’m telling (it [the story]) now.’ (151:127–128)
According to grammars of Standard Central Javanese, in P-trigger constructions, tak- does not co-occur with an explicitly expressed agent. In Cirebon tak- is frequently used together with an explicit first person agent. As with the di- construction, this may either be marked with the preposition ning ‘by’, as in
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(47) and (48) (in which the kinship term bapa ‘father’ is used for first person reference), or by a pronoun without a preposition, as in (49) and (50). P
V
A
takumpataken ning kita nu . (47) D: Clana dalemé pants inner-def tak-hide-aken by 1sg that.med ‘I hid her underpants.’ (140:637) V
A
(48) B: Dadi takjokoti ning bapa , therefore tak-take-i by father ‘So I picked (it) up.’ (105:152) V
A
P
(49) D: . . . Takgawa kita gu . tak-carry 1sg that.med ‘I brought her.’ [gave her a ride] (108:2020) A
V
(50) W: Isun taktakoni perna. 1sg tak-ask-i ever ‘I once asked (him).’ (114:1609)
... The P-trigger prefix paradigm in Cirebon Javanese While the P-trigger verbal morphology of Standard Central Javanese can be analyzed, at least in the case of first and second person agents, as a paradigm of bound pronominal forms, such an analysis does not seem appropriate for Cirebon Javanese. Pronominal clitics and affixes play an important role in the grammars of many languages throughout Western Indonesia. Standard Central Javanese is a good exemplar, with its paradigm of tak-, kok-, and di- as first, second, and third person agent prefixes on verbs in P-trigger constructions. It has been shown above that this paradigm is more generalized in Cirebon Javanese. Figure 2.1 illustrates that, in contrast to Standard Central Javanese, in Cirebon Javanese di- does not indicate person of the agent. It can be used for any person and its function is better seen as a marker of a P-trigger construction, but not as a pronominal form, nor as any sort of indexing of person. The prefix di- is also used for first and second person A participants in Standard Central Javanese, but such usage is considered to be a marker of indirectness. In Cirebon Javanese use of di- is equally direct (and potentially equally ambigu-
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Figure 2.1 Bound pronominal forms on P-trigger verbs: Standard Central and Cirebon Javanese
ous) for all three persons. The only person-marking bound pronominal form in Cirebon Javanese is that indicating first person agent, and this competes for paradigmatic space with di-. It is not entirely clear whether tak-, in Cirebon, should be viewed as a referential pronominal form or as a non-referential cross-indexing of person on the verb (Ewing 2001). If we assume that one function of a referential pronominal form is to instruct a hearer to identify a discourse referent, there is evidence that tak- may not be transparently referential in this way for speakers of Cirebon Javanese. In initial and independent discussions with two consultants, it was clear they had no conscious awareness of tak- forms in isolation being associated with first person agents. They were each adamant that tak- was completely equivalent to di-, and that in isolation they could not say what the referent of the agent of a tak- marked verb might be. However, if I offered contrived examples with non-first person agents, these were consistently rejected. After their attention was focused on tak-, through this questioning and through discussion of naturally occurring examples, they each said that tak- only felt appropriate when used with a first person agent. The morpheme tak- may be no more referential, in the sense of explicitly activating a discourse referent, than is di-, so that while tak- must “agree” with a first person agent, the prefix itself does not activate a referent as a pronoun would. This suggests a process whereby a system of pronominal prefixes, differentiated for person and referring to the A argument of a P-trigger clause, is shifting in Cirebon Javanese toward a more generalized system in which a single form, di-, is a marker of trigger status but not of pronominal reference. ... Unprefixed verbs in P-trigger constructions Not all main verbs of transitive clauses in my database of Cirebon Javanese conversation are prefixed. While the prefix is a primary indicator of which argument serves as trigger of a clause, my research assistants were usually able to align clauses with unprefixed transitive verbs in the transcripts with either Ptrigger or A-trigger constructions. In this section we will look at some examples
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of unprefixed verbs in P-trigger constructions. Unprefixed verbs in A-trigger clauses are discussed in Section 2.3.2.2 below. The parallel production of a di- prefixed and an unprefixed form of pelajari ‘to study (something)’ in example (51) suggests that this unprefixed verb is an alternate P-trigger form.7 (51) D: . . . Kudu dipelajari [kabé]. must di-study.ind all ‘You need to study it all.’ W:
[Iya]. yes kudu pelajari kab=é. must study.ind all ‘Yes, you need to study it all.’ (114:97)
But without such parallel repetition with a di- form, my research assistants still equated examples like (52) with P-trigger constructions, saying that such verbs could or should have di-, but conceding that “leaving di- off ” was not uncommon in conversation. P
V
(52) P: Engkoé boca kongkon mréné`=na=ng jé. child ask n-here-nang quote later ‘(He) said (his) son would be asked to bring (it) here later.’ (151:477)
While P-trigger constructions with unprefixed verbs are relatively infrequent, they are nonetheless frequent enough to be considered a viable construction type and not simply a “production error”. Nonetheless, this structure is still potentially indeterminate in its discourse context and so I have chosen to leave the few examples in the database out of the constituency counts discussed in Chapter 5. ... Summary: Prefixes in P-trigger constructions This section has outlined the verbal prefixes used with P-trigger constructions. In Cirebon Javanese a verb with the prefix di- can be used in a P-trigger construction regardless of the referent of the A argument. If the referent of the A argument is second or third person, di- is the only prefix form available in a P-trigger construction. If the referent of the A argument is first person, in addition to di-, speakers also have available the form tak-. Speakers will occasionally use no prefix on the verb and these constructions can sometimes
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be interpreted as P-trigger constructions. Neither the A nor P participants of a P-trigger clause need be explicitly expressed, although both may be. When the A argument is expressed, it may be marked with the preposition ning, but need not be. When arguments are expressed explicitly, there are various constituent order arrangements that speakers make use of. These are discussed in Chapter 5. .. A-trigger constructions When the trigger of a transitive clause is the A argument, the verb may be marked with the prefix N- or may be unprefixed. Each type of marking is discussed below. ... The nasal prefix Most A-trigger verbs occur with the nasal prefix N-, whose morphophonemic properties are the same as those of the intransitive N- discussed in Section 2.2.2. If either the P or A participant is explicitly expressed, neither is overtly marked for case. In grammars of Standard Central Javanese, the constituent order of N- constructions is usually described as SVO (Ogloblin 2005) or AVP in the notation used here. This order also occurs in Cirebon Javanese and is illustrated in examples (53) through (55). A
V
P
(53) B: Pas isun nggawa duwit nu ya Din, exactly 1sg n-bring money that.med yes Din ‘Just when I brought the money, you know, Din . . . ’ (111:187) (54) A W:
V
P
Énté ku harus ngapal-ngapalnang lagu mengkonon Di. 2sg that.med must.ind n-memorize-redup-nang song like.that.med Di ‘You have to memorize those kinds of songs, Di.’ (114:162) A
V
P
(55) O: .. Mak lagi nggodog kembili ? mother prog n-boil yam ‘Is mom boiling yams?’ (107:17)
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Other constituent orders and the frequent non-expression of participants combine to yield a variety of A-trigger clause configurations in the discourse data, as illustrated below. V
P
A
(56) A: . . . Nonggoni apa kuené . n-wait-i what that.med-def ‘What’s he waiting for.’ (107:213) A
V
(57) D: Kita apan= ngrayu , 1sg fut n-persuade.ind ‘I’d wanted to persuade (her),’ (108:2613) V
P
(58) O: beli mangan sega . neg n-eat rice ‘(He) didn’t eat rice.’ (107:625)
For further discussion of argument expression and constituent order, see Chapters 3 and 5 respectively. ... Unprefixed verbs in A-trigger clauses In Cirebon Javanese, verbs of A-trigger clauses are consistently marked with the nasal prefix except for a few specific verbs. In the corpus used in this study, four verbs never occur with the nasal prefix in A-trigger constructions. These are bayar ‘pay’, gawé ‘make’, luru ‘look for’, and tuku ‘buy’. When these verbs occur in A-trigger constructions, they are always unprefixed. In P-trigger constructions these verbs take di- or tak- as do other transitive verbs. Example (59) illustrates the use of the unprefixed tuku ‘buy’ in an A-trigger clause, while in example (60) it occurs with di- in a P-trigger clause. A
V
P
(59) M: Kita tuku endog ning Pa Mut, 1sg buy egg at Pa Mut ‘I bought some eggs from Pa Mut,’ (151:1335)
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P
V
A
(60) B: Maué kaé dituku Kaji Ran . earlier that.dis-def di-buy pilgram Ran ‘It [the land] was bought by Haji Ran.’ (107:1820)
The verb luru ‘search for’ is illustrated in example (61) in both its unprefixed A-trigger form and its P-trigger form with di-. In this segment the speaker, who regularly goes to Cirebon for spiritual study, relates a conversation he had with an acquaintance who is suspicious of his motives. (61) S: teka ning tana Cerbon. come to land Cirebon V
P
.. Arep luru élmu apa . fut search knowledge what V Kang diluru ya embu. rel di-search yes I.don’t.know ‘ “(You) come to Cirebon, what kind of knowledge are (you) looking for?” [he asked me]. “Yeah, I don’t know what (I’m) looking for” [I said].’ (121:2711–2713)
Unprefixed A-trigger verbs are a different case from unprefixed P-trigger verbs (Section 2.3.1.4). Unprefixed P-trigger forms occur with verbs that also have prefixed P-trigger forms and thus seem to constitute an emerging paradigmatic alternation in the P-trigger construction. In contrast, unprefixed A-trigger forms are limited to a small number of verbs that consistently appear this way: they are the idiosyncratic A-trigger form of these specific verbs rather than a contrasting alternate to forms with the nasal prefix. In discussion of transitive clauses in Chapter 5 these verbs are considered to be transitive and are included in coding. There is another set of unprefixed verbs that participate in clauses with two participants. These verbs include dagang ‘sell’, duwé ‘have, own’, oli ‘receive’ and weru ‘know’. They have low discourse transitivity in the sense of Hopper and Thompson (1980) and significantly they do not take the prefixes di- or tak- and never participate in P-trigger constructions. These verbs are therefore not included in the counts of transitive clauses in Chapter 5.
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... Summary: Prefixes in A-trigger clauses While the prefix N- can serve as a strong cue to interactants that the clause in which an N- marked verb occurs is an A-trigger clause, this prefix alone is neither necessary nor sufficient to establish categorically that the clause in question is A-trigger. It is not necessary in the case of those verbs that do not take N- in A-trigger clauses. This is, however, somewhat trivial because these verbs are a small and easily specified class. It is not sufficient because many intransitive verbs take the homophonous nasal prefix. In any given clause, semantic information about the verb together with discourse information about its arguments is also necessary in order for interlocutors to fully identify the overall structure of the clause. .. Transitive suffixes In Cirebon Javanese, many verbs of transitive clauses consist of a monomorphemic base together with a trigger-marking prefix, for example dituku ‘buy’ (60) or nggawa ‘carry’ (53). The trigger morphology on these verbs indicates that they are participating in a transitive clause structure, but there is no morphological indication of the semantics of their participants. This is only implied lexically. Many other verbs of transitive clauses also include one of the transitive suffixes, -i or -aken (-nang), see for example digeluti ‘struggle with’ (44), diwakilaken ‘represent’ (39), and ngapal-ngapalnang ‘memorize’ (54). The presence of these suffixes indicates not only that these verbs have a transitive structure but also gives some clue to the semantics of the core arguments. Each of the following subsections first outlines some morphophonemic aspects of these suffixes in Cirebon Javanese and then briefly discusses their various semantic and syntactic functions. The section concludes with a discussion of the implications of these suffixes for understanding clause structure in conversation. ... The suffix -i When a verb occurs with the suffix -i in Cirebon Javanese, there are usually no morphophonemic changes, as the examples in (62) show. (62) diarangi (di-arang-i) ‘make sparse, reduce the density of ’ dibungbui (di-bungbu-i) ‘season, add spice to’
However, vowel-final bases can take an epenthetic /n/ between the base and -i. If epenthetic /n/ occurs and the final vowel of the base is either /u/ or /i/, it
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is lowered to /o/ or /e/ respectively. Epenthetic /n/ is illustrated in (63), with vowel lowering in the last two items. (63) dirasani (di-rasa-i) diblawéni (di-blawé-i) dijeroni (di-jero-i) dipaténi (di-pati-i) diidoni (di-idu-i)
‘gossip about’ ‘forbid’ ‘gut’ ‘kill’ ‘spit at’
The pattern illustrated in (63) is the same as that found in Standard Central Javanese. One characteristic of Cirebon -i that is different from Standard Central Javanese is that when the vowels of final and penultimate syllables in the root are both /u/, both can undergo lowering. (64) Cirebon Javanese Standard Central Javanese ditonggoni (di-tunggu-i) ditunggoni ‘wait for, watch over’ disosoni (di-susu-i) disusoni ‘breastfeed’
Another characteristic of Cirebon Javanese is the fact that there is a fair amount of variation in the use of epenthetic /n/. Whether it is required, optional, or disallowed varies according to the verb. While more than a third of vowel-final verbs with -i that appeared in elicitation sessions with my consultants required epenthetic /n/, as illustrated in (63) above, almost half could not occur with epenthetic /n/, illustrated in (65) below. The remaining verbs had alternate forms, as in (66). (65) ditekai, *ditekani (di-teka-i) ‘visit’ dibasui, *dibasoni (di-basu-i) ‘wash (many)’ (66) dinggoi ∼ dinggoni (di-enggo-i) ‘use (repeatedly)’ ditindii ∼ diténdéni (di-tindi-i) ‘load down’
This distribution is, however, not equal across all base-final vowels. The majority of verbs ending in /a/ do not take epenthetic /n/ with the suffix -i, while the majority of verbs ending in /i/ do take epenthetic /n/ (and concomitant vowel lowering when appropriate) with the suffix -i. Both formations, with and without /n/, are frequently found with verbs ending in other vowels. It must be stressed that the specific examples and the range of variation reported here are based on elicitation from two assistants during the period 1993–1994. Other morphophonemic phenomena I have investigated have often been contested among different Cirebon Javanese speakers. This suggests that we could expect the actual distribution of accepted forms to vary regionally and over time as well as by individual. These examples are not meant to represent a
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definitive codification of forms in Cirebon Javanese, but rather to illustrate the kind of flux and variation that is characteristic of much of Cirebon Javanese morphology. Depending on the root to which -i is suffixed, it can have a locative, dative, causative, or distributive meaning. The locative meaning includes examples that are semantically linked by the fact that some sort of orientation is being expressed in relation to the P argument. When the base of the verb is a noun, the referent expressed by this nominal base is being applied to or directed toward the P argument. In the case of (67) the root sambel means ‘chili sauce’ and the verb base sambeli means ‘to put chili sauce on something’. (67) A: . . . Énak kang di=sambeli= .. kénén ni. delicious rel di-chili.sauce-i like.this this ‘The ones that have chili sauce put on them like this taste good.’ (107:788)
When locative -i occurs on a verbal root, the structural consequence is that a participant or prop that would normally be expressed with a prepositional phrase if the verb did not have -i is brought into the core argument structure. In example (68) at arrow (b) the intransitive verb seneng ‘to like’ is followed by the theme expressed in a prepositional phrase. Compare this to the clause at arrow (a) where the verb has the A-trigger prefix and the suffix -i and the theme is expressed in core macro-role P. (68) W: Daripada kita, rather.than.ind 1inc8 a→
.. nyenengi sala-siji ning= bidang= musik, n-like-i one.among in field.ind music umpané, example-def
b→
.. seneng ning pop baé=, like to pop just ‘Rather than you like one kind of music, for example (you) only like pop,’ (114:63–66)
In example (67), there is a structural motivation for using the applicative -i. When the food on which the chili sauce is placed is a core argument it can serve as the pivot in the relative clause, a role it could not serve were it not a core argument. The use of applicative -i in (68) does not have such a clear structural motivation. We can speculate that, as has been shown to be the case
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in other languages, bringing an oblique argument into the core of the clause in Cirebon Javanese indicates that the referent of that argument is somehow more tightly associated with the action of the verb. However, there are few examples in the database of ‘alternations’ between the different structural possibilities, such as that illustrated in (68), so it is not possible at this point to make an empirically based analysis of the functional difference between these forms in Cirebon Javanese. When the referent of a P argument of a verb with locative -i is human, there is usually a dative reading. In (69) the use of -i on the noun root dongéng ‘story’ yields a verb whose P argument is the one to whom the story is told. (69) U: Kaya didongéngi ning nénék. like di-story-i by grandmother. ‘[She looks] like (she)’s being told a story by her grandmother.’ (107:1715)
The verb nyili means ‘to borrow’. With the suffix -i it means ‘to lend to someone’; that is, the referent of the P argument is the recipient of the loan. (70) D: . . . Malahan disilii Umar. contrary di-lend-i Umar ‘In fact (he) lent (me) [some money], Umar.’ (108:3490)
Another function is causative. For example, the intransitive verb mati means ‘dead’. With -i it has the meaning ‘to cause to be dead, to kill’. (71) K: .. Waktu dipaténi ya? time di-dead-i yes ‘The time when (someone) got killed right?’ (108:303)
The suffix -i also has a distributive function. This may express such notions as one participant repeating an action, many participants engaged in an action, or an action being directed toward multiple participants. Example (72) illustrates the verb njaluk ‘to request’ with a P argument unspecified for number. In example (73) the use of the distributive suffix -i is consistent with the plurality expressed by the reduplicated form of surat meaning ‘different documents’. (72) D: Engko péngén njaluk foto la. later want n-request photograph emph ‘(I) want to ask for a photo later.’ (108:4034) (73) W: Wis lapor-laporan ya? already report-redup-an yes
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ning kéné ya, at there yes njaluki surat-surat. n-request-i document-redup ‘(I) had already done all the reporting there right, (I)’d asked for all the documents.’ (114:843–845)
... The suffixes -aken and -nang The verb suffixes -aken and -nang are semantically equivalent in Cirebon Javanese (see discussion below). In Cirebon -aken is not differentiated for social style. This is unlike Standard Central Java in which the common forms -aké or -ké contrast with the high form -aken. When -aken occurs with base words ending in consonants, there is no morphophonemic change. For some speakers, epenthetic /‘/ or /k/ can occur between vowel final roots and -aken, as illustrated by the acceptable variants in (74), where /‘/ is represented orthographically by <`>. (74) diambaaken ∼ diamba`aken ∼ diambakaken (di-amba-aken) ‘widen’ digedéaken ∼ digedé`aken ∼ digedékaken (di-gedé-aken) ‘enlarge’ dioliaken ∼ dioli`aken ∼ diolikaken (di-oli-aken) ‘allow’
Other variants are found with epenthetic /n/: (75) ditampanaken (di-tampa-aken) ‘receive (for someone)’ diblawénaken (di-blawé-aken) ‘forbid’
A few verbs follow the pattern, discussed with -i above, of base-final /u/ or /i/ lowering to /o/ or /e/ respectively, some with epenthetic /n/, others with epenthetic /k/. Again, if /u/ is found in both final and penultimate open syllables then both can be lowered to /o/. (76) dipaténaken (di-pati-aken) ‘kill (for someone)’ didadékaken (di-dadi-aken) ‘turn into’ ditangénaken (di-tangi-aken) ‘awaken’ diloronaken (di-luru-aken) ‘search for (for someone)’ dirongokaken (di-rungu-aken) ‘listen to’
The suffix -nang exhibits similar morphophonemic changes. Of the 130 tokens of verbs with -nang found in the extended database used in this study, including base forms ending in vowels and consonants, 74% show no morphophonemic changes. Of the 26% that exhibit some morphophonemic change, if the base ends in a consonant, an epenthetic /6/ can occur, as illustrated in (77).
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(77) didodokenang (di-dodok-nang) ‘seat (someone)’ dianjingenang (di-anjing-nang) ‘put inside’ diputusenang (di-putus-nang) ‘decide’
When the base form ends in a vowel, an epenthetic consonant or consonant plus vowel can occur. These may be /‘/, /k/, /‘6/ or /k6/, as illustrated in (78). (78) dianu`nang (di-anu-nang) ‘do such and such to (something)’ diloroknang (di-luru-nang) ‘look for (for someone)’ dicerita`enang (di-cerita-nang) ‘tell (something)’ ditampakenang (di-tampa-nang) ‘receive (for someone)’
With some bases ending in /u/ and /i/, vowel lowering can occur, as illustrated with the second item in (78). When vowel lowering occurs with -nang an epenthetic consonant is always present. But epenthesis does not predict vowel lowering, as in (79). (79) ditentukenang (di-tentu-nang) ‘determine’
As with -i, the range of formations found with -aken and -nang varies by speaker, region, and individual verb. For example the base form rungu ‘hear’ always undergoes vowel lowering with epenthesis in the derived form meaning ‘listen to’. (80) dirongokaken, dirongokenang
At the other extreme, there are several realizations attested in my database for the base form rasa with -aken or -nang, meaning ‘to feel, experience’: (81) dirasaaken, dirasakaken, dirasanang, dirasa`nang, dirasakenang.
Depending on the root with which -aken or -nang is used, both these suffixes can have a causative, benefactive, or transitivizing function. The forms -aken and -nang appear to be interchangeable in Cirebon Javanese. In elicitation sessions my consultants consistently stressed that any verb that occurred with -aken could also occur with -nang with the same meaning, and vice versa. This is illustrated in the following two examples, marked with arrows, both produced by the same woman to her granddaughter in the course of the same speech event. (82) P: Hé. hey →
Jukutenang dingklik nok. take-nang stool girl
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Kanggo njagongé mak iki. for n-sit-def mother this. ‘Hey. Get the stool [for me] dear. For me to sit on.’ (151:356–358) [60 intonation units intervening: < 1 min] →
P: Jukutaken dingklik ika nok. take-aken stool that.DIST girl ‘Get the stool [for me] dear.’ (151:418)
This does not preclude the possibility that there may be some subtle tendencies in preference for one suffix over the other in certain discourse or semantic situations, but no such distinction is apparent from the corpus I am working with. As it happens, there are both more types and more tokens of verbs with -nang than verbs with -aken in the database and it seems certain that the alternation between -aken and -nang would have sociolinguistic implications. The suffix -nang is reminiscent of -(k)na in Standard Central Javanese, which is usually described as the “imperative” or “subjunctive” form of -aké/-aken. Standard Central Javanese speakers to whom I have mentioned the Cirebon suffix -nang have assumed it is equivalent to -(k)na. Because -nang in Cirebon can have a benefactive meaning (as can -aken), it does often occur in imperative constructions, like (82) above. However, -nang is also common in indicative clauses (and -aken occurs in imperatives), and has exactly the same range of meanings associated with -aken. The story of where -nang came from and why it is so popular in Cirebon needs to await a much more detailed historical and dialectological study than I can offer here. The suffix -aken (-nang) can be used to indicate causation. For example, the root form andeg has to do with the notion of stopping. With the intransitive prefix m- (mandeg) it is equivalent to the English intransitive ‘stop’. With the causative suffix and appropriate trigger morphology it is equivalent to the English transitive ‘stop [someone or something], to cause to stop’. In (83), the speaker is telling the story of how he got on a public transport vehicle, although it was already full, because a woman he was interested in was riding in it. (83) A: .. Iku mobil ku beli diandegenang. that.med car that.med neg di-stop-nang Lamun= langka Ani si. if neg.exist Ani part
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‘(I) wouldn’t have stopped that transport, if Ani hadn’t been [on it] you know.’ (108:783–784)
The use of -aken in this case increases the valency of the verb from one to two. The suffix -aken (-nang) can also have a benefactive meaning, indicating that the action is performed for the benefit of some other participant. In (84) the verb jukut does not have a suffix and the understanding is that the speaker is holding on to what is good for himself (or rather, for whom it is held is not an issue). (84) D: Ya kang énak takjukut, yes rel good tak-take ‘OK (I)’ll keep what’s good,’ (114:577)
Compare this with (85). In this example B is telling a story and relating what a mother said to her daughter when a hunter arrived asking for water from them. The girl is instructed to get the water for the benefit of the guest and the verb is suffixed with benefactive -aken. (85) B: . . . mana nok, thither girl jukutaken, take-aken . . . gelas lasé ning, glass go.on at .. ning jero uma. at inside house ‘Go on dear and get a glass go on, from inside the house.’ (105:702–705)
That the glass is to be retrieved for the benefit of the thirsty guest is implied with the use of the suffix -aken and supported by the fact that the mother continues to explain that there is a thirsty man waiting outside. There is a sense in which constructions with benefactive -aken do increase the number of participants semantically evoked by the verb in that some party other than the actor is implied as benefiting from the state or event expressed. However, in example (85) the patient, which would have been the P argument of the verb njukut ‘to get’ remains the P argument of njukutaken ‘to get [for someone]’. In clauses with -aken marked verbs of this type, the structure of the clause does not change in terms of the number of core arguments or in terms of the seman-
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tic role of the core arguments. While the beneficiary is often inferable from the discourse context, it need not be explicitly mentioned within the clause with the -aken marked verb. ... Summary: Transitive suffixes The suffixes -i, and -aken (-nang) are transitive suffixes. They can be associated with the transitivity of the clause in a number of ways. Their presence can increase structural transitivity. One example of this is the causative meaning in which an agent or cause is brought into the core argument structure as an A argument. A second example is the applicative construction in which a locative or dative argument, which would otherwise be expressed as an oblique argument, is brought into the core argument structure as a P argument. While there are situations in which there may not be an increase in structural transitivity (some instances of benefactive -aken/-nang or distributive -i for example), in all the cases of transitive suffix usage discussed above, both A and P arguments are implied. In most of these cases as well, the transitive suffix also gives information about the semantic roles of the A and P arguments. In turn, this information can be utilized by interlocutors to identify what referents fill the A and P argument slots. .. Discussion: Transitive verb morphology In this section I will summarize the information about transitive morphology discussed above and then draw some conclusions about the role of transitive morphology as a cue for establishing clause structure. In Cirebon Javanese, affixation on transitive verbs serves to convey information about argument structure. A semantically transitive verb will usually have one of three prefixes, N-, di-, or tak-, which indicates which argument, A or P, has the syntactic role of trigger in the clause. Some transitive verbs have no prefix. Many semantically transitive verbs also have a suffix, either -i or -aken (-nang), which conveys information about the semantic roles of the A and P arguments. The information about the argument structure that these affixes express is not equally reliable for all affixes, or for all verb bases. Regarding the transitive prefixes, tak- always indicates that the clause is a P-trigger clause and that the A participant always has a first person referent. However, lack of tak- does not imply the A is not first person; this is because the verb of a P-trigger clause with a first person A participant can also be marked with di- or no prefix. Di- always indicates a P-trigger clause, although neither the person nor other semantic information relating to the referents of either
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the P or A argument is indicated by this prefix. However, lack of di- or takdoes not necessarily imply a non-P-trigger clause: unprefixed verbs can also occur in P-trigger clauses. In a semantically transitive clause, the nasal prefix N- indicates that the trigger of the clause is the A argument. However, simply the presence of Nis not enough to imply that a transitive clause is involved, because of the homophonous intransitive N- prefix. Lack of a verbal prefix is common among intransitive verbs and it also occurs among a few transitive verbs. Speakers occasionally produce P-trigger clauses with unprefixed verbs and are freer to produce transitive verbs without a prefix in P-trigger clauses than in A-trigger clauses. Verbs of A-trigger clauses almost always occur with a nasal prefix except in the case of imperatives and the small set of transitive verbs that never take the nasal prefix, discussed in Section 2.3.2.2. All verbs with either the -i or -aken (-nang) suffix indicate a semantically transitive proposition involving at least two participants. These suffixes, in accordance with the meaning they carry in combination with the base word, give basic semantic information about the arguments of the clause (e.g. -aken can indicate that the A is an agent or cause capable of causing some state, or -i may indicate that the P has a locative or dative semantic role). However, these determinations are not equally reliable in all cases. For example speakers may place a patient in the P argument slot when a verb ends in what is usually a dative-evoking -i. Thus, while these suffixes show strong tendencies in semantic assignment to macro-roles, they more consistently imply simply that referents filling these semantic roles can be identified based on the discourse context, but these referents are not necessarily realized in the grammatical structure of the clause. The prefixes and suffixes described in this section have functions that are associated with transitivity and that can inform interlocutors about clause structure. This association is a strong tendency in language use, but not a categorical fact about the individual morphological forms. For many cases this association is clear, but in others it is not. In the cases where assignment of clause structure is not fully determined by verb morphology, interlocutors rely on other cues (for example, semantic and pragmatic cues, to be discussed in later chapters). That such cues help to inform interlocutors about clause structure arises from the fact that they are often redundantly present in the clauses where there is also information from verb morphology. With all these affixes, a certain amount of information about the clause structure (for example, grammatical transitivity, assignment of trigger status, or identification of referents
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of arguments) is implied, to a lesser or greater degree of determinacy; however, in no case does affixation alone completely answer all questions about clause structure. The most highly determined case would be that of tak-, in which the P is assigned trigger role and the A is assigned first person reference. However, no other information is given about the identification of the P referent, which must be determined from a combination of semantic, pragmatic and word order information, which may be present to a greater or lesser degree. All other types of transitive affixation are relatively under-determining compared to takand require more reliance by interlocutors on these other cues to determine the overall clause structure.
. Non-verbal predicates The various intransitive and transitive verbs we have seen so far typically occur as predicates in conversational discourse. However, not all predicates are verbs. Various types of words and phrases which typically have a non-predicating role in clauses can also function in a predicating position vis-à-vis some other element which functions as its argument, without benefit of any verbal connector. These non-verbal predicates are a mixed lot (cf. Hengeveld 1992). Indeed as a group they exhibit no characteristic morphology and so are not directly relevant to the central theme of this chapter. Nonetheless, these non-verbal predicates should be mentioned to fill out the picture of predicates in Cirebon Javanese, giving a more complete context in which to understand those predicates which do have verbal morphology. More interestingly, non-verbal predicates give evidence of the importance of juxtaposition and implication in the construction of Javanese clauses in conversation. These concepts are essential not only in understanding the structure of non-verbal predicates, but are also crucial to understanding clausal structures that occur conversationally involving morphologically more complex predicates as well. .. Nominal predicates Throughout this chapter we have seen examples of noun phrases functioning as arguments in clauses. Noun phrases can also serve as predicates in Cirebon Javanese. A predicate nominal and its single argument are juxtaposed without any sort of copula or other verbal material. While clauses of this type are sometimes called equational, this is something of a misnomer as it suggests a kind of mathematical transitivity in which the elements of the clause are interchange-
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able. In fact, the two elements of these clauses are rarely equal in terms of their pragmatic or referential status and thus can be structurally differentiated between predicate and argument. Predicate nominals have two main functions, classifying and identifying. In each of the clauses in examples (86) and (87), the predicate nominal functions to classify the referent of its single argument. S
PRED
(86) W: . . . Énté pemaén dangdut . 2sg musician k.o.music ‘You’re a dangdut musician.’ (114:77) S
PRED
(87) A: .. kita ku wong beli duwé jé, 1sg that.med person neg have quote ‘I’m a poor person he said,’ (108:3129)
This is done by asserting that the referent named by the S argument is a member of the class named by the predicate nominal with which it is juxtaposed. The difference in function of the two elements in each of these clauses is evidenced by the difference in their information flow characteristics. The S argument in each example is identifiable and given. The predicating element names a general class. Example (88) is an example of an identifying predicate nominal. S (88) R: Kang dipangan ku , rel di-eat that.med PRED nangka kuen jé. jackfruit that excl ‘The one (you)’re eating is that jackfruit [out in the yard], you know.’ (111:2119–2120)
Here two nominal expressions are uttered, both referring to identifiable referents already established in the discourse. Some predicate nominals have functions other than classifying or identifying.
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S
PRED
(89) D: tolian déwéké perpisahan ku , then 3sg separation.ind that.med ‘then she had the farewell party,’ (108:2728) S PRED M: .. Bocaé tes kulia ning Jogja, child-def already lecture in Jogja ‘She attended university in Jogja,’ (151:1193)
In each of these examples, two nominal elements are juxtaposed with no intervening copula or other verbal material. These clauses appear to be structurally identical to the other predicate nominal examples above, yet semantically they are quite different. Here the predicate nominal is naming an event or activity. The relationship that holds between the two juxtaposed entities is neither classification nor identification. Rather the relationship is one of participation by the referent of the S argument in the event named by the predicate nominal. While not extremely frequent, these constructions are not an unusual way in the conversational data to name activities in which people participate. Rather than calling these predicate nominals, we might argue that some verb has been elided or that these nouns are functioning as verbs, but this ignores the fact that structurally two noun phrases are juxtaposed, a construction that is common enough in Cirebon Javanese clause structure. A desire to describe such a structure in terms of missing or replaced verbs would be based in a verb-centric understanding of clauses. An approach more consistent with the flexibility of Cirebon Javanese clause constructions would be to widen our understanding of the relationships that can hold between juxtaposed nouns and say that inference based on world knowledge tells us what relationship between participants is intended. While any kind of relationship might conceivably be expressed by juxtaposing two nominal elements, only certain relationships are commonly found by speakers to be usefully expressed this way. Classifying and identifying are the most typical and most frequent functions of predicate nominals. These functions have in common the fact that they are characterizing the referent of the S argument in some way. There is a sense in which the previous examples of named activities as predicate nominals are also characterizing. The referent of the S argument is being characterized by a participatory relationship with the activity expressed in the predicate. But other characterizing relationships can also hold. In (90) the relationship is one in which the referent of the S argu-
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ment, the district of Gesik, is characterized as having residents who speak a variety of Cirebon Javanese in which final /a/ is pronounced [f]. S (90) J:
PRED
.. Kecamatan Gesik nu O. district Gesik that.med O ‘The Gesik district is O [is characterized by an O-dialect].’ (108:116)
In this context regional language variation is being discussed and the meaning of this utterance is communicated by the simple juxtaposition of the name of a district and the name of a sound which typifies the variety of language found there. In (91), the context is a discussion of the conversational participants’ ages and years of birth. S (91) B: . . . Isun ku= , 1sg that.med PRED duwit mérah ku= . money red.ind that.med ‘I [was born during the time of] red money.’ or ‘I’m [in the] red money [category].’ (107:437–438)
Here it is enough for the speaker to juxtapose a first person pronoun with the noun duwit mérah ‘red money’ in order to simultaneously define a time period (when banknotes were red) and establish this as being the period in which she was born. .. Prepositional phrase predicates A prepositional phrase can serve as an oblique argument indicating spatial or temporal information about the proposition expressed by the clause: (92) B: .. Noli ndekem ning pawon. then n-sit in kitchen ‘Then (I) work in the kitchen.’ (107:922)
Prepositional phrases also occur with intransitive verbs to indicate some important participant in the proposition, as in example (93) below and also examples (5) through (8) above.
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(93) U: . . . Misalé ana boca cemburu ning ira, example.ind-def exist child jealous at 2sg ‘For example there’s a girl who is jealous about you,’ (108:4062)
A prepositional phrase can also directly modify a noun, forming a noun phrase constituent with the head noun it modifies. (94) D:
% Anaké
Kaji Kasim ng Pléréd ’a ayu pisan Wan. child-def pilgrim Kasim in Plered that.dis beautiful very Wan ‘The daughter of Haji Kasim in Plered is very beautiful, Wan.’ (114:3178)
In Cirebon Javanese, a prepositional phrase can also serve as a predicate, juxtaposed with a single argument and without any verbal material or other connector. S
PRED
(95) A: Ani ning guri . Ani at back ‘Ani was in the back.’ (108:824) S
PRED
(96) D: lakiné ng Penggung . husband-def at Penggung ‘her husband is in Penggung.’ (114:3097) S
PRED
(97) T: .. Na wong wadoné bari Ibu An . part person wife-def with mother An ‘So now my wife is with Mrs. An.’ (111:754) (98) W: (H) Tapi=, but S dangdut , k.o.music .. kaya-kaya si, like-redup part
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PRED kanggo épék sampingan baé Di. for effect.ind side.ind just Di ‘but it’s like dangdut is just for a side effect, Di.’ (114:173–176)
Locative and ablative spatial deixis is formed with the prepositions ning ‘at’ and sing ‘from’ in combination with the following forms: kéné ‘here’, kono ‘there.med’, and kana ‘there.dist’ in the common style. This can be seen in (73). The allative does not have a prepositional form and is discussed with other adverbial predicates below. .. Other adverbial predicates In Cirebon Javanese there are a variety of adverbial words and phrases that can appear ancillary to a clause, modifying it in terms of space, time, or manner. These adverbials can also themselves serve as a predicate without any verbal material in the clause. Cirebon Javanese allative adverbials display three degrees of deictic distance: méné ‘hither’, mono ‘thither.med’, and mana ‘thither.dist’. These can indicate the direction or orientation of an event expressed by the verb, as in (99). (99) D: Ari kang dolan mana si Yogi. if rel go.visit thither.DIST part Yogi ‘Yogi was the one who went on a visit over there.’ (111:1341)
The allative adverbs can also be used as the predicating element of a clause without a verb. S
PRED
(100) B: . . . Ya wong tua isuné wis mana . 1sg-def already thither.DIST yes parent ‘Yeah, my parents already (went) over there.’ (111:329) PRED
S
(101) M: beli méné-méné maning gi . neg hither-redup again this ‘I won’t (come) here again.’ (140:2100)
Cirebon Javanese has a set of deictic adverbials of manner, meaning ‘thus’ or ‘in this/that way’. Similar to what we have seen with other grammatical ele-
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ments in the language, there is a fair amount of variation in the forms available to speakers. (102) Common Style kénén, mengkénén, mekénén, mengkéné ‘thus, like this’ konon, mengkonon, mekonon, mengkono ‘thus, like that med’ kanan, mengkanan, mekanan, mengkana ‘thus, like that dist’ Bebasan kéten, mekéten ‘thus, like this’ koten, mekoten ‘thus, like that’
The distal series for deictic adverbials of manner in common style is not accepted by all speakers. Forms like kanan ‘like that dist’ are attested in the conversational data, but are much less frequent than the other degrees of distance. In bebasan there is only a two way distinction among deictic adverbials. These forms can be used to modify a predicate, for example, a verb. (103) A: ngkaé micé kan dicantol konon. later-def microphone-def part di-hang like.that ‘Then the microphone will hang like that, you know.’ (140:1019)
These forms can also occur in a noun phrase, modifying the referent of the head noun as in (104). (104) D: Wadu ari isun durung pengalaman pisan Wan. gosh if 1sg not.yet experience very Wan masala mengkonon Wan. problem like.that.med Wan. ‘Gosh I don’t have any experience at all with that kind of problem, Wan.’ (114:1463–1464)
Frequently these forms stand alone as predicates, a kind of verbal pro-form referring to an event or state previously mentioned (anaphoric) or about to be mentioned (cataphoric), or to an event or state like one available in the discourse context. (105) D: Kita baka ngenggo helm tungkrub ka. 1sg if n-wear helmet closed like.that.dis S PRED Hélm kuwu ku mengkonon . helmet village.head that.med like.that.med
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dibuka ku, di-open that.med wadu biang. no.joke ‘If I wear a closed helmet – the village head’s helmet is like that – (when I) take it off, (it’s) no joke [how badly my hair is messed up].’ (111:2471–2472) (106) U: Tapi ya, but yes, S PRED konsekuensié konon . consequence.ind-def like.that.med ‘Yeah but the consequence is like that. (108:3974–3975)
Cirebon Javanese has two deictic indicators of amount: seméné ‘this amount’ and semono ‘that amount’. The bebasan forms are seméten ‘this amount’ and semoten ‘that amount’. As with the other deictic forms outlined above, these can serve as the predicate of a clause when juxtaposed with a noun phrase without a verb. S
PRED
(107) D: Kasur loro si seméné . mattress two part this.amount ‘A number two mattress is this big.’ (114:2290) S
PRED
(108) D: Kemampuané mung seméné . ability.ind-def only this.amount ‘His ability is only so much.’ (140:803)
.. Expressives as predicates Expressives are words that speakers of Cirebon Javanese consider to be onomatopoetic of the event or state they describe. Expressives were first introduced in Section 2.2.2.3 where it was mentioned that they often occur as particles associated with lexical verbs and that they can also take derivational
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morphology. These expressives can also stand alone as predicates, as in the following examples: (109) D: Déwéké langsung slep. 3sg directly expr.enter ‘She went right in.’ (108:2083)
In Standard Central Javanese, when an expressive is used as a predicate, it is preceded by a special morpheme, mak, whose dedicated function is to indicate that the expressive is being used as a verb. No such morpheme is used in Cirebon Javanese. Thus, like other non-verbal predicates, there is no morphology in expressive clauses which gives an indication of the overall clause structure. .. Summary: Non-verbal predicates Various non-verbal elements routinely serve as predicates in Cirebon Javanese. Precisely because they are non-verbal, they do not contain any information about argument structure, either lexically or morphologically. It is only in juxtaposition with a noun phrase, with appropriate intonation and embedded in a discourse context, that interlocutors can make the appropriate inferences that allow them to understand the structural and propositional content of the clause. The focus of this study is on transitive clauses, which actually do display a relatively rich morphological system for indicating clause structure. Non-verbal predicates have been discussed here primarily to draw attention to the wider linguistic context in which verbal morphology operates and indeed stands out as a distinctive characteristic of transitive clauses.
. Predicate morphology and clause structure In this chapter I have introduced three types of predicates that occur in Cirebon Javanese: intransitive verbal, transitive verbal, and non-verbal predicates. The type of relationship which holds between a predicate and its argument or arguments may be specified by the predicate morphology. However, it has also been shown that frequently in the conversational data this relationship is underdetermined by the predicate and interlocutors must rely on pragmatic understanding in order to determine clause structure. Non-verbal predicates include nominal, prepositional, and adverbial predicates. As lexical items that are not verbs, these predicates do not carry information about clause structure, either as part of their semantics or in the
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form of additional morphology. When non-verbal forms function as predicates juxtaposed with a nominal argument, interlocutors rely on inferences based on shared linguistic experience and shared world knowledge to infer the meaning expressed through these clauses. Intransitive verbs include both monomorphemic and morphologically complex predicates. Monomorphemic verbs imply something about the clause structure they can participate in by their semantics, but have no morphology that gives interlocutors additional clues to this structure. Morphologically complex intransitive clauses generally do not provide information about clause structure beyond their semantics, although some forms of derivational morphology do tend to carry meanings that imply that their single argument will have a specific semantic role. One affix, m-, is a dedicated intransitive prefix and thus does give direct information about argument structure as well as implying certain types of semantic roles for its single argument. In contrast, the verbs of transitive clauses in Cirebon Javanese carry morphological marking that relates to clause structure. A set of prefixes indicates whether the clause is a P-trigger or A-trigger construction. These prefixes indicate the macro-roles of the trigger and non-trigger arguments, but do not provide any other information for locating or identifying these arguments. The one exception is the prefix tak- which does indicate a first person referent of the A argument of a P-trigger clause. Many transitive verbs also include a transitive suffix that gives additional information about the potential semantic role of the P argument. Even with this morphology to indicate argument structure, transitive clauses can still often be underdetermined. For example, because the prefix N- is homophonous with an intransitive prefix, its presence alone is not sufficient to indicate a transitive clause. Additionally, the verbs in both P-trigger and A-trigger clauses sometimes occur without any affixation. With regard to transitive suffixes, speakers often use them to imply the existence of certain referents without actually bringing these referents into the clause structure. So while verbal morphology often gives interlocutors important clues about clause structure, conversational interactants must also rely on a combination of word order, intonation, information flow characteristics, and shared knowledge in order to co-construct the structure, and thus the meaning, of their speech partners’ utterances. In the next chapter, we will look in more detail at nominal expressions. It will be shown that the relationship between a predicate and its arguments is sometimes indicated morphologically by nominal expressions, but that even when this relationship is explicitly marked, the marking can still be ambiguous. Thus nominal morphology, like verbal morphology, will be shown to serve
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as only a partial cue for interlocutors as they construct an understanding of the relationships between a predicate and its arguments. We will see that the primary function of nominal morphology in Cirebon Javanese is to indicate information flow characteristics of referents. When we look more closely at information flow in Chapter 4 it will be seen that this too can be used as yet another cue for understanding clause structure.
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Chapter 3
The morphology of nominal expressions
. Form and function of nominal expressions The clause was earlier defined as a predicate and its arguments. A predicate is prototypically an expression of an event or state, and arguments are prototypically entities. Chapter 2 covered the typical forms of predicates in Cirebon Javanese, and the contribution that predicate morphology makes in communicating clause structure was discussed. In the present chapter we turn to nominal expressions, referents and arguments. Nominal expressions can contribute toward two important communicative goals: representing a referent in discourse and establishing the role of a referent within a clause. Referring is achieved through the interaction of the semantic and pragmatic information conveyed by a nominal expression in its discourse context. In the present chapter we will look at the different forms of nominal expressions in Cirebon Javanese, ranging from semantically complex and explicit forms to the least explicit type, unexpressed participants. We will see that there is very little information regarding clause structure encoded morphologically in Cirebon Javanese nominal expressions. In the next chapter we will turn to the pragmatic information concerning information flow characteristics that is encoded in nominal expressions and again ask how this information contributes to understanding the structure of the clause. In discussing the nature of referents, Chafe (1994) points out that events and states usually have associated with them participants and accessories. These participants and accessories are “the idea of people, objects, or abstractions for which the term referents is appropriate” (Chafe 1994: 67). Thus referents are not objects in the external world, but ideas in the minds of interlocutors, as engendered and maintained by the ongoing interaction and discourse. One characteristic of referents, compared to states and events, is their association with greater time stability (Chafe 1994; Hopper & Thompson 1984). In terms of discourse, this time stability is reflected in that fact the referents have a tendency to remain active in interlocutors’ consciousness, as evidenced
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by their persistence through a discourse, whereas the events and states that are expressed as predicates tend to make much more fleeting appearances in discourse. The time stability of referents in discourse parallels the time stability in the real world of the entities these referents represent. It is this relative time stability which has been suggested to be an important characteristic differentiating those concepts typically expressed with nouns from those typically expressed by verbs across languages. Some referents act as participants which may be introduced and then maintained through stretches of interaction, while others may serve as fleeting accessories or props in the discourse representation. Part of the function of referring expressions is to establish referents in the minds of interlocutors, and where appropriate, to maintain the activation of these referents through the discourse. This process of establishing and refreshing referents in interlocutors’ minds is what is intended when a nominal expression is said to refer. Referring expressions are also used to reflect and manipulate the cognitive status of their referents. The speaker’s understanding of the hearer’s expectations informs the linguistic expression of referents, which are thus ground in the interactional discourse context. In Section 3.2 we will look at the form of the different types of nominal expressions commonly used for referring in Cirebon Javanese conversation: headless relative clauses, lexical nouns, names and kinship terms, personal pronouns and demonstrative pronouns, and finally, unexpressed participants (sometimes called zero anaphora). Section 3.3 covers modification of nominal expressions including associative constructions, attributives, quantifiers, relative clauses, and determiners. Finally, case marking is discussed in Section 3.4. Section 3.5 concludes that the morphological properties of nominal expressions in Cirebon Javanese not only contribute to establishing and tracking referents semantically and informationally. The morphology of nominal expressions can also contribute to understanding grammatical roles, but only in limited situations and often ambiguously. Semantic and pragmatic information is also needed to establish grammatical relationships within the clause. This chapter is an exploration of the form of nominal expressions. Information flow characteristics and constituent order are two other properties of nominal expressions that are relevant to clause structure and are discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 respectively.
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Chapter 3. The morphology of nominal expressions
. Nominal expressions In this section five types of nominal expression are discussed. Some nominal expressions contain a large amount of semantic information that explicitly aids in uniquely identifying a referent. Other nominal expressions are much less explicit and require pragmatic inferencing on the part of hearers in order to identify the intended referent. The following discussion of nominal expressions in Cirebon Javanese conversation begins with the potentially quite complex headless relative clauses, followed by lexical nouns, names and kinship terms, personal pronouns and demonstrative pronouns, and finally the least explicit means of referring, unexpressed participants. .. Headless relative clauses Cirebon Javanese has both headed and headless relative clauses. A relative clause can be marked by the linker kang, and the shared argument must be the trigger of the relative clause. As background to this discussion of headless relative clauses, headed relative clauses are exemplified in (110) through (112) below. Headed relative clauses will be discussed again in more detail in Section 3.3.2.2. In the following examples the entire noun phrase is in bold face while the relative clause itself is in angled brackets. In (110) the shared argument has the role of P in the relative clause, whose verb is therefore marked with P-trigger morphology. In (111) the shared argument has the role of A in the relative clause, and thus the verb is marked with A-trigger morphology. In (112) the shared argument is the single argument of the intransitive verb in the relative clause. (110) H: Nangkaé lu kien. jackfruit-def rel di-eat that.med this ‘This is the jackfruit that (you) ate.’ (111:2116) (111) W: wong total. person rel neg n-carry ID.card completely.ind ‘People who weren’t carrying any ID at all.’ (114:2907) (112) M: Uma cilik iku, house small rel m-face westerly that.med mbusi ya? maybe yes ‘Maybe that small house that faces to the west?’ (140:120)
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A headless relative clause has the same form as a headed relative clause except that there is no explicit head and so the noun phrase begins with the marker kang. Headless relative clauses are illustrated in (114) through (115). (113) A: . . . Énak . tasty rel di-chili.sauce like.this this ‘The ones that have chili sauce put on them like this taste good.’ (107:788) (114) M: Kita . 1sg rel n-grind spice ‘I’m the one who prepared the spices.’ (151:1082) (115) D: . . . , rel important .. seneng wong loro Wan. happy person two Wan ‘What’s important is that the couple are happy, Wan.’ (114:785–786)
A headless relative clause refers to a referent that is defined by the event, state, or characterization expressed by the relative clause. Cirebon Javanese headless relative clauses can correspond to headless relative clauses in English such as ‘what’s important’ in the translation of (115). In other contexts the English translation might be more appropriately rendered with a relative clause that has a generic head such as ‘the one who. . . ’ or ‘the ones that. . . ’ as in examples (114) through (124). Although these constructions have no explicit head, it is still possible to talk about a shared argument. The trigger of the relative clause in (113), for example, is the P argument within that clause and refers to the things topped with chili sauce. The referent of this headless relative clause is the single argument of the verb in the matrix clause, énak ‘be tasty’. The shared argument in a headless relative clause must be the trigger of the relative clause, just as the shared argument of a headed relative clause must be. The examples of headless relative clauses above include (113) in which the shared argument has the role of P in the relative clause, (114) in which the shared argument has the role A in the relative clause, and (115) which illustrates a shared argument with the role of S in the relative clause. Headless relative clauses are quite common in Cirebon Javanese, as they are in many other languages of Western Indonesia. While headless relative clauses
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can be used in any position in which any other nominal expression can be used, they most frequently appear in cleft constructions. A cleft construction in Cirebon Javanese consists of a headless relative clause juxtaposed with another nominal expression, where the two juxtaposed elements refer to the same referent, usually characterized in different ways. Example (114) above is a cleft construction. A complex concept will often have a lexical representation in a language when semantic elements are relevant to each other because of cognitive or cultural salience (Bybee 1985: 13–16). Conversely, those complex concepts which do not form cognitively or culturally salient wholes will tend not to have lexical representations. With headless relative clauses speakers of Cirebon Javanese are able to produce nominal expressions with highly specific referents based on the needs and contingencies of any given moment in discourse. In this way a concept that, because of its contingent nature, would not have lexical representation in the language can be simultaneously defined, established as a referent, and deployed as a linguistic unit, for example as the argument of a matrix clause. For instance, it is reasonable that Cirebon Javanese does not have a lexical item which means ‘snacks with chili sauce put on them according to the culinary style of Mrs. N’. But when speaker A wanted to say something about such entities as in example (113) she was able to produce a syntactically deployable nominal expression with precisely this meaning: kang disambeli kenen ni ‘(ones) that have chili sauce on them like this’. .. Lexical nouns A lexical noun in Cirebon Javanese may be monomorphemic or polymorphemic. Examples of monomorphemic nouns include: (116) boléd ‘sweet potato’ kedok ‘mask’ lading ‘knife’ mama ‘father’ sega ‘cooked rice’ sodér ‘scarf ’
Like many languages in the region, Cirebon Javanese has a rich system of derivational morphology involving affixation and full and partial reduplication that can be used to change the meaning of a nominal base or to derive a nominal form from a non-nominal base. Nouns derived from a nominal base are illustrated in (117).
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(117) batur ‘friend’ bebaturan ‘friendship’ sega ‘cooked rice’ pesegan ‘rice container’ uma ‘house’ uma-umaan ‘doll house’
Nouns derived from non-nominal roots are illustrated in (118). (118) landep ‘sharp’ landepan ‘sharpness’ rongsok ‘second hand’ rongsokan ‘used goods’ ngagem ‘use, wear’ agem-agem ‘amulet’
Detailed analysis of the morphology and semantics of noun derivation does not relate directly to the issues of clause structure investigated in this study and in interlinear glossing of examples, derived nouns are given a single semantically appropriate gloss. One nominal morphological process which might be classified as inflectional is reduplication when indicating multiplicity, for example batur-batur ‘various friends’ from batur ‘friend’ or surat-surat ‘different documents’ from surat ‘document’. These inflected nominal forms are noted in the interlinear gloss. This type of reduplication does not occur frequently in the conversational data; plurality as such is usually indicated through use of quantifiers or understood from context. .. Names, kinship terms, titles, and vocatives Names or proper nouns are used to identify unique entities. This is in contrast to common nouns, which name types and which can be used either to refer to specific tokens of that type or to the type itself. In Cirebon Javanese, as in any language, the range of entities that might be given names is as wide and varied as demanded by the cultural and personal needs of speakers. These might include people (e.g. Uli Masyuri or Sirep Dody, my research consultants), places (Cirebon or Indonesia), times (Legi or Pahing, days of the Javanese week), or important entities (Peksi Naga Limang, an heirloom carriage belonging to one of the royal families of Cirebon). It is, however, a well known fact of human interaction that the main interest of conversationalists is people and so it is not surprising that people’s names are the most frequent type of proper noun occurring in the conversational data used here. In Cirebon, as in many areas of Indonesia, people’s names are often preceded by titles. These are frequently kinship terms, such as Ibu ‘mother,’ Mamang ‘father’, Ang ‘older sibling’ or reference to some social position, such as Kaji ‘pilgrim’ for people who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca. Kinship
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terms alone are also frequently used as a way of referring to unique individuals. Examples (119) and (120) illustrate the use of kin titles with names. (119) O: Umaé Mang La=. house-def father La ‘[It’s near] Mr. La’s house.’ (107:385) (120) M: Anéh maning Ang Mat. strange.ind again older.sibling Mat ‘Too weird Ang Mat.’1 (140:707)
There are a variety of kinship terms currently in popular usage in Cirebon. Considered by speakers to be older and more authentically Cirebon terms for ‘mother’ are mak or emak, and mbok, although the Malay ibu and European mami are popular. Similarly for ‘father’, the older local terms are mama or mamang while Malay bapa or European papi are also used. For ‘older sibling,’ ang or a`ang are considered more authentically Cirebon, but have a village feel about them for city residents, who often prefer kang, the same form used in Sundanese. Variation in kin terminology is not only of interest to linguists but also to speakers of the language, as illustrated in the following example. A guest asked the child of the host family where her father was and when she got no response she asked the girl’s mother what she normally calls her father. (121) B: .. Mamaé beli mélu? father-def neg m-join ‘Your father hasn’t come along? . . . Mama ta=, father or mamang? father [Does she call him] mama or mamang? .. Bapa. father [or] Bapa?
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. . . Hé O`om? hey O`om [which is it] O`om?’ A: Papi. father @@@@@ ‘Papi [laughing].’ O: Papi. father @@@@ ‘Papi [laughing].’ (107:1667–1675)
Names, kinship terms with names, or kinship terms alone are used not only to refer to third persons, but are also commonly used for first and second person reference. The following examples illustrate the use of kinship term (122) and kinship term plus name (123) for first and second person reference. (122) B: . . . Bapa numbé baé teka seng, father just just arrive from . . . Indramayu. Indramayu ‘I had just gotten back from Indramayu.’ (105:113–114) (123) U: . . . Baturé Ang O`om ta? friend-def older.sibling O`om qu ‘[Is it] a friend of yours?’ O: Iya yes ‘Yes.’ (107:879–880) (124) P: Isuné, 1sg-def @ emak. mother
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.. muni kang tiba ning galeng. say rel fall in ditch ‘I’m, I’m the one who fell in the ditch, (I) said.’ (151:572–574)
In this example the speaker first refers to herself as isun ‘1SG’. In fact she usually doesn’t use the first pronoun to refer to herself when speaking with her family. She realizes her mistake, laughs, and self-corrects with the form she normally uses to refer to herself to family members, emak ‘mother’. In Cirebon Javanese, again as in many parts of Indonesia, vocative use of names and kinship terms is extremely common in conversation. This is a way of overtly expressing the interpersonal relationship between interlocutors by explicitly recognizing one’s speech partner at regular intervals. At the same time, the use of vocatives can function to aid in structuring information by marking the end of larger chunks of discourse, such as prosodic clusters (see Chapter 5 for discussion). Examples (125) and (126) illustrate the vocative use of a name and a kinship term respectively. Vocatives occur in numerous other examples throughout this study. (125) D: .. Iya konon diantaraé kitaé kepéngéné Wan. yes like.that.med among.IND-def 1sg-def desire-def Wan ‘Yes, something like that is what I want, Wan.’ (114:163) (126) T: Ning uma ta ning apa si mang? at house or at what part father ‘Is it in a house or what, dad?’ (151:22)
Words other than names and kinship terms can also be used as vocatives in very informal conversation. The form ca, from boca ‘child’, is common. Example (127) is from a conversation in which several young men are talking about, among other topics, women they are interested in. (127) M: .. Pertama mono, first.ind to.there.med dipai kopi ca. di-give coffee child ‘The first time I went there (she) gave (me) coffee, man.’ (140:267–268)
A second person pronoun can also be used as a vocative, as in example (128), where it is also used together with the vocative ca ‘child’.
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(128) M: Gembleng ira ca. beautiful 2sg child ‘(She)’s beautiful, you know, man.’ (140:133)
Example (128) is from the same conversation as (127) above. It is quite clear the speaker is not telling his speech partner that he is beautiful: that is, the second person pronoun is not an argument of the verb gembleng ‘to be beautiful’. Rather the function of ira ‘2sg’ here is, as my research consultant described it in Indonesian, minta persetujuan, ‘seeking agreement’ from one’s interlocutor. Finally, there are terms that are dedicated vocatives such as the very informal blog or log: (129) D: Toli tulisané bagus-bagus kabé log. then writing-def good.ind-def all voc ‘And all his writing is really good, man.’ (140:934)
My research consultants said that the feeling and function of blog and log were the same as ca, but that they could not provide any semantic meaning for the terms. Another term that can be used as a vocative is kirik ‘dog’ or its shortened form rik. This particular term is rare in the corpus used in this study, but it deserves mention because it plays an important role in Cirebon speakers’ representation of identity. Use of this term is often cited by speakers with something like half-guilty glee as a sign of their regionally identifiable and sometimes lessthan-refined variety of Javanese. It signals in-group solidarity among speech community members while sounding coarse to outsiders. The long form kirik shows up in spontaneous use in my data only as an evaluative comment about a third person, something like ‘that scoundrel’. In my database it is only used as a vocative once, as it happened by a native speaker of Sundanese, who thus might have been overzealous in an attempt to show he could speak Cirebon Javanese. The short form rik only appeared in the database as a subject of discussion when some conversationalists were talking about language variation in the Cirebon region. .. Pronouns Cirebon Javanese uses both personal pronouns, discussed in Section 3.2.4.1, and demonstrative pronouns, discussed in Section 3.2.4.2, as a means of referring.
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... Personal pronouns Conversational participants (first and second persons) have a unique status vis-à-vis non-participants (third persons). The cognitive work involved in referring to a participant interacting in the speech event is very different from that involved in introducing and tracking referents that are not participating in the speech event. From the perspective of information flow, speakers and addressees are almost always identifiable by virtue of their presence within the speech situation (see Chapter 4 for a discussion of identifiability and information flow more generally). Thus, although the need may arise to distinguish between speech participants, or between them and a third person, at any given moment in discourse there is usually little pressure to establish the initial reference or identifiability of speech participants, such as there can be with non-participant entities. This split between first and second person referents (speech participants) and third person referents (non-participants) is reflected cross-linguistically in numerous areas of morphosyntax (Du Bois 1985). This distinction is clearly manifested in Cirebon Javanese by the existence of unequivocal first and second person personal pronouns and their frequent use, in contrast to the contingent nature of third person personal pronouns and their infrequent occurrence in natural discourse. While pronoun systems are considered to be historically stable in many languages, it has been noted that this is not the case in many Southeast Asian languages due to various sociolinguistic pressures. While first and second person pronouns in the common language style of Standard Central Javanese for example are reflexes of Proto-Austronesian forms, in the higher speech styles there have been a series of shifts and innovations, resulting from the historical and continuing downgrading of the politeness associated with forms (especially second person) and the subsequent introduction of new forms with each generation (Errington 1985b). In Cirebon Javanese there are no personal pronouns that represent a continuous heritage from Proto-Austronesian. All personal pronouns are later innovations or borrowings. Personal pronouns in Cirebon Javanese are differentiated for person and for social style, but not for number, case, or other attributes sometimes encoded in pronominal systems in languages of the world. This is in contrast to the pronouns of Standard Central Javanese, which are differentiated for case, including agentive proclitics and possessive enclitics as well as free forms. Personal pronouns appearing in the corpus and used by my research assistants are listed in (130).
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(130) Common Bebasan isun, kita kula ‘1sg’ sira/ira, énté, pekara sampéyan, panjenéngan ‘2sg’
Forms related to isun and sira are also found in older varieties of Javanese. From an Austronesianist’s point of view these are newer forms, supplanting the older Proto-Austronesian forms. Standard Central Javanese speakers, however, regularly comment on the archaic sound of Cirebon, in part because it uses forms considered old-fashioned in Central Java, instead of the aku ‘1sg’ and kowé ‘2sg’of modern Central Javanese. The alternate first person singular pronoun kita is a borrowing from Malay. The pronoun kita has a first person plural inclusive meaning in many varieties of Malay, but has a first person singular meaning in Betawi Malay spoken in Jakarta, some 200 kilometers west of Cirebon, and is common with first person singular meaning in colloquial Indonesian as well (Ewing 2005a). The second person form énté is derived from Arabic and is also found in Betawi Malay. Further historical study may tell us whether the first and second person pronouns kita and énté were in use first in Betawi, then later adopted by Cirebon Javanese speakers, or whether they came into use as part of a single development within the larger linguistic milieu of northwest coastal Javanese. The bebasan first and second pronouns correspond with forms currently in use in Central Java. The forms isun and sira/ira are associated with rural usage in the Cirebon area and are felt to be somewhat coarse to urban speakers. Isun and sira/ira have generally been replaced by kita and énté respectively among urban residents and among rural speakers with an urban orientation. And while speakers from rural areas might be likely to make a conscious effort to use the more urbanite forms, it is not uncommon to hear both forms used by the same speaker, often in rapid succession, as in example (131). (131) D: .. Dudu. neg Kita ku, 1sg that.med masala=é kang isun pikiraken ku, problem-def rel 1sg think-aken that.med ‘No. As for me, the thing I’m thinking about is. . . ’ (114:423–425)
Like other varieties of Javanese, Cirebon Javanese has no dedicated plural pronominal forms. If plurality needs to be expressed explicitly, this can be
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achieved by the use of quantifiers, as in (132). Speaker B has just explained all the preparations he has made for his marriage, and N draws the conclusion: (132) N: Wis komplit. already complete. .. konon. like.that.med ‘So everything is set.’ B: . . . Kanggo rumah-tanggaé isun wong loroan si. for household.ind-def 1sg person two part ‘for our household.’ (111:303–305)
In B’s utterance, the notion of first person plurality (translated here as ‘our’) is expressed by modifying isun ‘1sg’ with wong loroan ‘two people’. Cirebon Javanese has no dedicated third person pronoun. The form déwéké (Bebasan kiyambeké) literally means ‘the self ’ but can also be used for third person anaphoric reference. (133) N: Munié, sound-def .. Ana wartegé ning Plumboné tapi, exist food.kiosk-def in Plumbon-def but déwéké duwé cabang ning Bahagia. self-def have branch in Bahagia. ‘They said one of his food kiosks is in Plumbon but he has a branch in Bahagia.’ (111:534–535)
This form is often listed as the third person pronoun in Standard Central Javanese grammars and it is sometimes cited by speakers of Cirebon Javanese as equivalent to Indonesian dia ‘he/she’. However, for Cirebon Javanese it would be somewhat misleading to call déwéké the third person pronoun on a par with the first and second person pronouns discussed above. It is but one way of creating third person anaphoric reference. Besides déwéké ‘the self ’, another semantically general term, wongé ‘the person’, is also used for third person reference. (134) B: Tanaé Ran. land-def Ran’ ‘(It) was Ran’s land.
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O: O=. oh. ‘Oh.’ B: Kien mati wongé. now dead person-def ‘He’s dead now.’ (107:1802–1804)
These forms are infrequent in the conversational data used in this study. While déwéké and wongé might be viewed as incipient forms with the potential to eventually grammaticize as true pronouns, it would seem there is at present no clear dedicated third person pronoun in Cirebon Javanese which is comparable to the English she, he or it or to the Indonesian dia. Explicit tracking of third person referents in conversation is frequently achieved by use of demonstrative pronouns, which are discussed in Section 3.2.4.2. More commonly still, third persons can be tracked without being mentioned explicitly. ... Demonstrative pronouns Cirebon Javanese demonstrative pronouns exhibit three degrees of proximity in both common style and bebasan. There is also an undifferentiated demonstrative in bebasan which corresponds to the form in the highest speech level of Standard Central Javanese. As with other aspects of Cirebon Javanese there is a fair amount of variation in the form that demonstrative pronouns can take. These are shown in (135). (135) Common Style iki igi kien iku igu kuen ika iga kaen
Bebasan niki nikien ‘this’ niku nikuen } punika { ‘that (medial)’ nika nikaen ‘that (distal)’
In addition to the full forms of demonstrative pronouns listed above, there are sets of short demonstrative pronouns. The following five series of short demonstratives were identified by my consultants and are all attested in the conversational data. (136) Demonstrative Particles ki ni li gi ‘i ‘this’ ku nu lu gu ‘u ‘that (medial)’ ka na la ga ‘a ‘that (distal)’
In (136) the apostrophe, following common orthographic convention, represents elision, in this case elision of the initial consonant. In conversation, these
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reduced forms are sometimes pronounced as a single vowel segment, while at other times the vowel of these reduced demonstratives is preceded by gemination of the final consonant segment of the preceding word, or in the case of a preceding word which is vowel-final, by a glide. An example of a short form demonstrative with assimilation in the initial segment is discussed in Section 3.3.3 on demonstrative determiners. The short form demonstratives are not formally differentiated for social style, occurring with both common and Bebasan lexicon. The following example includes Bebasan forms together with a short demonstrative: (137) U: kula teng griya ku, 1sg.beb at.beb house.beb that.med ‘I was at home,’ (135:39)
This does not preclude the possibility that use of a short form demonstrative might ‘bring down’ the level of refinement otherwise expressed by the three Bebasan words in the intonation unit. Nuances of speech style can be subtly altered by, among other means, the relative proportion of Bebasan and nonBebasan lexicon. How this is achieved will vary with the social, economic, and educational background of speakers. A description of the Cirebon Javanese solution to the problem of reflecting and constituting social relationships through speech style is, however, outside the goals of the present study. Either long or short forms can be used for the various functions of demonstrative pronouns illustrated below. There is a tendency for speakers to prefer short forms in Intonation Unit (IU)-final position, while long forms tend to occur in non-final positions within the intonation unit. In the first one thousand lines of Transcript 107, out of 109 short form demonstratives, 90 (82%) occurred IU-finally. Among the 60 long form demonstratives in the same segment, only 23 (38%) occurred IU-finally, while 31 (52%) occurred in non-final position, and 6 (10%) were the only item in the intonation unit (and so could not be categorized as final or non-final). Demonstrative pronouns can refer to any type of referent, human or other animate, inanimate or abstract. These might be physically present in the speech environment. In such a case the demonstrative is fulfilling what is sometimes thought to be its prototypical function of drawing attention to an entity by metaphorically pointing and thus bringing that entity into the world of discourse. In (138) speaker H uses a demonstrative pronoun for this purpose when he asks my research consultant about a tape recorder that happens to be sitting among the conversationalists.
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(138) H: Dadi kuen disilii ta, so that.med di-lend-i qu ‘So (you) were lent that?’ (111:2369)
In (139) the speaker is describing his brother’s motorcycle accident and points to his own arm indicating the area where his brother was wounded and almost needed stitches. The demonstrative particle ni ‘this’ refers to this part of the arm which is the referent of the P argument, the trigger of the verb dijait ‘to be sewn’. (139) W: Mengkénén-mengkénén ampir-ampir dijait ni. like.this-redup almost di-sew this ‘Like this, this was almost stitched up.’ (114:273)
Only about 28% of the demonstrative pronouns in the sample of nominal references analyzed in Chapter 4 were used in this way to draw a referent from immediate physical setting into the discourse. All other uses of demonstrative pronouns had referents established within the discourse. Referents established within discourse and referred to with demonstrative pronouns include speech participants. In (140) ku ‘that med’ refers to the speaker. (140) N: .. Beli weru pegel ku, neg know tired that.med ‘I didn’t experience any fatigue.’ (111:16)
Third person referents, both human and non-human, can be referred to with demonstrative pronouns. In (141) the speakers have been talking about two brothers, one of whom is a public transport driver. Speaker O clarifies what she has just been saying and uses nu ‘that med’ to refer to the brother. (141) O: Nyupir sun. n-drive 1sg .. Nyupir ning GP nu. n-drive at GP that.med ‘(He) was driving I said. He was driving a GP [route transport].’ (107:1080–1081)
In (142), speaker P is lamenting the loss of a good knife which occurred while she was helping a neighbor during preparations for a wedding. When she refers to the knife again in the last line of the example, she use the demonstrative kaen ‘that dis’.
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(142) P: Beli ketemu=. neg find .. Lading gedé mak, knife big mom dengkéng. curved ‘Didn’t find (it). My big knife, the curved one.’ T: .. Kawinan? wedding ‘[at the preparations for] a wedding?’ M: .. Iya. yes Pugu ya, indeed yes kaen si gedé. that.dis part big ‘Yes. Yes indeed it was big.’ (151:824–831)
Demonstrative pronouns can also refer to propositional content within the discourse. This can be previously established information as in (143). (143) D: Isun kan nunggu sampé jam sepulu Umar. 1sg part wait until hour ten Umar ‘I waited until ten o’clock you know, Umar.’ . . . Ning, at . . . pintu gerbang Park Resort ka. door gate.ind Park Resort that.dis ‘That was at the gate to the Park Resort.’ (108:1755–1757)
My language consultant did not accept an analysis of ka ‘that dis’ as a determiner of the nominal Park Resort, but rather saw it as a pronoun. Its referent is not a previously mentioned entity but the whole event of the speaker’s wait until ten o’clock. In (143), ka ‘that [event]’ is the single argument of the locative
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predicate ning pintu gerbang Park Resort ‘at the gate of the Park Resort’, which explains where the event occurred. Demonstrative pronouns can also be used cataphorically, signaling that a referent, in this case in the form of propositional content, is about to be established. This is seen in (144) where gi ‘this’ is understood to refer to the propositional information that the speaker is about to express. (144) D: ngomong ning kita bari Madadi, speak to 1sg with Madadi pokoké si gi, point-def part this . . . Dan ’é. Dan quote . . . Sadurungé, before .. kita, 1sg é. repair Sadurungé ira bari Madadi kawin nu. before 2sg with Madadi marry that.med ‘(He) spoke to me and Madadi, his point was this, Dan he said, before I, I mean, before you and Madadi get married. . . ’ (140:977–986, three lines of parallel conversion omitted)
Similarly in (145) ’a ‘that dis’ refers to the P argument of the verb beli werua ‘didn’t realize’ and that which was not realized is explained by the speaker in the following intonation units. (145) W: Beli werua ’a, neg know-irr that.dis konci setir manjing Di. key steering enter Di .. Klo=k. expr.clicking ‘(He) didn’t realize that, the ignition key got stuck Di. Click’. (114:250–252)
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Demonstratives of this sort can occur at precisely the point where many languages have a complementizer construction. Standard Central Javanese grammars list the form yén as a complementizer and this form occurs in some of the planned discourse that I have examples of. Cirebon Javanese conversationalists, on the other hand, tend not to use any form of complementizer to link a proposition with a verb of speaking or cognition. The construction illustrated above is still clearly analyzable by speakers as consisting of a cataphoric demonstrative pronoun, and the intonational patterning in the examples supports such an analysis. It is nonetheless interesting to note that such a construction could be an incipient form of complementizer grammaticizing from a demonstrative (Hopper & Traugot 1993: 185–189). Demonstrative pronouns are a common hesitation filler, usually indicating a word search. This is illustrated in (146). (146) D: . . . Mélu. follow nu. that.med Boca Pléréd, child Pléréd .. boca wolu. child eight ‘Those will come along. The folks from Pléréd, eight of them.’ (140:1332–1335)
The use of demonstrative pronouns as hesitation markers can be seen to be related to the cataphoric function mentioned above. My research consultants characterized such constructions as pointing to what the speaker was intending to say. It is as if the speaker fills the grammatical slot – for which a referent or means of expression has not yet come to mind – with a cataphoric demonstrative. The speaker creates a sense of syntactic closure while leaving the semantic content of the slot unfilled, thus indicating the possibility that more is to come and potentially maintaining the floor in order to complete the thought once the appropriate information or expression has come to mind. Of course, this does not preclude the possibility of an interlocutor taking the floor and filling in the slot for the original speaker. In example (147) speaker M is trying to think of how to describe the fingers of a friend with diseased hands, but D is the one who comes up with the description.
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(147) M: Kaya=, like kien ka. this that.dis ‘Like this uh. . . ’ D: .. kaya tabok-kemplang baé. like club just ‘just like clubs.’ (140:762–764)
The previous example also illustrates the common phenomenon of multiple demonstratives occurring together. When asked why they do this, speakers will often say it is to emphasize. To demonstrate this, one person I was talking with took a dish that was between us on the floor where we sat. He pulled it near himself, looked intently at it and pointed repeatedly while saying kien iki ni ‘this this this’ or ‘this one right here’ with exaggerated intonation. Of course, speakers are normally not pointing violently nor using exaggerated intonation when they produce multiple demonstratives spontaneously, so clearly their function in natural discourse is somewhat subtler than the demonstration I was given. At this point we will just note that adding extra syllables, especially of an alliterative nature, can give a pleasant feel to the rhythm and flow of speech. Table 3.1 compares the use of demonstrative pronouns and personal pronouns for human reference. This illustrates the preference for personal pronouns for first and second person reference, while demonstrative pronouns are preferred for third person reference. Note that use of a demonstrative pronoun to refer to first person is possible and an instance of this was seen in Chapter 2, example (102) and in example (140) above; however, it is infrequent enough that no instance occurred in the sample taken here. Finally, the three degrees of proximity in the demonstrative pronouns of Javanese are sometimes described in terms of speech participants as follows: Table 3.1 Use of demonstrative and personal pronouns with human referents Person
Demonstrative pronouns
Personal pronouns
Total
First Second Third
0 1 13
0% 13% 87%
22 7 2
100% 88% 13%
22 8 15
100% 100% 100%
Total
14
31%
31
69%
45
100%
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the proximate degree (glossed ‘this’ in interlinear glosses used here) is said to correspond to space near the speaker, the medial degree (glossed ‘that.med’ in interlinear glosses) is meant to correspond to space near the listener, and the distal degree (glossed ‘that.dis’) then corresponds to space away from first and second persons, that is, third person space. Recent work on demonstratives in a number of languages has suggested that neatly defined paradigms such as these rarely reflect actual usage by speakers (Fincke 1996; Florey & Kelly 2002; Himmelmann 1996; Laury 1997; Sukamto 2003). This is also the case with the demonstratives in Cirebon Javanese. In example (140), the medial demonstrative ku is used for first person reference. Similarly, example (131) includes the phrase kita ku ‘1sg that med’ in which a medial demonstrative modifies a first person pronoun. This is an area where further research would be fruitful, both with Cirebon and with Standard Central Javanese. .. Unexpressed participants When nominal expressions refer, they establish or refresh a discourse referent in the minds of the interlocutors. Referring nominal expressions can be more or less explicit. Headless relative clauses and lexical noun phrases with or without various types of modifying material can be very explicit in their reference. Semantically more general nouns such as wong ‘person’ can be less explicit in their reference. In Cirebon Javanese, as in many other languages of the region, referents can also be established or refreshed in discourse without recourse to overt nominal expressions. Phenomena of this sort have been referred to as ellipsis, elision, zero anaphora, or pro-drop. I will use the term unexpressed participants. In this section I discuss how I have identified occurrences of the phenomenon of unexpressed participants and why it is important to do so in an analysis of Javanese conversation. In this discussion I am not including relativization, equi constructions, or other situations in which a single argument is shared by two syntactically linked clauses such that one clause will obligatorily have what might be described as a deleted argument. Rather, we will be looking at situations in which there is not a syntactic prohibition against the explicit expression of an argument, but where, for discourse and pragmatic reasons, speakers have not chosen to use an overt form. Many researchers have based their study of unexpressed participants on the assumption that predicates have an argument structure that can tell us when an argument is expected but not overtly expressed (Clancy 1980; Fillmore 1986). This is the view taken in this study. The semantics of a predicate imply certain participants and usually one or two of these can be expressed as core arguments
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of the predicate. As we saw in Chapter 2, some verbs, such as those with trigger prefixes or transitive suffixes, give morphological information about argument structure that is consistent with the meaning of the verb. Many other verbs do not have any morphological redundancy to indicate their argument structure, which is implied solely by semantics. In Cirebon Javanese conversation, clause participants that are implied by the semantics and morphology of a predicate are often expressed as overt arguments with lexical noun phrases or pronominal forms. It is also common for such participants to be unexpressed. However, an expectation is built up in the minds of interlocutors, based on frequency of encounter in natural discourse, that any particular predicate will have a potential set of core participants. When a potential participant is not explicitly expressed, this can be taken as a cue for the listener to infer a referent for this unexpressed participant. Such participants are unexpressed, but nonetheless grammatically relevant. It may seem to be overstating the case to claim that all potential core arguments that are unexpressed are grammatically relevant. Ono and Thompson (1997) suggest that in a language like Japanese, to claim that an unexpressed participant has been ellipted might not be an appropriate characterization and that in many cases a truer representation might be to say there is no argument at all. Any unexpressed but relevant referent will be “inferred from the entire range of semantic and pragmatic factors which are present in the actual interactions in which speakers engage in everyday life” (Ono & Thompson 1997: 489). I would suggest that the argument structure of a verb, together with other morphosyntactic cues, is another relevant factor that, in conjunction with the semantic and pragmatic factors mentioned by Ono and Thompson (1997), aids listeners in this inferencing task. It may indeed become clear after further study that some of the examples of unexpressed participants that I have identified might be better understood as involving no argument at all (and indeed I suggest this in Chapter 4). But to discount possible examples of unexpressed participants before performing the information flow analysis discussed in Chapter 4 would risk leaving undiscovered important patterns in how speakers make use of the language resources available to them during conversational interaction. Example (148) includes overt expression of the referents of both the A and P arguments of the verb mangan ‘eat’. A (148) D: Ya wong wadon ya, yes person woman yes
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V P mangan sate , n-eat satay .. paling, most .. entoké lima Jok ya finish-def five Jok yes ‘Yeah when a woman eats satay, at most (she)’ll finish five [sticks], Jok.’ (108:3361–64)
When an argument is not overtly expressed, its referent may nevertheless be very clear to interlocutors and relevant to the development of the discourse. Example (149) also includes the verb ‘eat,’ this time in P-trigger form rather than the A-trigger seen in example (148). (149) M: Cumanan ana sega ku, only exist rice that.med sega wadang. rice leftover →
Dongé apan dipangan, when fut di-eat Ma=mbu. m-smell ‘There was only uh, leftover rice. When (we) were going to eat (it), [we realized] (it) was spoiled.’ (151:1325–1331, three lines of parallel conversion omitted)
In this example M is telling a story about the time she helped her father-in-law with the cooking and then ate with him. The referent of the A argument of the verb dipangan ‘eat’ at the arrow is the people eating together and the referent of the P argument is the leftover rice in question. These participants are previously established and are being tracked through this clause. Both participants are unexpressed. As will be seen in the discussion of information flow in Chapter 4, it is common for unexpressed participants to be previously established and tracked through the discourse. And as we will see in Chapter 5, it is not coincidental that such a clause is expressed in P-trigger form. While it may not always be clear to an outsider what referent is evoked by a predicate with an unexpressed participant, it is usually (although not always) clear to the inter-
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actants. On hearing the expression of a predicate in context without expressed arguments, a listener will know, for example, who did what to whom, or will at least be able to make a reasonable hypothesis which may then be confirmed or rejected as the discourse progresses. In other cases a referent which might be implied by the verb semantics is not expressed and the speaker has no intention that any identifiable referent should ‘fill’ the argument slot. In example (150) there are no overt arguments of the same verb, mangan ‘eat’. (150) K: .. Emong. 1sg.neg.want . . . Wis mangan. already n-eat . . . Wareg=. satiated ‘I don’t want [a snack]. (I)’ve already eaten. (I)’m full.’ (107:194–196)
The semantic agent of the verb mangan ‘eat’ in example (150) is clear: it is the speaker who is explaining why she doesn’t want a snack. From the semantics of the verb it is clear that there must be some semantic patient, but it is neither clear nor relevant exactly what was eaten. In such situations it might be suggested that there is indeed no grammatical argument. I will nonetheless still consider there to be a participant that is unexpressed and which can be coded for various grammatical and discourse properties in the analysis. However, we will see that participants such as the P argument in (149) and the P argument in (150) have very different information flow profiles and will be coded very differently in the analysis presented in Chapter 4. In his work with grammatical units and intonation, Tao (1996) points out that it is important that we not conflate all examples of unexpressed participants, and suggests that there are at least five different types of elliptical forms in his conversational Chinese data, including anaphoric and non-anaphoric types. This is an important point, and as it happens, his five categories of nominal ellipsis can be seen as emerging from the interaction of different information flow categories, which will be the topic of Chapter 4. Indeed the interaction of information flow properties is relevant in differentiating subtypes within all types of nominal expressions including both expressed and unexpressed participants. To assume a priori that there is simply no P argument in a clause like (150) would preclude being able to see the emergence of these different functional types of unexpressed participants in discourse.
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The importance of unexpressed participants is suggested by their frequency. Of 408 participants of transitive clauses in the sample of the conversational database analyzed in Chapter 5, 277 or 68% were not overtly expressed. Unexpressed participants are also relevant to the discussion of the clause in Cirebon Javanese conversation because, as we will see, the expression of a predicate with no overt argument is sufficient to track its unexpressed participant through discourse. There are indeed long stretches of discourse in the conversational data with no explicit arguments, yet the participants involved in the events being related are clearly being tracked by the interlocutors. Information is being incrementally associated with these referents as the interlocutors co-construct meaning through interaction. Example (149) above is a brief example of this: after the referent sega wadang ‘leftover rice’ is introduced, it participates in the next two clauses which do not have expressed arguments. An example like this might be analyzed as a case of clause chaining. This is an especially appealing analysis for (149) because the unexpressed referent participates in two consecutive clauses and has the syntactic role of trigger in each clause. This would be similar to a series of clauses sharing the same unexpressed subject in a language which has subjects. However, use of unexpressed participants in Cirebon Javanese is much less constrained than such a subject- or trigger-chaining analysis would suggest. This is illustrated in the longer example (151). In this example speaker B has been telling a story about a friend who sells goods at the market and had some of her things stolen when she left them with another person for a while. Speaker B is wrapping up the story when O asks for clarification of what happened and then provides her own summary, presumably as a check that she understood the story. (151) Lost things 1070 B: . . . Nangis wongé, cry person-def 1071
duwité langka [maning]. money-def neg.exist again ‘She cried, all (her) money was lost.’
1072 O:
[Dadi dititip]aken? therefore di-entrust-aken ‘So (she) had left (her things)?’
1073 B: Dititipaken nu. di-entrust-aken that.med
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1074
<X Bi [An=] X>. aunt An ‘(She) had left them. Bi An [?].’
1075 U:
[Krupuk]. shrimp.chip ‘[I’ll have] a shrimp chip.’
1076 O: .. Tes blanja, after shop 1077
dititipaken. di-entrust-aken ‘After (she) was shopping, (she) left (her things).’
1078 B: Hm. hm ‘Hm.’ 1079 O: Noli arepan balik, then fut return 1080
. . . langka. neg.exist ‘Then when (she) wanted to go home, (they) weren’t there.’
1081 B: Ya. yes 1082
Ari arepan digawa= li? if fut di-take neg.tag ‘Yes, when (she) wanted to pick (them) up, you know?’
1083 O: O=. Oh ‘Oh.’ (107:1070–1083)
In lines 1070 and 1071 speaker B overtly mentions the protagonist of the story and the fact the she lost her potential earnings from the day of trading because of losing the goods she was going to resell. When O is speaking in line 1072, the unexpressed participants of the transitive verb dititipaken ‘to entrust (with someone)’ are the victim who was just mentioned by the previous speaker and the goods which we know about from earlier in the telling of the story. The same verb is repeated by B in line 1073, this time with the P argument expressed as a demonstrative pronoun. The following intonation unit is not clear, so we cannot be sure who is being mentioned nor the relationship with the clause. In
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the remainder of this example the participating referents are consistently unexpressed, but vary as to which fills the syntactic role of trigger. In line 1076 the referent of the unexpressed trigger, the S argument, is the victim. The referent of the unexpressed trigger in the next line, line 1077, shifts: it is now the goods, while the victim is the referent of the non-trigger A participant. In lines 1079 and 1080, one unexpressed trigger has the victim as its referent while the following unexpressed trigger has the goods as its referent. Finally both referents are evoked but unexpressed with another P-trigger verb, digawa ‘take’. There is no evidence of the syntactic chaining of triggers that might have been adduced initially with example (149). The use of evoked participants in example (151) binds the utterances together pragmatically and reinforces the fact that this stretch of interaction relates a single episode within the story, jointly retold by the two interlocutors. The fact that one referent is human and the other is inanimate greatly aids in establishing which referent fills which role. The deployment and interpretation of unexpressed participants is primarily motivated by pragmatic and semantic considerations, rather than by the kinds of syntactic links between clauses that are often assumed to be a primary condition of zero anaphora (cf. Andrews 1985). A more detailed discussion of how such pragmatic and semantic considerations interact with information flow, constituent order, and morphology as clauses unfold in conversational interaction will be the focus of Chapter 6. As mentioned earlier, the phenomenon of unexpressed participants has been described in the field using metaphors such as elision, zero anaphora, and pro-drop. These metaphors suggest that something that should be in the clause has been removed. While this type of metaphor might appropriately describe the syntactic workings of specific theoretical models, it is not appropriate for describing the cognitive and interactional processes that inform interactive speech in context. Thus, I am not claiming that an unexpressed participant has any status as a constituent, nor that there is any physical point within a clause where such an argument ‘should’ or ‘could’ be expressed had it not been ‘deleted’. The relationship between overt nominal expressions, whether lexical noun phrases or pronominal forms, and unexpressed participants is not one of dropping. Overt nominal expressions are one means by which speakers can establish or refresh, deploy or track referents in discourse. I have used the term ‘refer’ for this phenomenon: an overt nominal expression can refer to a referent. Another means by which referents can be established or refreshed, deployed or tracked, is by implication based on the convergence of three kinds of information: the semantic and morphological properties of the predicate, the pragmatic and information flow properties of discourse referents, and the gen-
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Table 3.2 Pronouns and unexpressed arguments with human referents Person
Demonstrative pronouns
Personal pronouns
Evoked
Total
First Second Third
0 1 13
0% 4% 30%
22 7 2
33% 27% 5%
44 18 29
67% 69% 66%
66 26 44
100% 100% 100%
Total
14
10%
31
23%
91
67%
136
100%
eral and discourse-specific knowledge of the interlocutors. I will use the term ‘evoke’ for this process: a predicate (in conjunction with many other factors) can evoke a referent in a certain role. Thus an unexpressed referent is not an overt form that has been ‘dropped’. Rather, overt nominal expressions and unexpressed participants evoked by predicates are two different means by which referents are integrated into the discourse by interlocutors. As I said, these unexpressed participants are sometimes difficult for outsiders to figure out. I established the identity of referents in the conversational data used here by working closely with my consultants. These consultants had either been participants in the conversations under study or at least knew the participants in the conversations and were thus familiar with what was being said. It was based on my consultants’ reading of the texts that I developed the understanding of unexpressed participants discussed here. It was also by working with my consultants that I was able to establish which unexpressed participants were referential and which were not, and if referential, to determine the identity of their referents and the grammatical role these referents filled in the clause. When discussing information flow properties and other features of referents in a discourse, it is heuristically useful to hitch these properties to the nominal expression used to refer to that referent at that point in discourse. It is also heuristically useful to similarly hitch these features to the unexpressed participants evoked by a predicate when a referent has no overt nominal expression. Again, this is not a claim that unexpressed participants are entities in the same way that overt nominal expressions are, but rather that the convergence of elements which evoke an unexpressed referent involve information flow features at that point in the discourse in the same way that overt nominal expressions do. At the end of the previous section we compared the frequency of use of personal pronouns and demonstrative pronouns for human referents. Table 3.2 makes a similar comparison, now including instances of unexpressed hu-
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man referents. One interesting note is that while, as we saw before, first and second persons are very different from third person in terms of the type of pronominal expression used, they are very similar in terms of frequency of unexpressed reference. That is, human referents in the sample from this database are expressed with pronominal forms just over one third of the time regardless of person, while the rest of the time human referents are evoked in discourse through unexpressed participants. .. Summary In this section we have looked at the form of five different types of nominal expression commonly used by speakers in Cirebon Javanese conversation. These include headless relative clauses, lexical nouns, names and titles of various types, personal pronouns and demonstrative pronouns, and unexpressed participants. In the following section we will look at some of the ways that nominal expressions can be modified.
. Modification Nouns can be combined with other elements to form noun phrases in Cirebon Javanese. Noun phrases have head-modifier constituent order. Post-head modifiers can include predicates used attributively, quantifiers, relative clauses, and demonstrative determiners, usually in that order. In the following subsections we look at quantifiers first, followed by a discussion of attributive verbs and relative clauses. Demonstrative determiners follow, and this section on modification ends with a discussion of the associative suffix, including its contribution to possessive constructions. .. Quantifiers When specifying a number of individual entities, numerals follow the head noun and any attributive verbs, as in example (152). In the examples the relevant noun phrase is in bold face. (152) . . . Ana wong enom loro. exist person young two
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.. Nggawa motor siji. n-take motorcycle one ‘There were two young guys, riding one motorcycle.’ (108:1837–1838)
When indicating a measurement with a unit of measure, as of time or volume, the numeral precedes the unit of measure and uses the ligature -ng. In example (153) lima ‘five’ appears as limang. (153) M: .. Wis lawas oli=, already long receive .. limang wulan kien. five-lig month this .. É lebih. repair more.ind ‘It’s been a long time, five months. No, longer.’ (140:1136–1138)
When the amount measured is ‘one’, the ligature -ng is not used, rather the amount is indicated with the prefix se-, as in the first line of the following example. (154) B: . . . Tuku kang .. sekantong kan, buy rel one-bag part .. isun, 1sg biasaé tuku, usual-def buy .. pitung pulu lima ya=. seven-lig ten five yes ‘[when] (I) buy the ones that are in one sack you know, I usually buy seventy-five you know.’ (111:53–56)
The ligature -ng is also used within complex numbers, as with pitung pulu ‘seventy’ in the last line of this example. Also illustrated in this last line is the fact that if the unit of measure (in this case ‘sack’) is not mentioned, a ligature form of the total amount is not used. Other quantifiers also follow the head noun, as in example (155). (155) T: . . . dipai ketumbar setitik. di-give coriander a.little ‘put in a little coriander.’ (150:2082)
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.. Modification by predicates In Cirebon Javanese predicates of different types can be used to modify nominal expressions. In Section 3.3.2.1 we look at attributive verbs as well as larger predications which serve as modifiers immediately following nominal expressions. Section 3.3.2.2 covers modifying constructions that use the relative particle kang, and concludes with a comparison of these two modifying constructions. ... Attributive verbs Cirebon Javanese does not have a morphosyntactically relevant class of predicate adjectives. Qualities are predicated of nominals by stative verbs; there is no copula used to link a nominal and a predicative adjective, such as that found in English. Similarly, in an attributive context there is also no evidence for a formal class of adjectives. Any verb can be used as an attributive modifier within a noun phrase, following the head noun like other modifiers. This was seen in example (152) above, in which the stative verb enom ‘to be young’ modifies wong ‘person’. Another example is (156), in which the stative verb gedé ‘to be big’ modifies sabrang ‘chili pepper’. (156) P: . . . Sabrang gedé ku langu ta Yi? chili big that.med smell.bad qu Yi ‘Do those big chilies smell bad, Yi?’ (151:553)
Attributively used verbs are usually stative and indicate some sort of characteristic or quality. Such a construction would thus be equivalent to an attributive adjective construction in a language like English. However, this construction is not morphosyntactically unique to verbs denoting characteristics. Other verbs which might be thought of as more eventive than stative (or which at least would happen to have verbal rather than adjectival equivalents in English) can also occur as post-head modifiers in noun phrases. (157) P: Ngirim wong gesrik maning. n-send person weed again ‘(I) sent (food) out again to the people weeding / the weeding people.’ (151:1195)
While in English the verb to weed must have special morphology in order to be used attributively, i.e. a participial form as seen in the free translation of example (157), the Cirebon Javanese verb gesrik ‘weed’ is unchanged when used attributively and is morphosyntactically equivalent to the attributive use of the
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stative verb gedé ‘to be big’ in example (156). Not only verbs, but entire predications including additional core and oblique arguments can modify a head noun as in (158). (158) P: . . . Wong duwé bonténg ning kono ku sapa? person have cucumber at there that.med who ‘Who is the person who has cucumbers over there?’ (151:728)
In Cirebon Javanese stative verbs, which are semantically similar to the adjectives of a language like English, as well as more eventive or transitive verbs, can modify a noun as an attributive element. ... Relative clauses Headless relative clauses, which form a nominal constituent in their own right, were discussed in Section 3.2.1. It was mentioned in that section that relative clauses can also be used to modify another head nominal. These modifying relative clauses are also marked with the relative particle kang and, like other modifiers, follow the head nominal. The shared argument has the syntactic role of the trigger of the relative clause. A P-trigger relative clause, in which the shared referent has the role of P in the relative clause and the verb is consequently marked with P-trigger morphology, is illustrated in (159). An A-trigger relative clause is illustrated in (160), and in (161) there is an S-trigger relative clause. (159) W: .. Segala s=esuatu , all.ind thing.ind rel fut di-order-nang beli wani mrénta isun Di. neg brave n-order 1sg Di ‘Anything that (she) wants to order [me to do], (she) doesn’t have the guts to order me, Di.’ (114:1157–1158) (160) W: .. Coba koé kapan nyanyi wadon. try later when sing.ind woman .. . rel n-sing for.example song song Elvi ‘So then see what happens when the singer’s a woman who sings for example a song by Elvi.’ (114:85–86)
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(161) U: .. ana boca SMP . exist child junior.high.school rel like to 1sg ‘There’s a high school girl who’s interested in me.’ (108:4086)
Relative clauses are not always made up of the larger complex predications illustrated above. The kinds of stative verbs which represent characteristics and which are often used attributively without any special marking may also occur as predicates in relative clauses. (162) W: .. Ana omongan , exist talk rel pleasant ‘There’s talk that is pleasant,’ (114:583) (163) T: Ya, yes ngenggo hélemé Dadang lu, n-use helmet-def Dadang rel large that.med kéder nemen ududé. confused very smoke-def ‘It’s difficult to smoke if you’re wearing that big helmet of Dadang’s’ (111:1319–1321)
We saw in Section 3.3.2.1 that verbs of any kind (and indeed larger predications) can modify nouns, following them directly with no mediating morphology. In this section we have seen that relative clauses can be made up of the same kinds of verbs or larger predications linked to the head nominal with the relative particle kang. Thus, a more general statement would be that any verbal predication, including any non-trigger arguments, can serve to modify a noun, either with or without the relative clause marker kang. Indeed this generalization can be extended even further. In Cirebon Javanese, predicates of any kind, whether verbal or non-verbal, can be used by speakers to modify a noun, with or without the particle kang. This generalization covers all the different types of Cirebon Javanese predicates that were discussed in Chapter 2. Any predicate type can be used to modify a noun, either directly following the head noun as an attributive element in the noun phrase, or within a relative clause marked by the particle kang. Non-verbal predicates used attributively are illustrated below, both modifying nominals directly and as a relative clause. Examples (164) and (165) illustrate a prepositional phrase as an attributive element and as the predicate of a relative clause.
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(164) A: Wong tua ning umaé Bi Nani ka, person old in house-def aunt Nani that.dis sapa si Bi Nani, who part aunt Nani kang wis tua. rel already old ‘Who is that old person in your house, Bi Nani, the old one.’ (107:1155–1157) (165) W: Kaji Kasim Megu ta? pilgrim Kasim Megu qu ‘Haji Kasim of Megu?’ D: Kaji Kasim= ka. pilgrim Kasim rel in Plered that.dis ‘The Haji Kasim who’s in Plered.’ (114:3181–3182)
Examples (166) and (167) illustrate the use of deictic adverbials modifying a noun directly and in a relative clause. (166) D: .. Kita péngéné Wan ya. 1sg want-def Wan yes kamer seméné li Wan ya. room this.amount this Wan ya ‘What I want, Wan, is a room this size, Wan.’ (114:2295–2296) (167) N:
%%Lém
glue
, rel this.amount
se .. séwu .. séwu limang atus ka. one.thousand one.thousand five-lig hundred that.dis ‘This much glue is one thousand, one thousand five hundred [rupiah].’ (111:1905–1906)
The following examples illustrate the use of a nominal expression as an attributive modifier in examples (168) and as the predicate of a relative clause in (169). In (168) the speakers are discussing whom they should invite on an excursion. Speaker D lists the people from Kemlaka whom he is going to contact and R asks for clarification about which ‘Henni’ D means. R uses a characterizing nominal rangda ‘divorcee’ as a direct modifier to do so.
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(168) D: (H) Kita, 1sg kang ubungi Kemlaka gi, rel contact-i Kemlaka this Hénni, Henni .. Héti, Heti . . . Har, Har ‘The ones I’ll contact from Kemlaka are Henni, Heti, Har, .. Ari Har si ja- -if Har part As for Har –’ R: Hénni rangda iku ta? Henni divorcee that.med qu ‘Henni the divorcee?’ M: . . . [He`e]. uhuh ‘Uhuh.’ D: . . . [Iya]. yes ‘Yes.’ (140:1339–1346)
A characterizing nominal can also be preceded by the relative particle kang as in (169). Here the speaker’s future brother-in-law is characterized with the nominal pamong désa ‘village administrator’ which is presented as a predicate nominal in a relative clause construction. (169) B: .. Kakangé déwéké dadi tulis. older.sibling-def self-def become secretary . rel administrator village ‘Her own brother is the secretary, who’s the village administrator.’ (111:168–169)
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The previous discussion has looked at predicates used attributively from the perspective of their internal structure and found that structurally the only difference between what might be called direct modifiers and relative clauses is the absence or presence of kang. However, when we look at the structural context in which these modifying predicates occur, we see that there are other differences between those constructions with the relative marker and those without. These differences include constituent order and degree of boundedness to the head nominal. Attributive predicates always immediately follow the head noun with no other intervening material. Any other modifiers such as quantifiers and determiners follow the attributive predicate. In addition, the head-plus-attribute combination is always produced in a single intonation unit. These characteristics suggest a close boundedness between the head of the noun phrase and the modifying predicate without kang. On the other hand, modifying predicates marked with kang occur toward the end of the noun phrase, followed only by the demonstrative determiner if there is one. Any other modifying material, such as directly modifying attributes or quantifiers, intervene between the head nominal and the kang-marked relative clause. Relative clauses and their heads are also often produced by speakers in separate intonation units. These characteristics suggest a looser connection between a kang-marked relative clause and its head. These characteristics of direct attributive predicate and relative clauses are illustrated in the following discussion. In the noun phrase in example (163) above, helmé Dadang kang gede, ‘Dadang’s big helmet’, the possessor intervenes between the head nominal and the relative clause. In the following example (170), both an explicit possessor and a question tag intervene between the head nominal and the relative clause, and the relative clause is produced in an intonation unit separate from the head nominal. (170) N: anaké Bi Ibu Ibu An ta. child-def aunt mother mother An qu ku? rel marry with person Arab that ‘Aunt uh Mrs. An’s child, is it? The one who married an Arab?’ (111:1063–1064)
Indeed, this example illustrates the difficulty of delimiting constituent boundaries in conversational material. It could be argued that the head noun of the relative clause is anaké Ibu An ‘Mrs. An’s child’ and as such this stretch of language should be in bold face in the example as well, indicating that it forms a
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higher level noun phrase together with the relative clause. On the other hand, the commonplace nature of headless relative clauses in Cirebon Javanese suggests the relative clause in this example could be a free noun phrase, set in apposition to the anaké Ibu An. An analysis that takes into account the flow of time allows the possibility of syntactic structures being reanalyzed for interactive purposes (Ono & Thompson 1996). Thus when the first intonation was produced, anaké Ibu An was a completed noun phrase, the completion reinforced by the question particle ta and final intonation contour of the intonation unit. At the point of uttering the following intonation unit, for whatever reason, the speaker feels the need to add supplementary information about the referent. The noun phrase session is reopened, so to speak, and an additional element, the relative clause, is added. At this point in time the two intonation units can be reanalyzed as a single, larger noun phrase. Examples (160) and (169) above are other examples of relative clauses produced in separate intonation units, which might be given a similar time-sensitive analysis. Bybee (1985) proposes a cline of expression types ranging from lexical to inflectional through syntactic, and one of the determinants of expression type has to do with the cognitive and cultural relevance of elements to one another. While both of the modifying constructions discussed here are syntactic, we have seen that direct attributive use of predicates is structurally more closely bound to the head nominal than relative clauses are. We would therefore hypothesize that the information being expressed in a relative clause is less central to the concept being referred to by the entire noun phrase. This can be seen in the examples of relative clauses that are used to establish a contrast between members of a set. The defining characteristics shared by members of the set are established by the head nominal, while the relative clause provides supplemental information which contrasts one member of the class from others. This is clearly illustrated in example (165) where Kaji Kasim kang ning Pléréd ‘Haji Kasim who’s in Plered’ is contrasted with another Haji Kasim. The looser cognitive connections between a modifying predicate with kang, compared to that without kang, can be seen by comparing some of the contrasting pairs with and without the relative particle kang. For example in (166) kamer seméné ‘this size room’, the size of the room is a defining characteristic and one that clearly sets the limits on what is part of the room and what is not. In example (167) lém kang seméné ‘this much glue’, the glue is no different in nature whether it is taken in a smaller or larger amount. The information in the relative clause is relevant not to the glue itself but the amount one must pay for it.
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Relative clauses give speakers an opportunity to add additional information about a referent, set up contrasts, and accomplish other modifying work in relation to a concept that is established as a head nominal. Attributive predicates tend to be conceptually and syntactically more closely linked to the syntactic head, and the head and modifying element are used together to represent a conceptual whole. .. Demonstrative determiners Demonstratives can serve as determiners, and, if so used, are the final element in the noun phrase. Their function as markers of identifiability is discussed in Chapter 4. Their form is the same as that of the demonstrative pronouns discussed in Section 3.2.4.2 above, including the long and short forms for three degrees of proximity. Example (171) illustrates a noun phrase ending in a full demonstrative form. (171) W: . . . Kaya-kaya ya, like-redup yes .. beli bisa mandeg. neg can m-stop motor kuen Di. motorcycle that.med Di ‘It was like the motorcycle couldn’t stop, Di.’ (114:331–333)
The following examples illustrate short form demonstratives used as determiners. (172) D: Ya= ari khas tradisional wong Cerbon ku, yes if specialty.ind traditional.ind person Cirebon that.med aja diilangaken lud. neg.imp di-lose-aken voc ‘Yeah, as for the Cirebon people’s traditional specialties, (they) shouldn’t be lost man.’ (140:1673–1674) (173) A: Beli dalan kang .. ngulon ka. neg road rel westward that.dis ‘Not the road that goes west.’ (150:402)
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Example (174) illustrates a case of initial vowel assimilation in a short form demonstrative. Speaker W has referred to his boss with the nickname Babé, a Jakartan Indonesian term meaning ‘boss’. Speaker D asks for clarification. (174) D: Babé [sapa]? boss.ind who ‘Which babé?’ W:
[Iya]. yes Babé, boss.ind Bos ’u, boss that.med Majuki nu. Majuki that.med ‘Yeah babé, the boss, Majuki.’ (114:57)
Speaker W produced ‘the boss’ as [bossu] with a geminate /s/.2 Elision or assimilation of the first segment of a short demonstrative can occur in any phonological context.3 As they do with demonstrative pronouns, speakers of Cirebon Javanese also frequently use multiple demonstrative determiners. No more than three, most often only two are usually used. If there are both long and short forms, the long forms will appear first, closer to the head, while the short forms occur following the long forms, on the periphery of the noun phrase. An example of multiple demonstrative determiners is given in example (175). (175) N: Ya perna maén k=rambol bareng karo kita. yes ever play k.o.board.game with with 1sg kang béwok kuen nu. rel beard that.med that.med ‘Yeah that guy with a beard has played krambol with me before.’
.. Association One of the main functions of the definite suffix -é is to indicate that the referent of the noun phrase on which it occurs is identifiable by association with some other identifiable referent (Ewing 1995). The suffix -é has a range of other functions in addition to marking associative identifiability, such as its use in certain
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types of verb nominalization, in sentential adverbs, and as a marker of contrast (Ewing 1998). I will therefore gloss it as DEF for ‘definite suffix’, following the distinction used by Du Bois (1980) and Chafe (1994) where the term identifiability is reserved for a particular information flow property while definite is used for a morphosyntactic element. ... Associative uses of -é There are a variety of associative relationships that can be indicated by the use of -é. These include frame-evoked associations, part-whole relationships, social relationships, personal characteristics, and ownership. Some of these relationships are typically marked with dedicated possessive morphology in many languages of the world. While Cirebon Javanese speakers do have access to suffixes that might be described as dedicated possessive morphology, these possessive constructions are virtually never employed in the informal conversational data used here (see Section 3.3.4.2 below for a further discussion of possessive morphology in Standard Central Javanese and Cirebon Javanese). Rather, in Cirebon Javanese all types of associative relationships are marked using the same general suffix -é, whose syntactic and semantic properties are discussed below. The referent that is being marked as identifiable by association with some other referent or presupposed context is explicitly stated and marked with the suffix -é. I will call this é-marked nominal the “associate”. The referent or context that engenders this identifiability through association may or may not be explicitly stated. I will call this referent or context the “associator”. Examples (176) and (177) illustrate associative constructions with explicit associators. (176) A: Berarti kuen ku na- -mean.ind that.med that.med nari, dance ning umaé Érwin. at house-def Erwin ‘That means they are dancing at Erwin’s house.’ (107:950–952) (177) W: Kuen pandangané wong awam si. that.med view.ind-def person lay part ‘That’s a lay person’s opinion you know.’ (114:1597)
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These illustrate the formal properties of this construction. In (176) uma ‘house’ is the associate and is marked with the definite suffix -é. Its referent is identifiable because of its relationship with Erwin, the associator, which is expressed immediately following the associate in the head-modifier order typical of Javanese. The reader might wonder at this point why I am not simply calling this a possessive relationship: after all, the form is easily translated with a possessive construction in English. In the first instance it is not clear that the relationship between Erwin and the house is possession in the strict sense of ownership. From the context it seems to be the house where he lives, indeed a socially salient association, but not necessarily a house that he owns. More importantly, there are many instances of the use of -é, illustrated below, that are much further removed from any sense of possession, thus prompting the use of the more general term “association”. We will look again at possession and possessive constructions in Section 3.3.4.2. In associative constructions the associator need not be expressed in a modifier relationship in the same noun phrase with the é-marked associate. In example (178) the noun phrase representing the first person associator occurs in a separate intonation unit which establishes a contrastive topic shift. The associate noun phrase marked with -é occurs in its own intonation unit without a modifier. (178) B: .. sedangkan isun ku, while 1sg that.med duwité, money-def kanggo boral-boralé, for extravagance-def ning kono kabé. at there all ‘but as for me, all my money was just for extravagances over there.’ (111:228–231)
The use of -é on the noun duwit ‘money’ instructs the listener to interpret the referent as identifiable and to search for an associator which engenders that identifiability. In this case the associator would be the first person expressed in the first intonation unit of the example. When the speaker considers that an associator can be sufficiently understood, or otherwise need not be explicitly expressed, the associate can simply be
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marked with the definite suffix and the associative relationship is thus implied. This is illustrated by example (179). (179) B: Bapané Arab. father-def Arab ‘Her father’s Arab. . . . Emboké dudu Arab. mother-def neg Arab Her mother’s not Arab.’ N: Emboké wong Jawa ta? monther-def person Java qu ‘Her mother’s Javanese?’ (111:1219–1221)
Speaker N has mentioned the woman they are discussing six intonation units previous to this. Pragmatic understating lets the hearer know that the associative relationship evoked by the use of -é in all three instances is a kinship relationship with the woman who was mentioned earlier but not explicitly expressed here. The following are examples of -é being used to indicate an associative relationship implied by a cultural frame. In these cases there is neither a part-whole relationship between the two entities nor a relationship of say, ownership or family tie. Rather, because one referent has been established in the discourse, other referents that are understood from cultural knowledge to be associated with it will be assumed to be identifiable and so marked with -é. In example (180), mention of the snack gapit evokes a frame in which chili sauce is an important accompanying condiment. To indicate that the chili sauce in the next line is that chili sauce which is understood by association with gapit, it is marked with -é. (180) X: . . . Ai gapit, if k.o.snack . . . sambelé apa Bi Nani. chili.sauce-def what aunt Nani ‘What’s the sauce that goes with gapit, Bi Nani?’ (107:172–173)
In the following example from a story about a motorcycle accident, the location where the accident was about to take place is mentioned in line 217. Fourteen intonation units later (line 231) the driver has just arrived at a bridge.
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(181) Motorcycle accident 215 W: .. (H) Dadi ceritané si motor=, therefore story-def def motorcycle 216
apan tanjakan anu nu. fut grade ws that.med
217
.. (H) .. tanjaka=n Sipé nu. grade Sipé that.med ‘So the story goes the motorcycle was going to go up to the grade, the grade at Sipé.’
218 D: .. Hm`m. uhuh ‘Uhuh.’ 219 W: (H) .. Si motor, def motor 220
m_perasaan setir ku ambles, feeling.ind steering that.med sink
221
déwék ’é. self quote ‘The motorcycle felt like the steering column had sunk down by itself he said.
222
.. Mingslep slep ’é. slip.in expr.slip quote (it) was stuck he said.’
223 D: .. Setir ku? steering that.med ‘the steering column?’ 224 W: Si setir ku. def steering that.med ‘the steering column.’ 225
.. Perasaan. feeling.ind ‘[That was the] feeling.’
226
Dadi, therefore ‘So,’
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227 D: Iya. yes ‘Yes.’ 228 W: .. numpak motor kan alon=. ride motorcycle part slow ‘(He) was riding the motorcycle slowly, right.’ 229 D: .. [Iya]. yes ‘Yes.’ 230 W: 231
[Durung] -not.yet dau teka ng % buké ’a. just.then arrive at bridge-def that.dis ‘(He) hadn’t – (he) had just arrived at the bridge, like that.’ (114:215–231)
In the last line the bridge is identifiable by its association with the approach to the grade at Sipé although not actually a part of that grade itself. Having established the approach, landmarks associated with that approach can be treated as identifiable by interlocutors who are familiar with the area. While general knowledge of the area is important in establishing the identifiability of the bridge, this knowledge alone is not enough to allow the bridge to be treated as identifiable. In the example the context of the approach to Sipé must be established first before the noun phrase buké ‘the bridge’ can be assumed by the speaker to be identifiable to the listener. Thus the association between the grade at Sipé and a particular bridge is a crucial aspect in the pathway by which the referent of this nominal expression is made identifiable. Nouns marked with the definite suffix -é can also function as clause level adverbial modifiers. In (182) akhiré ‘the end’ is juxtaposed with the clause bapa ku balik ‘I went back’. (182) B: Akhiré bapa ku balik. end-def father that return ‘Finally I went back.’ (105:238)
The result could be analysed as a clause with a predicate nominal structure equivalent to the English ‘The last thing is that I went back’. The associative aspect of these constructions arises from the fact that conversational interaction seems to presuppose certain epistemic, discourse structural or evaluative
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possibilities that speakers can tap into. Thus telling a story presupposes the possibility of some final action and so the notion of ‘finally’ can be formed with noun that is marked as definite due to its association with the frame of story telling. In such constructions, the noun marked with -é has the function of characterizing the information expressed in a clause it is juxtaposed with. Consistent with this adverbial function, these structures are taking on grammatical features of adverbial constructions. In (183), the definite noun phrase rupané ‘the appearance’ occurs in an adverbial position, between the trigger and the predicate. (183) B: Nok Warti ki, girl Warti this rupané= bari baturé ka. appearance-def with friend-def that.dis ‘Apparently Nok Warti is with her friend.’ (111:1238–1239)
Such constructions are quite frequent in the conversational data and may be analyzed as adverbs that have grammaticized from definite nouns. A similar construction is found in Indonesian (Englebretson 2003). ... Possessive constructions We now turn to the issue of possessive constructions and the definite suffix. As it happens, the suffix -é also occurs in Standard Central Javanese, where it is often described as a third person possessive suffix in a paradigmatic relationship with first and second person suffixes. Standard Central Javanese has a paradigm of possessive enclitics differentiated for person: -ku ‘1st person possessive’, -mu ‘2nd person possessive’, and -(n)é ‘3rd person possessive’. Speakers can also use the third person possessive enclitic to indirectly indicate possession by first and second persons as a politeness strategy. In his sketch grammar of Cirebon Javanese, Smith (1926) gives the forms -(n)isun ‘1st person possessive’, -(n)ira ‘2nd person possessive’, and -(n)é ‘3rd person possessive’. The first and second person forms are transparently related to the Cirebon Javanese free pronouns isun and sira or ira, but follow the Standard Central Javanese pattern of enclitic pronouns with epenthetic /n/ in the environment of a vowel-final base. In the entire conversational database I worked with there are only two examples of a first or second person form that clearly follows this pattern. Exam-
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ple (184) illustrates mertua ‘parent-in-law’ with the second person possessive -(n)ira. (184) T: .. Sapa. who ‘Who?’ P: Ya jaré, yes say-def .. Ang Yati. older.sister Yati .. mertuanira. parent.in.law-2sg.poss ‘Yeah according to Ang Yati, your mother-in-law.’ (151:679–684, two lines of parallel conversation omitted)
During elicitation with my research consultants, constructions of this type were considered acceptable, albeit less common, for only a few words, all of which were either kin terms like the above example, or body parts. While this suggests a parallel with systems found in languages of the world that differentiate alienable and inalienable possession (Chappel & McGregor 1996), such a distinction seems to be minimally developed in Cirebon Javanese and of minimal grammatical significance, at least among contemporary speakers. In modern conversational Cirebon Javanese, possession or other relationships involving a first or second person associator are expressed using exactly the same grammatical configuration as that for third person possession, which, of course, is the same as that used for any other sort of general associative relationship as outlined earlier in this section. Following is a brief discussion of how possession relationships with first and second person possessors are constructed, to show that they are grammatically the same as any other general associative construction. The possessed nominal is marked with the definite enclitic -é, and, if explicit specification of the possessor is deemed necessary by the speaker, this is followed by the appropriate free pronominal form. This is illustrated in examples (185) through (188) for the common forms of first and second person pronouns. (185) A: .. An jukut duwité isun séket An. An take money-def 1sg fifty an. ‘An, get fifty [rupiah] of my money, An.’ (107:1115)
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(186) J:
Luru manuk. hunt bird .. ning umaé ira ta? at house-def 2sg qu
‘[so we’ll go] hunting birds. At your house is it?’ A: .. Iya, yes ning umaé kita. at house-def 1sg ‘Yes, at my house.’ (108:1223–1226) (187) N: Kaen ku beli d- weru. that.dis that.med neg know umaé énté ya, house-def 2sg yes wis baé. already just ‘He doesn’t know your house, so it’s ok.’ (111:2386–2388) (188) S: Setrumé sira ku bentak bari kang, current-def 2sg that.med clash with rel ning, at kono. there Untungé sira kuat jé. lucky-def 2sg strong quote ‘Your [spiritual] current clashed with someone over there. Luckily you were strong he said.’ (134:1245–1248)
This pattern is sometimes used with third person possessors as well: (189) B: Wong tua wadoné ku. parent female-def that.med .. Ya ibué déwéké lu. yes mother-def self-def that.med ‘Her mother. It was her own mother.’ (111:338–339)
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It was mentioned earlier that the form déwéké is not used frequently in conversational discourse, and this is also true in a possessive context. Because of the rather marked quality of this construction (and recalling that its literal meaning is ‘the self ’), it is thus more appropriate to translate the bold noun phrase in (189) as ‘her own mother’. A demonstrative pronoun can also be used in this construction type to indicate a possessor. In the following example the demonstrative also functions as a word search place holder before the speaker explicitly states the possessor by name. (190) 0: . . . Anaké kuen dudu? child-def that.med neg .. Basuni. Basuni ‘That [person]’s child isn’t it? Basuni’s [child].’ (107:881–882)
As was discussed in Section 3.3.4.1 above, when an associator is not mentioned with a fully explicit form, the associative relationship is implied by use of the definite enclitic -é, as in example (191). (191) U: disayang pisan ning ibué ya Di? di-love.ind very by mother-def yes Di ‘(her) mother really loves (her) right, Di?’ (108:3864)
This construction is in fact formally identical to the third person possessive construction of Standard Central Javanese, which participates in a paradigmatic relationship with -ku ‘1st possessive’ and -mu ‘2nd possessive’. In Cirebon Javanese this construction is equally appropriate for first and second person possessors, while dedicated first and second possessive suffixes are virtually unused. Thus, if a first or second person possessor is assumed by the speaker to be sufficiently inferable by the listener, as with a third person possessor, it will be implied with just the use of the definite marker. In example (192) the speaker has been telling a story about how his future in-laws asked him to help move bags of rice that were too heavy for him, but nonetheless he was able to move them. (192) W: Kaya ana kang mbantoni tenagaé ka. like exist rel n-help-i strength-def that.dis ‘(It) was like there was something that helped (my) strength.’ (114:1290)
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This is not to say that what a speaker believes to be clear will necessarily be inferred by the listener. Misunderstandings can occur, and can also be repaired: (193) K: Alamaté ning endi Ton. address-def at where Ton ‘What’s the address, Ton?’ T: .. Sapa. who ‘Whose?’ K: Alamaté énté. address-def 2sg ‘Your address.’ (108:1158–1160)
In (193) the possessor of the definite but unelaborated alamaté ‘the address’ is not understood by the listener who seeks and receives clarification. In summary, for modern conversational Cirebon Javanese, there is minimal use of any sort of dedicated possessive morphology. Rather, there is a single definite suffix, -é, which indicates the existence of an associative relationship. This relationship might be frame-evoked, part-whole, kinship, ownership, or any other type of associative relationship that is culturally or personally relevant to speakers engaged in conversation. The associating referent may be pragmatically inferable, in which case the associate is simply marked with -é and this is a signal to infer both the referent of the associator and the type of relationship that holds. Alternately, the associator may be explicitly expressed in the same noun phrase as the associate, in which case it occurs immediately following the é-marked associate. In this case the referent is explicitly expressed, but the type of relationship that holds must still be pragmatically inferred. Figure 3.1 contrasts the Standard Central Javanese and Cirebon Javanese systems of associative suffixes. This illustrates the way in which the Cirebon system is more generalized compared to the standard system of Central Java. In the Cirebon system the one suffix -é is used to imply an associator of any person, and any pronoun or a full lexical noun phrase can be used in conjunction
Figure 3.1 Associative suffixes: Standard Central and Cirebon Javanese
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with -é to refer to the associator if the speaker feels it is necessary to explicitly mention this information. Standard Central Javanese speakers also use -é to indicate identifiability based on association with a frame. In cases where there is a more personal association which could be characterized as possession, forms differentiating for person will come in to play in Standard Central Javanese. Thus in Standard Central Javanese a distinction between possession and other types of association is morphosyntactically relevant, whereas in Cirebon Javanese speakers usually make no morphosyntactic distinction and treat all types of associative relationships in grammatically the same way. This generalization in the domain of associative marking is similar to the generalization in the domain of agent marking on P-trigger verbs that was discussed in Chapter 2, and is consistent with the observation that Cirebon Javanese may be moving away from the type of bound pronominal system found in other languages of the region (Ewing 2001).
. Case marking While the pronominal system of Standard Central Javanese includes both unbound pronouns and case differentiated bound pronouns (agentive and possessive forms mentioned in Sections 2.3.1.3 and 3.2.4.1 respectively), speakers of Cirebon Javanese, at least in informal conversation, use only unbound pronouns. As with lexical noun phrases and other nominal expressions, the case of unbound pronouns can be indicated by prepositions. There is general, although not absolute, alignment between oblique arguments with prepositional marking on the one hand and core arguments with lack of prepositions on the other. In Andrews’s (1985) analysis of the core/oblique distinction, ‘core arguments’ are the roles A, P, and S, which represent an interaction of syntactic and semantic characteristics. Other arguments of a clause are obliques, which exhibit more variation in role types and whose roles are differentiated on more purely semantic grounds. Andrews also recognizes external arguments, such as preposed topic constructions. He considers these extra-clausal and therefore not to be considered arguments. However, I am taking a different approach. Such ‘external’ arguments will be considered core arguments for the text counts presented in Chapter 5. We will then return to the issue of what should count as an argument in Cirebon Javanese conversation in Chapter 7. As we saw in Chapter 2, core arguments are not marked with prepositions, except for A arguments of P-trigger clauses which can be expressed by
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a nominal with the preposition ning. Oblique arguments are marked with various prepositions according to their semantic role. To what extent does the use of prepositional case marking contribute to interlocutors’ understanding of transitive clause structure? Because there is a general correspondence between the core-oblique distinction and the use of prepositions, case marking is often useful in identifying the structure of a clause. Noun phrases marked with prepositions such as seng ‘from’, bari ‘with’ and the like are unambiguously oblique and would not be mistaken for potential core arguments. On the other hand, because ning is a general preposition that can be used to mark agents of P-trigger clauses as well as to cover a variety of semantic cases, some ambiguity can arise. In the context of a P-trigger verb it is not necessarily always clear whether a prepositional phrase with ning indicates the A argument of the verb or some other oblique argument. Before illustrating this ambiguity, an example of a P-trigger clause with the A argument marked with the preposition ning, which appeared in Chapter 2 is repeated in (194) for purposes of comparison. In examples (194) through (199) ning is glossed simply as PREP for ‘general preposition’ in order to reflect the potential for ambiguity that can arise. (194) W: sewaktu kita di= .. digonjaki ning boca-boca ka=, when.ind 1sg di- di-tease-i prep child-redup that ‘when my friends were teasing me,’ (114:1021)
While on purely morphosyntactic grounds there is the possibility of ambiguity with ning phrases in P-trigger clauses, in many cases the semantics are such that there would never be any possible misunderstanding. In example (195) the speaker is talking about a dream that had changed his attitude about how he treats his wife. (195) S: . . . Siji, one →
. . . ditilik ning usiaé isuné kan, di-view prep age.ind-def 1sg-def part namun masa remaja kan li? if time.ind youth part neg.tag ya takakui déwék ka, yes tak-admit-i self that.dis
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‘First, if (one) views (the situation) in terms of my age you know, when (I) was young you know, I admit myself [that I was] a certain way.’ (134:970–972)
In the line marked by the arrow, a prepositional phrase with ning immediately follows a P-trigger verb, but it would not be possible to misinterpret usiaé isuné ‘my age’ as a possible A argument of the verb ditilik ‘look at’ and there is no actual ambiguity in the clause. Ning usiaé isuné ‘my age’ is an oblique argument referring to the perspective from which the situation is being viewed. In contrast, the ning prepositional phrase following the verb dinaknang ‘give’ in (196) could be interpreted as the agent and thus the A argument of the clause, or as a recipient and thus an oblique. (196) M: Dinaknang ning isun ka Ang Mat. di-give-nang prep 1sg that.dis older.sibling Mat .. ning sawa ga. prep rice.field that.dis ‘(He) gave it to me in the rice field, Ang Mat.’ (140:634–635)
This could have meant ‘I gave it [to someone] in the rice field, Ang Mat’. But in the context of the discourse the first person referent was clearly understood to be the recipient rather than the agent, and this fact is expressed in the free translation. Similarly in (197) the ning marked prepositional phrase could also be the agent and A argument or the recipient and thus an oblique argument. (197) W: Apa kang perna dicerita`enang ning énté ka, what rel ever di-tell-nang prep 2sg that.dis Wan. Wan ‘[Like] that which you once told [to me]: “Wan. . . . Yén sira kurang seneng, if 2sg less happy .. hindarana. avoid.ind-imp If you don’t like (something), avoid (it).”’ (114:635–636)
In isolation the clause in the first line could be spoken with the meaning ‘[Like] that which was once told to you.’ In context it is clear that the speaker is recounting something that was said to him because he begins the reported speech
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with a vocative directed toward himself, Wan. If, as is the case in this example, the recipient of the storytelling is the current first person, then in this context ning énté ‘prep you’ is not the recipient and can be interpreted as the agent, hence the free translation ‘[Like] that which you once told [to me].’ In example (198) the potential ambiguity is between an interpretation of the prepositional phrase as the A argument or as a locative. (198) M: Kan mamang ku ditinggal ning Éli, part father that.med di-leave prep Eli ‘Eli walked out on dad, you know,’ (151:999)
In Javanese a prepositional phrase with a human referent marked with ning can be interpreted as a locative meaning ‘at the named person’s place’. Thus out of context ning Éli can mean ‘at Eli’s’ and example (198) could be understood to mean ‘Dad was left at Eli’s [place] you know’. However within the context of the story in which speaker M had to cook for her father because Eli was away, it is clear that ning Éli is the A argument. The ambiguity that can present itself because the preposition ning is used to mark both one type of core argument and some oblique arguments with a number of different semantic cases is not simply an academic possibility. The ambiguity can have interactional consequences for interlocutors. In example (199) the speaker begins a prepositional phrase with ning, which is lengthened as he waits to express the referent of the prepositional phrase, presumably as a word search strategy. His interlocutor, D, thinks he knows where this is going and supplies the name of a possible A argument, Dada. It turns out however that the original speaker M, intended to express the destination, a place called Subang, and this is made clear in the last line. (199) M: Tapi ya, but yes ngko dingin, later next kita ku apan digawa mana ning=, 1sg that.med fut di-take thither.dis prep ‘But yeah just a second, I’m going to be taken. . . ’ D: . . . Dada? Dada ‘by Dada?’
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M: .. Dudu. neg ‘no. Ning=, prep .. apa si, what part ning Subang, prep Subang to, what’s it called, to Subang.’ (140:361–368)
While we have seen previously that the potential ambiguity of ning often vanishes in the immediate context of an utterance, making misinterpretation unlikely, this last example shows that interlocutors can sometimes misinterpret the structure of a clause while it is being produced in real time. Example (199) is particularly rich because it contains what might be considered a disambiguating clue: the locative deictic mana ‘thither’. We might at this point assume that the ning phrase would not be another locative, and so could be interpreted as marking the A argument. This may indeed have been a factor in speaker D’s misinterpretation. However D was thwarted by another aspect of Javanese interaction, the word search. It is not uncommon for speakers to fill a syntactic slot with an ‘empty’ place holder while looking for an appropriate, semantically richer word (as discussed in Section 3.2.4.2). It turns out this is apparently what speaker A had been doing, using mana cataphorically to mean ‘there: someplace I’m trying to think of ’ rather than ‘there: someplace I assume you can identify’. Interactional repair can be used, as in this example, to make the intended structure and meaning clear. The information regarding clause structure that is provided by case marking in Cirebon Javanese, as with most other morphosyntactic information in the language, is only partial, is sometimes ambiguous, and must be supported and clarified by the semantic, pragmatic, and interactional context in which a clause is produced. Not only is this morphological case marking information minimal and sometimes ambiguous, but it is also only available in explicitly produced nominal expressions, which can take the preposition ning. For the many arguments that are not expressed explicitly at all, there is no morphosyntactic marking of case, and it is only though semantic, pragmatic, and interactional means that the referents and roles of these arguments can be inferred by listeners.
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Chapter 3. The morphology of nominal expressions
. Summary In Chapter 3 we have looked at five main types of nominal expression: headless relative clauses, lexical noun phrases, names and titles, pronouns, and unexpressed participants. We have also looked at modifying structures that add semantic information to the nominal expressions (for example in the case of attributive and relative clause constructions), or that can mark information flow characteristics (for example through use of demonstrative determiners and the definite suffix). While the pronoun system used in Cirebon Javanese conversation is virtually devoid of any case-marked forms, prepositions can be used with explicitly expressed nominal forms (including pronouns) to indicate the semantic or grammatical role of arguments within a clause. This case-marking information can be ambiguous and must often be supported and clarified through the semantic, pragmatic, and interactional context. For unexpressed participants, there is of course no morphological marking of case. In Chapter 4 we will look at information flow properties of referents and nominal expressions and we will also investigate the extent to which these information flow characteristics can also aid interlocutors in identifying the structure of clauses in conversation.
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Chapter 4
Information flow
. Introduction In the previous chapter, different forms used to express nominal entities in Cirebon Javanese were discussed. It is commonly recognized that a speaker’s choice of nominal form is closely tied to the informational status of the entity being referred to. It has also been observed that cross-linguistically an iconic relationship frequently holds between the form and the informational load of a nominal expression (Ariel 1990; Givón 1983; Gundel, Hedberg, & Zacharaski 1993). More attenuated forms tend to be used for more predictable referents, those with a lighter informational load, while larger forms tend to be used to represent informationally heavier, less predictable referents. In this regard, Cirebon Javanese does not present any unusual surprises. It does, however, bear going through the forms that are commonly used and discussing their information flow characteristics, as there is interesting language specific patterning. In addition, an overall picture of the information flow characteristics typical of different nominal and referring expressions in Cirebon Javanese will help us to answer the question, “what can hearers know about information flow from the form of an expression?” which in turn will give us insight into how clauses are expressed and understood in conversation. The study of information structure and information flow in language was pioneered in the work of early functionalists such as Bolinger (1965), Firbas (1966), J. Grimes (1975), and Halliday (1985). In recent years this functional approach has continued to be a valuable tool for helping linguists to better understand why grammars work as they do (Chafe 1987, 1994; Du Bois 1985, 1987, 2003; Givón 1983; Mithun 1987). Some researchers who work with information flow draw together a number of inter-related discourse categories to establish a unified scalar model like that of Ariel’s (1990, 2001) Accessibility Theory. Others take a multi-dimensional approach, trying to tease apart a variety of different discourse categories that bear on information flow, such as the work by Chafe (1976, 1980, 1987, 1994). In the following analysis I take this later approach by first coming at information flow in Cirebon Javanese
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from a number of different related – but distinct – features. At the end of this chapter I will look more closely at how these various information flow categories interact with each other and how this interaction relates to a scalar model of information flow. The following discussion of the information flow characteristics of referring and nominal expressions in Cirebon Javanese conversation is based, then, primarily on the pioneering work of Chafe and those working within the paradigm he has developed. The five information flow categories that I have chosen to work with in this study are those outlined in Du Bois and Thompson (1991). These categories are Activation State, Identifiability, and Identifiability Pathway, concepts that help us describe the cognitive status of referents within interlocutors’ minds, together with Generality and Discourse Referentiality, concepts that help us to describe the role of nominal and referring expressions deployed in discourses. In the next section I discuss each of these five categories of information flow. A sample of referring and nominal expressions is used to investigate the text frequency of forms associated with these categories. The results support our expectation that larger forms are associated with heavier information status while more attenuated forms are associated with informationally lighter referents. In taking the sample, the aim was to obtain approximately one hundred nominal and referring expressions from each of the five transcripts used intensively in this study, for a total sample of some five hundred nominal expressions. To this end, a systematic random selection of nominal expressions was taken. A starting point was randomly selected for each of the thousand word segments of the five transcripts used in this study. The nominal expressions associated with every tenth line beginning with the selected starting points became part of the sample. Sample selection was spread throughout the transcribed segments in this way in order to provide a wider variety of contexts of usage for the total sample than would have been the case if an equal number of nominal expressions were taken from adjacent lines of text. The selected nominal and referring expressions were those associated with each of the sample lines of transcript. These included any noun phrase that occurred in that line as well as any argument of a predicate that occurred in the line. Thus if a line consisted of say, only a verb, then its arguments became part of the sample, including those expressed in other intonation units and those that were not explicitly expressed, but were evoked (see discussion in Chapter 3). On the other hand, some lines did not have any associated nominal expressions. This primarily occurred in lines with regulatory or fragmented content (Chafe 1994).
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Chapter 4. Information flow
The initial sample included 435 nominal expressions of various types. Among these were eleven indefinite and interrogative pronouns which do not have the kinds of information flow properties to be studied here and so these were not included in the coding. Additionally, seven other noun phrases in the sample functioned adverbially in the pattern discussed in Chapter 3, Section 3.3.4.1. Such adverbial uses of erstwhile nouns were also not included in the coding of information flow. This brings the total number of nominal expressions in the sample to 417. These were coded for the information flow properties outlined below.
. Ideas in the mind The first three information flow categories discussed – Activation, Identifiability, and Identifiability Pathway – deal with the status of ideas in the mind. It is not sufficient, though, to assume that this information status is isolated in the mind of the speaker. These categories are interactional categories. They have to do with a speaker’s assessment of cognitive states in the hearer’s mind. The linguistic resources deployed by the speaker are tuned to these perceived cognitive states of the hearer and are employed interactively by interlocutors in the co-construction of meaning. .. Activation The information status of referents within discourse has been described with terms like ‘new’ and ‘old’ or ‘new’ and ‘given’ information. Chafe (1987, 1994) has shown that such notions have to do with the cognitive status of the idea of a referent, state or event in a listener’s focus of consciousness. The activation of ideas within consciousness occurs with a certain degree of cognitive cost and this is reflected in the linguistic forms used to express these ideas. Speakers produce language to fit what they perceive to be the cognitive needs of listeners. Activation is thus “dynamic, . . . involving a property of a concept, as judged from moment-to-moment by the speaker in the course of the on-going talk” (Du Bois & Thompson 1991: 16). While the activation of ideas in consciousness is relevant to states and events as well as referents, activation has most frequently been investigated as a property of referents. Referents tend to persist through a discourse, and so the activation cost associated with them tends to vary through discourse. States or events are more likely to be mentioned only once and so exhibit relatively
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less variation in activation cost, although they also occasionally have persistence through a discourse. In the present study only the activation of referents is discussed. If a referent has not been previously introduced into a discourse it must be activated in the hearer’s consciousness. This activation is presumed to involve a greater mental effort or a higher activation cost than say, a repeated mention of a referent that is already active in a hearer’s consciousness. Such newly activated referents are referred to as new information and are coded as New in the data sample used in this study and in Table 4.1 and Figure 4.1. This does not mean that the referent is necessarily something about which the hearer has no prior knowledge (although it may be), rather that the referent has not yet been previously activated in the current discourse. New information is typically represented by larger nominal expressions. In example (200) speaker W is beginning a story about his brother’s motorcycle accident. (200) W: Weru [beli]? know neg ‘Did you know?’ D:
[Iya]. yes ‘yeah.’
W: Énté jaré -you say-def Kejadian kakang isun celakaan. event.ind older.sibling 1sg accident . . . Man Karwan na. Mr. Karwan that ‘You said – the accident my brother had, Karwan.’ (114:195–199)
The initial activation of the new referent, the main protagonist in this story, is achieved with both a lexical noun phrase, kakang isun ‘my brother’, and his proper name, Karwan. The proper name is further marked with both a title and a demonstrative pronoun, possibly intended to remind the interlocutor that this is someone he has met before. If a referent has already been introduced into a discourse, it can continue to be activated in the consciousness of interlocutors as that discourse progresses. Such referents demand minimal cognitive effort to retrieve and are thus characterized as having a low activation cost. These are referred to as given
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information and are coded as Given in the data sample and Table 4.1 and Figure 4.1. Given information is typically expressed with reduced forms. Example (201) is a continuation of the story of Karwan’s motorcycle accident. (201) W: Seng ma apan= .. marani Pongpongan, from house fut n-approach-i Pongpongan maé mboké. house-def mother-def Ceritaé apan= wewara mangkat. story-def fut c6-inform m-leave ku nu pan mangkat. that that fut m-leave ‘From home (he) was headed for Pongpongan, to (our) mother’s house. The story goes (he) was going to tell (her) (he) was leaving, he wanted to leave.’ (114:211–214)
At this point the referent Karwan is given information. In the first two clauses Karwan is not mentioned explicitly. This is the most attenuated means of reference: no expression at all. In last clause in the example, Karwan is expressed by another relatively reduced form: short demonstrative pronouns. Chafe (1994) points out that a binary distinction between new and given information does not cover all the subtleties of activation cost which obtain in discourse, and he proposes a third category, accessible information, for ideas that are activated from a semi-active state in consciousness. There are a number of factors that contribute to information being accessible at a certain point in the discourse: a referent may have receded from consciousness after its earlier activation; a referent might not have been previously activated but might be indirectly associated with another idea that is active in the discourse; or a referent might be present within the non-linguistic environment. For this study of the information flow properties of nominal expressions however, activation is coded with the binary values of new and given. The notion of accessible information is important, and there are a number of reasons I have not included it at this point in my discussion of information flow. For example, the point at which a previously mentioned idea recedes from active consciousness into semi-active consciousness and thus, when mentioned again, is accessible rather than given, may not be immediately clear. Work reported in Givón (1983) might suggest that a fixed number of units, say twenty clauses, is long enough for a referent to fade from consciousness. However, many researchers,
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Table 4.1 Activation status for each expression type Expression
Given
New
Total
HRC Lexical Name Pronoun Evoked
0 39 52 57 120
0% 25% 78% 89% 98%
8 117 15 7 2
100% 75% 22% 11% 2%
8 156 67 64 122
100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Total
268
64%
149
36%
417
100%
for example Chafe (1994), Clancy (1980), and Fox (1987), have pointed out the importance of episode or sequence boundaries with regard to nominal marking. These can have the effect that a previously activated referent might be coded as accessible at the beginning of a new discourse topic, although it may have been recently mentioned in the previous segment of discourse. On the other hand, very important referents might be constantly in the focus of consciousness, even if not mentioned for some time. The move from given to accessible might happen more quickly for some referents than others. Other factors, such as familiarity or association with already activated ideas, may lead to a referent being accessible. It is important to be able to identify, code, and discuss these various factors independently. Therefore these factors will not yet be integrated into the single multifaceted category of accessible, but will be dealt with separately in the following sections. For each expression type, Table 4.1 gives the frequency with which it encodes given information or new information. Percentages are given from a hearer’s perspective. From the perspective of a speaker one might ask, for example, if a referent is given, how should it be coded. From a hearer’s perspective, however, one might ask for example, on hearing a full noun phrase, what is the likelihood if it being given or new. Table 4.1 shows that in the data sample 25% of lexical noun phrases are used to code given information while the remaining 75% code new information, and so on for each of the expression types. The findings shown in Table 4.1 and Figure 4.1 are consistent with the cross-linguistic observation mentioned earlier that reduced forms are more likely to encode given ideas, while heavier noun phrases tend to encode new ideas. Among the more complex forms of nominal expression that occurred in the sample is the headless relative clause (abbreviated HRC in the table), of which none in the data express given information. These expressions usually refer to complex, contextually conditioned concepts that would not normally
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Given
New
100%
Activation
80% 60% 40% 20% 0% HRC
Name
Lexical
Pronoun
Evoked
Expression Type
Figure 4.1 Activation status for each expression type
have a single lexical representation in a language. This is exemplified in (202) where the headless relative clause refers to the class of people, usually from a village background, who do not have birth certificates. (202) O: Ya jaré wong tuaé ka. yes say-def person old-def that.dis .. Baka kang beli duwé akte, if rel neg have certificate.def wong kampungan ka, person village-like that.dis taktakoni=. tak-ask-i ‘That’s what the old people say. When I ask ones who don’t have a birth certificate, country bumpkins, like that.’ (107:583–586)
The more complex, clause based structure of these headless relative clauses provides the opportunity for constituting and introducing complex concepts and are thus useful for expressing new ideas in the discourse. At the same time their size makes them inefficient as a means for referring again to an already activated idea, and so they are not commonly used to express given information.
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Lexical noun phrases are overall the most common type of nominal expression in my data. Of these, three quarters are used to express new information, while the remaining one quarter are used to express given information. Lexical noun phrases are often used for the less prominent entities such as the props, locations, and supporting characters which tend not to persist through the discourse, or for characterizing and predicating functions. In contrast, over three quarters of proper names are used to express given information. Proper names are regularly used to refer to protagonists who are mentioned repeatedly in the anecdotes and observations that make up much of casual conversation. Thus the referents of these names are commonly given. Cross-linguistically, pronouns are associated with the function of expressing given information, and this is of course the case in Cirebon Javanese. In the sample discussed here, almost 90% of pronominal forms are used to express given information, including 26 demonstrative pronouns and 31 personal pronouns. Of the seven examples representing new information, six are demonstrative pronouns used to point to entities in the physical world and thus to draw them into the world of discourse. This metaphorical pointing to things in the world has been said to be the prototypical deictic function of demonstratives; however, it is now understood that the functions of demonstratives are actually much more diverse (Fincke 1996; Florey & Kelly 2002; Himmelmann 1996; Laury 1997; Sukamto 2003). Of the 33 demonstrative pronouns in the sample, only six (18%) have this pointing function. This indicates that Cirebon Javanese demonstrative pronouns as a whole are more frequently used for functions other than point to the environment. However, it also shows that pointing to the environment is the primary function of demonstrative pronouns when they are used to represent new information. In the sample, only one demonstrative pronoun referring to a new entity is used for a function other than pointing to the physical context. This is seen in example (203). In this case the referent is the police, who are understood to be present in the situation being described: changing the name on a motorcycle registration, for which money will undoubtedly be requested by the authorities. (203) B: . . . Ari kuen si, if that part masalaé wis werua weru bérés, problem-def already know-irr know settled njaluk semono, n-request that.much
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semono. that.much konon. like.that ‘As far as they are concerned, (they) only care about having things settled, (they) ask so much, like that.’ (111: 669–673)
It is possible that one motivation for use of a pronoun here rather than a more explicit lexical noun phrase would be the speaker’s desire to be somewhat circumspect in his description of the corrupt status quo. Such circumspection would nonetheless not be successful if the listeners were unable to infer the intended referent. That is, while the referent is new to the discourse, it is at the same time identifiable (see discussion of identifiability below). Evoked participants represent given information in 98% of cases. Cases of evoked participants almost all have previous mention or reference to speech participants as the means for identifying their referent. The two cases of new information that are unexpressed but evoked and inferable in the discourse involve reference to items that are physically present in the speech context, as illustrated in (204). Speaker D is talking about his affair with a particular woman when M mentions, to himself as much as to anyone else, that his cigarette has gone out. (204) M: .. La. oh La mati ca, oh n-dead child sampenan. result ‘Geez, (my cigarette) has already gone out man.’ (140:219–221)
While these speakers have talked about cigarettes earlier in the discourse, neither this particular cigarette nor the fact that this speaker is currently smoking has been previously mentioned. But from the physical setting the referent evoked by mati ‘dead’ is clearly the cigarette. It is certainly not the last previously mentioned referent, which was Speakers D’s girlfriend. While evoked participants can have the status of new information, by far the most common function of these unexpressed participants in Cirebon Javanese discourse is to represent given referents.
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.. Identifiability Identifiability, like activation, has to do with a speaker’s assessment of the cognitive status of a referent in the listener’s mind. A referent will be treated as Identifiable when the speaker assumes the listener can sufficiently identify that particular referent for the discourse purpose at hand. For this to occur successfully the referent must be shared by both the speaker and listener, it should be expressed in a way that is sufficiently identifying, and it should be a referent salient to the current discourse context (Chafe 1994). A shared referent is one that the speaker assumes is present in the listener’s knowledge base and can be identified to the extent needed within the interaction (Du Bois 1980). Example (205) illustrates an identifiable referent. Wong tua ku ‘those parents’ is identifiable and refers to the speaker’s fiancé’s parents who have been the topic of discussion for some twenty intonation units. (205) B: .. Wong tua ku, parent that wis marek ning umaé isun ping telu. already n-near to house-def 1sg time three ‘The parents have already come to my house three times.’ (111:335–336)
A non-identifiable referent is one that the speaker assumes is not shared with the listener, which is not already in the listener’s knowledge base. In example (206) the noun phrase boca enom ‘young child’ represents new information which is not shared between speaker and listener at the time it is uttered, and is thus being newly introduced by the speaker into to the listener’s consciousness. (206) N: Toli, then RT takon-takon ning boca enom ning kono. neighborhood.leader ask-redup to child young at there ‘Then the RT asked some kids there.’1 (111:491)
It is the case that non-identifiable information is always new at the time it is first mentioned. But it is not the case that new information must always be non-identifiable when it is first mentioned (Chafe 1994; Du Bois & Thompson 1991). Information that is new to a particular discourse, and which might indeed have never been mentioned between two interlocutors before, can nonetheless be shared by them and thus be presented as identifiable on first
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Table 4.2 Identifiability for each expression type Expression
Identifiable
NA
Non-identifiable
Total
HRC Lexical Name Pronoun Unexpressed
1 77 66 64 122
13% 50% 99% 98% 100%
7 74 1 1 0
88% 48% 1% 2% 0%
0 4 0 0 0
0% 3% 0% 0% 0%
8 155 67 65 122
100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Total
330
79%
83
20%
4
1%
417
100%
mention. In example (207), Nina’s friends are a new referent in this conversation, but the fact that she has friends is shared among the speakers and so the concept is presented as identifiable. (207) U: . . . Nina baka ngomong=, Nina if speak bari baturé si, with friend-def part basa Jawa ya Ang Éni ya? language Javanese yes older.sibling Eni yes ‘When Nina talks to her friends, she uses Javanese doesn’t she, Eni?’ (107:447–449)
There are various means, both direct and indirect, by which a referent can be shared and thus identifiable. These different means for achieving shared knowledge of referents and the grammatical consequences of the different identifiable pathways are discussed in Section 4.2.3 below. Identifiability is about the status of referents in the minds of interlocutors and involves establishing, as far as necessary, the identity of a referent, whether that referent is an individual or class. There are nominal expressions in discourse that do not function to identify referents in the mind. These are the various non-tracking general noun phrases that linguists often describe as non-referential and which are discussed in Section 4.3. Because their function is not about identifying, their identifiability status is coded as not applicable (NA) in Table 4.2 and Figure 4.2. Table 4.2 and Figure 4.2 show the frequency of identifiable and nonidentifiable referents in the sample, together with the frequency of nominal expressions for which the category ‘identifiability’ is not applicable. Looking first at headless relative clauses, we see that in the database these forms include both identifiable referents and those for which identifiably is not
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Identifiable
NA
Non-identifiable
100%
Identifiability
80% 60% 40% 20% 0% HRC
Lexical
Name
Pronoun
Evoked
Expression Type
Figure 4.2 Identifiability for each expression type
applicable. Example (208) is a case where the speaker is trying to introduce an identifiable referent, but one which is not easily specified by a single lexical item. Thus a headless relative clause is well suited for first mention of such a complex yet identifiable concept. (208) W: maksudé masi duwé seneng beli? intend-def still have pleasure neg ning .. bidang musik. in field.ind music . . . atau kang -or.ind rel kang -rel kang waktu mau ira disenengi nu. rel time past 2sg di-like-i that ‘I mean do (you) still enjoy (it) or not? Music or what you used to like.’ (114:16–20)
In addition to naming identifiable referents such as that above, headless relative clauses are also commonly used in cleft constructions in Cirebon Javanese (see Chapter 3, Section 3.2.1). In this context, they represent a complex category
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to which a specific referent is being ascribed membership. By establishing a category which functions to characterize a particular referent, headless relative clauses, such as that in (209), do not themselves have referents, and therefore identifiability is not an applicable information flow category for them. In this example mak ‘mother’ is used by the speaker to refer to herself. (209) P: Wong mak kang tuku= jé. excl mother rel buy excl ‘Say, you know I’m the one who bought (the popsicles).’ (151:1173)
There were no non-identifiable headless relative clauses in the sample discussed here. While these forms are extremely rare in the database, such that the sample did not pick them out, they do exist in the larger database, as illustrated in (210) below. (210) N: Toli ninggangé ana kang weru. then coincidently exist rel know ‘Then it happened there was someone who knew.’ (111:836)
This example is discussed again in more detail in Section 4.2.3 below on the notion of identifiability pathway. Turning now to lexical noun phrases, we see they are about evenly split between those with identifiable referents and those for which identifiability is not applicable, with only three percent representing non-identifiable referents. Of the 77 lexical noun phrases that represent identifiable information in the quantified sample, 63 (82%) have marking that indicates this identifiability, while the remaining 14 (18%) have no explicit identifiability marking. Identifiability marking includes either the definite suffix -é (see example (207) above or any of the examples in Chapter 3, Section 3.3.4), demonstrative determiners (see examples in Chapter 3, Section 3.3.3), or both. The functional difference in meaning between these markers of identifiability is discussed in Section 4.2.3 below on the notion of identifiability pathway. The unmarked identifiable lexical noun phrases in the sample have one of two functions. Half of the unmarked identifiable lexical noun phrases (seven out of 14) are general rather than particular expressions (see Section 4.3.2 on discourse referentiality). The other half of unmarked identifiable lexical noun phrases represent props or supporting characters in the stories being told by the conversationalists. This is illustrated in (211), in which the glasses are mentioned to illustrate the effects of the motorcycle accident that the protagonist experienced.
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(211) W: kacamata remuk. glasses shattered ‘his glasses were shattered.’ (114:280)
While there are few non-identifiable noun phrases in the data sample, those that do occur all have no overt marking of their identifiability status. This was seen in example (206) above, in which boca enom ‘a young child, some young children’ introduces a new non-identifiable referent into the discourse and has no overt marking of information flow status. Noun phrases that represent nontracking, general concepts or which have no referent are also unmarked for identifiability. This is seen in example (212). (212) B: Karena isuné wis nanggap orkés, because.ind 1sg-def already n-hire band ngaku bisa=, n-claim can beli? neg ‘Because I had already hired a band, to show that (I) could right?’ (111:274–276)
Speaker B says he has hired a band for his wedding to demonstrate to his future in-laws that he is financially capable of making such an expenditure. A specific band has been hired and B might have continued to talk about this band in the ensuing talk, but instead he maintains the topic of his relationship with his future in-laws. In conversational Cirebon Javanese there is no equivalent to an indefinite article or other overt marking of the non-identifiable status of a referent.2 Non-identifiable referents and those for which identifiability is not a relevant category fall together as a class of nominal expressions with no overt morphological marking. In conversational Cirebon Javanese, explicit information flow morphology is reserved for marking referents as identifiable. Proper names are used as pseudo-unique identifiers of people, places, and other particular entities significant to human experience. It is not surprising then that virtually all occurrences of names within the sample have identifiable referents. Sometimes, however, a name is not used to uniquely refer to an individual, but rather to indicate the class of people who happen to share the same name. In such a case, a name can be used non-referentially and so identifiability is coded as not applicable. Such a case is seen in (230), discussed below.
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The primary function of pronouns is to refer to referents that have already been established in the discourse. Thus it is not surprising that all of the pronouns that appear in the sample represent identifiable referents. It should be remembered that indefinite pronouns were not included in the present counts. Also, forms that are usually used for identifiable reference, such as demonstratives, can also be used in Cirebon Javanese for non-referential purposes, for example as hesitation markers. These were also not included in the present counts. All the evoked participants in the data sample are identifiable. This is consistent with the fact that they are almost all given, representing a referent that has already been mentioned in the discourse. The few evoked participants that are new are identifiable because of their physical position in the environment. This and other means of bringing about identifiability are discussed in the following section on the notion of identifiability pathway. .. Identifiability pathway In Du Bois and Thompson (1991), identifiability pathway refers to how a referent is made identifiable. The identifiability pathways that were coded in the data sample included previous mention, proposition, participant, presence, anchoring, association, and world knowledge. Each of these identifiability pathways is explained below with examples and a discussion of what types of nominal expressions are more commonly used for each case. As mentioned earlier, identifiable referents are frequently those which have been previously mentioned in the discourse. A pattern frequently mentioned in the literature is that in which a referent is non-identifiable the first time it is mentioned, but with subsequent mentions it is identifiable by virtue of having already been brought into the discourse. (213) N: Toli ninggangé ana kang weru. then coincidently exist rel know ‘Then it happened there was someone who knew. .. Pinda ning Plumbon ’é. move to Plumbon quote (Mardi) has moved to Plumbon he said. .. Tapi ya bokatan, but yes maybe
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pinda ning Jalan Bahagia, move to street.ind Bahagia ya embu jé ku nu. yes I.don’t.know quote that that But maybe (he)’s moved to Bahagia Street, I don’t know, he said.’ (111:836–840)
In this example the person who had some idea of Mardi’s whereabouts is first introduced with an existential construction containing the non-identifiable headless relative clause kang weru ‘(one) who knows’. What this person said about Mardi is reported and closed off with a demonstrative pronoun referring again to this person who knows. At this point the referent is identifiable because of his previous mention in the discourse, and is expressed with the demonstrative pronoun ku nu ‘that’. It was noted above that non-identifiable referents are infrequent in the data sample. Indeed out of all the nominal expressions in the entire five thousand lines of text analyzed in this book (not just the five hundred lines analyzed in this chapter), only some twenty-four nominal expressions represent new, non-identifiable information.3 This means that examples of the ‘classic’ arrangement of a referent being introduced into the discourse as non-identifiable and then moving into the status of identifiable as it continues to be tracked is actually uncommon. One reason this pattern is uncommon is that so many new referents are presented as identifiable when first mentioned. Another reason this pattern is uncommon is because most of the referents that are nonidentifiable when introduced are props or minor characters in the anecdotes and observations being told by speakers, and so in many cases are never referred to again after their initial mention. The previous example (213) is one of the few cases where a non-identifiable new referent has any continuity in the text. In this case the referent is still a minor character who is explicitly mentioned only twice in the text. Most non-identifiable referents in these conversations are like the tape recorder in example (214), which is a prop used by the protagonist under discussion, but which is never mentioned again. (214) A: .. Engkoé boca, later child papat grembulan. four in.a.group.EXP
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sebuté nem. often six .. amban dina. every day .. Sebuté nggawa tép. often n-carry tape.recorder ‘Soon four guys will come by, sometimes there’s six, sometimes (they)’re carrying a tape recorder.’ (107:930–934)
Much more common in the data sample are examples in which a new referent in the discourse is introduced as identifiable and then continues to be tracked and remains identifiable by virtue of this previous mention. In example (215) speaker W begins his story about a motorcycle accident. He introduces the motorcycle as identifiable by association with himself (see Section 4.2.3 below on identifiability by association). (215) W: .. Ancur kabé motoré Di. destroyed all motorcycle-def Di . . . Isun motor ancur kabé. 1sg motocycle destroyed all ‘The motor cycle was completely destroyed, Di. My motorcycle was completely destroyed.’ (114:206–207)
Then as the story continues and the motorcycle is mentioned again, it is identifiable from previous mention and is expressed with various forms consistent with this status, for example the personal article si, a borrowing from Indonesian. (216) W: (H) Masa si motor beneré, disbelief the.ind motorcycle true-def %konci
key
setir mandeg kan, steering m-stop part
seolah-olah mati ya beli Di. as.if.ind dead yes no Di ‘How could it be that the motorcycle was running but the steering locked up as if it had been turned off you know, Di.’ (114:320–322)
Later it is marked as identifiable with a demonstrative determiner:
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(217) W: . . . Kaya-kaya ya, like-redup yes, .. beli bisa mandeg. neg can m-stop motor kuen Di. motorcycle that Di. ‘It was like you know, the motorcycle couldn’t stop, Di.’ (114:331–333)
Similar to previous mention is the case of a noun phrase whose referent is a proposition that has been presented previously in the discourse. While it is true that in these cases the propositional information was previously expressed, they are nonetheless differentiated from identifiability through previous mention. In the case of previous mention, the referent itself is already established. In the case of an identifiability pathway based on propositional material, the idea expressed in the propositional content was not originally conceptualized as a single referent, but only becomes a referent when expressed by a single nominal expression. At such a moment it is newly conceptualized as a referent, but it is identifiable because the propositional content that this nominal expression refers to was previously mentioned in the discourse. (218) T: Marsani lu, Marsani that.med tangané énak ka. hand-def delicious that.dis .. Ndakaté iku sun, although that.med quote.1sg bumbu pada baé, spice.mixture same just mengkonon. like.that.med .. Ya mak ’é mader bumbu, yes mother part know spice.mixutre pada baé. just same bawang puti, garlic
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‘Marsani has delicious hands [she cooks well], like that. Even though I think her spice mixture is just the same, it is. Yeah, you know the spices are just same, garlic,’ P: Ya iya=. yes yes nacak. try ‘Yeah, yeah, [you should] try.’ T: sa`ang. pepper ‘pepper.’ M: Ya iya. yes yes Margané nacak. therefore try Sira kang masak. 2sg rel cook ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s why [you should] try. You [should] be the one to cook.’ P: Aningé nu tangan-tanganan=. but that hand-redup-an ‘But it [cooking] is in the hands.’ (151:998–1020 overlapping lines from a parallel conversation omitted)
In example (218), the speech participants have been discussing who amongst themselves and their friends are better cooks. Speaker P concludes the discussion by saying that it (how well one cooks) is ‘in the hands’. ‘How one cooks’ is a concept that has been discussed propositionally, but had not been previously named. When speaker P utters the word nu ‘that,’ she is simultaneously constituting it as a unified concept and presenting it as identifiable based on previous propositional content. By virtue of their presence in the discourse, speakers and addressees are identifiable, at least in so far as they fulfill their roles as interlocutors, even if a more specific identity might not be known. In the data sample, speech participants are either expressed by names, kinship terms, pronouns or are unexpressed, as shown in Table 4.3. As we see in the right column of the table, first and second persons are evoked without being explicitly expressed in 62
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Table 4.3 Expression of speech participants Person
Name
Pronoun
Evoked
Total
First Second
2 33
3% 56%
22 8
32% 14%
44 18
65% 31%
68 59
100% 100%
Total
35
28%
30
24%
62
49%
127
100%
or 49% of the cases. When explicitly expressed, speech participants are represented by a personal pronoun, name, or kinship term. Thirty (24%) of the references to speech participants were accomplished using pronouns. Names and kinship terms can be used as pronominal equivalents for reference to oneself or one’s interlocutor. Of the 35 names in the data only six are used for this kind of pronominal reference. The remaining 29 names in the data were vocatives, which usually have second person reference. Chapter 3 includes examples of first and second person pronouns (Section 3.2.4.1) and vocatives (Section 3.2.3). Below are examples of names and kinship terms used for first and second person reference. In example (219), speaker P refers to herself as ‘mother’. She is talking about a knife that cannot be found. (219) T: .. Ilang? lost ‘Is (it) lost?’ P: .. Ya embu. yes I.don’t.know .. Ya taknggo ning mak. yes tak-use by mother ‘Yeah I don’t know. I was using (it).’ (151:805–807)
In example (220), speaker A refers to speaker B by name rather than with a pronoun when asking about her. (220) A: Bi Nani ku bari Emak. aunt Nani that with mother Embu si pada baé ta. I.don’t.know part same just qu ‘You and mom might be the same (age) right?’ B: .. Ya embu. yes I.don’t.know ‘Yeah I don’t know.’ (151:539–541)
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Entities in the setting of the speech event are accessible to both the speaker and listener because of their physical presence in that setting and can be treated as identifiable, even if never mentioned previously. This would be true, for example, with food set out in front of the interlocutors, as is the case in (221), where speaker A uses the demonstrative pronoun gi ‘this’ to refer to a snack which is present in the speech event, but which is not otherwise mentioned by a more explicit form. (221) A: Séket maning baé wis gi, fifty again just already this ‘[I’ll have] fifty [rupiah’s worth] more of this.’ (107:301)
Du Bois and Thompson (1991) discuss an identifiability pathway called frame which includes two subtypes: universal frames referring to general cultural knowledge, and a frame that is evoked by something else in the discourse. These two subtypes of identifiability pathway have different morphosyntactic manifestations in Cirebon Javanese grammar and so will be treated separately here. The first type of frame, universal frame, I have coded as world knowledge. This category includes referents which the speaker assumes to be identifiable to the listener by virtue of what both interlocutors know about the world. Such expressions as the sun, whose referent is shared by all humans, or the president, whose referent would be different depending on the national and historical context in which speakers find themselves, exemplify identifiability through world knowledge. In example (222) basa Jawa ‘Javanese’ is known to all interlocutors (and is indeed being spoken by them in the example) and so is identifiable, even at first mention within the discourse, based on this shared world knowledge. (222) U: . . . Nina baka ngomong=, Nina if n-speak bari baturé si, with friend-def part basa Jawa ya Ang Éni ya? language Java yes older.sibling Eni yes ‘When Nina talks to her friends, [she speaks] Javanese right Eni?’ (107:447–449)
All proper names, if first mentioned with the assumption that the interlocutors already know the person or place to which the name refers, are classified as
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identifiable through world knowledge. Institutions, holidays, and other shared culturally salient referents are also identifiable through world knowledge. Du Bois and Thompson’s (1991) second type of frame identifiability is similar to what Chafe (1994) calls indirect sharing of a referent. Here, entities which are not present in the discourse are treated as identifiable by some connection with the discourse context. One of the most important of these is association and was discussed in Chapter 3, Section 3.3.4.1. The types of association that can trigger identifiability include alienable and inalienable possession, part-whole relationships of either a concrete or abstract nature, or any other situation in which one referent can be used to imply the identifiability of another. This identifiability by association is frequently marked by the definite suffix -é in Cirebon Javanese. Another pathway to identifiability noted in Chafe (1994) and Du Bois and Thompson (1991) is anchoring. The concept of anchoring was first formulated by Prince (1981) who defined it as the case in which a referent expressed by a noun phrase is “linked, by means of another NP, or ‘Anchor’, properly contained in it, to some other discourse entity” (1981: 236). This is closely related to the notion of identifiability by association. The distinguishing characteristic of anchoring is that the identifiable referent which lends identifiability to the referent of the nominal expression in question must be explicitly expressed as a grammatical part of that nominal expression. While the suffix -é in Standard Central Javanese or the corresponding suffix in related languages such as Indonesian might be considered referential, I have shown in Chapter 3 that in Cirebon Javanese the suffix -é does not itself refer but only indicates identifiability. This identifiability may in turn imply another referent, but the suffix itself is not acting as a pronominal element. Thus cases in which the associating referent is not explicitly represented within the same nominal expression are not examples of anchoring. When possession is indicated by the explicit expression of the possessor as in example (223), this can be called a case of anchoring. (223) P: Ngenténi kan ning umaé Jon- -n-wait-i part at house-def ni=ng .. tempat .. potongané Joni nu. at place.ind cutting-def Joni that ‘You know (I) waited at Joni’s house – at Joni’s barbershop.’ (151:1132–1133)
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In example (223) the noun phrase tempat potongané Joni nu ‘Joni’s barbershop’ is the first mention of this referent, but it is nonetheless identifiable. The barbershop is identifiable because of its association with the identifiable Joni. This is an example of anchoring because the identifying element (Joni) is grammatically contained within the identifiable noun phrase as a possessive modifier. We have discussed identifiability pathways associated with nominal expressions and their referents, but it is not that case that identifiability is in some sense contained within a nominal expression. Rather it involves a process within a listener’s mind which has been set in motion by a speaker’s utterance and the interaction of that utterance with the discourse context and with the personal and general knowledge of the interlocutors. Example (224) illustrates how the process of identifiability is not localized within a single noun phrase, but relies on the successful completion of an entire utterance in its physical and interpersonal context. (224) O: . . . Madrasaé ning ndi si ku nu? Islamic.school-def at where part that that ‘Where is her madrasa?’ (107:140)
In this case madrasa ‘Islamic school’ is identifiable by association with a referent which has not yet been mentioned, that of ku nu ‘that’ at the end of the utterance. Ku nu ‘that’ in turn is identifiable from physical presence; it refers to a girl walking in front of the house and whom my research assistant remembered was wearing a jilbab or Islamic head scarf. It is the recognition of the referent of ku nu ‘that’ and the cultural understanding of the significance of the scarf she is wearing that allows madrasaé ‘the Islamic school’ to be identifiable, retroactively as it were, by association with this girl. It is the case, as Du Bois and Thompson (1991) point out, that more than one identifiability pathway can be at work at the same time. In Table 4.4, however, only one pathway has been coded for each nominal expression. The primacy of speech participants is such that first and second person have always been coded as participants even if some other pathway might arguably be at work, for example, previous mention. Aside from speech participants, any referent which has already been mentioned in the text is coded as previous mention, although there may be cases where other pathways of identifiability may also be at work simultaneously. Thus the other categories, such as presence, world knowledge, and association, function primarily as means by which newly introduced referents are made identifiable at the point of first mention. Table 4.4 shows the identifiability pathways that apply for each different type of identifiable expression in the sample.
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Table 4.4 Identifiability pathways and use of different expression types Id. Pathway
HRC
Participant Previous Mention Association World Knowledge Presence Anchored Proposition NA
0 0 0 0 0 1 0 7
Total
8
Lexical
Name
Pronoun
Evoked
Total
0 23 33 13 1 7 0 79
34 12 0 18 2 0 0 1
31 20 0 1 11 0 1 0
61 56 0 1 2 0 2 0
126 111 33 33 16 8 3 87
156
67
64
122
417
Only one headless relative clause in the data sample is identifiable and thus relevant to a discussion of identifiability pathways. This one example is identifiable by anchoring. While one should not make conclusions based on a single example, it is nonetheless the case that a headless relative clause is a very likely form of expression for referents that are identified by anchoring. This is because their larger and more versatile structure allows for the incorporation of other noun phrases in a number of syntactic and semantic roles. Unlike names, pronouns, and evoked participants, which are limited in the formal options available in their expression, lexical noun phrases and headless relative clauses exhibit a variety of morphological options that can be used to indicate their information flow characteristics. It was mentioned earlier that the majority of identifiable lexical noun phrases exhibit some type of formal identifiability morphology, either the suffix -é, a demonstrative determiner, or both. As discussed in Chapter 3, the choice of marking depends largely on the pathway through which the referent is being made identifiable (see also Ewing 1995). Referents identifiable by association with another referent are routinely marked with -é, while referents identifiable by previous mention are routinely marked with a demonstrative determiner. Not surprisingly, when referents expressed with proper names are not identifiable from previous mention, they are identifiable by the shared knowledge interlocutors have of their identity. There are three major categories of pronouns: indefinite, personal, and demonstrative. Indefinite pronouns were not included in these counts. Personal and demonstrative pronouns were not differentiated in tables and figures that cover the entire sample, but when we look at these two pronoun types separately, we see that they display different patterning with regards to identifiability pathway. Personal pronouns have almost exclusively first and second
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person referents and are thus identifiable via their status as speech event participants. As mentioned in Chapter 3, third person personal pronominal forms are used infrequently and they account for only 6% (2 out of 31) of the personal pronouns in the data sample. Demonstrative pronouns have a more varied range of functions. The most common types of identifiability pathway associated with demonstratives are physically present in the discourse context (the function of pointing), which accounts for 33% (11 out of 33) of the demonstrative pronouns in the sample, and previous mention (marking continuous given referents), which accounts for 55% (18 out of 33) of the demonstrative pronouns in the sample. Demonstrative pronouns are also used to refer to first and second persons, to propositional content in the discourse, or to referents identifiable on the basis of world knowledge. These referential functions are not their more common functions in Cirebon Javanese and account for the remaining 12% demonstrative pronouns. As noted previously, demonstrative pronouns can also have non-referring functions such as hesitations and word searchers. These regulatory uses of demonstratives were not included in the present study. Referents that are not explicitly expressed in the discourse but are evoked by a combination of expectations based on the semantics and pragmatics of clauses are all identifiable, precisely because they are evoked by these expectations. Indeed, expectations are a large part of what the identifiability pathways are about. Of the evoked participants that were coded in the data sample, 50% (61 out of 122) represented first and second person referents and are thus identifiable as speech participants, and about 46% represented referents that were previously mentioned in the discourse. The remaining four percent are referents that are identifiable by world knowledge, propositional content or presence in the environment. Looking at Table 4.4 again, we see that speakers do make use of most forms of nominal expressions in conjunction with most types of identifiability pathway, but there are nonetheless certain noticeable preferences that have emerged during this discussion of identifiability pathways. The major patterns in the sample data set include: 1. First and second person referents (speech participants) tend to be most commonly expressed with personal pronouns or are evoked participants. 2. Third person referents tend to be expressed: a. as lexical noun phrases with demonstrative determiners, demonstrative pronouns, or are unexpressed, if previously mentioned;
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b. as lexical noun phrases with the definite suffix -é, if identifiable by association; c. as lexical noun phrases with demonstrative determiners or as demonstrative pronouns if they are physically present in the environment; d. as unmarked noun phrases if they are non-identifiable. 3. Non-referential items, those that are general and non-tracking and do not participate in any identifiability pathways, tend to be expressed as unmarked lexical noun phrases. It should be emphasized that these patterns are strong tendencies in discourse but are not categorical. A number of variations on these trends have been presented, some of which are easy to analyze and others which need further study. Other variations are a result of the fact that systems of marking identifiability pathways will interact with other information flow parameters and additional discourse functional pressures.
. Referentiality Du Bois and Thompson (1991) point out that referentiality is a term that has been used with a confusing array of meanings in the literature, and thus propose a systematic way of pulling apart some of the meanings that have accrued to this term. They point out that the meanings often associated with the term referentiality involve the reason a certain nominal expression is being deployed at a certain point in discourse. The two major areas of referentiality that Du Bois and Thompson identify are generality and discourse referentiality. .. Generality According to Du Bois and Thompson (1991), generality has to do with the way a nominal expression refers. Nominal expressions that refer to a unique entity or to a specific instantiation of some class are particular nominal expressions. Nominal expressions that refer to a class of referents or indiscriminately to any member of that class are called general nominal expressions. Particular nominal expressions are used to refer to specific individuals or instances of a category or group. These are often the characters, objects, or abstract concepts which persist through a discourse. When speaker W is talking about the motorcycle that was involved in the accident we have read about
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previously, he refers to the motorcycle many times as various events and characteristics are predicated of it, including the fact that it could not stop, as seen in (225). (225) W: . . . Kaya-kaya ya, like-redup yes .. beli bisa mandeg. neg can m-stop motor kuen Di. motorcycle that Di ‘It was like the motorcycle couldn’t stop, Di.’ (114:331–333)
Particular expressions may also be used in passing, for example to establish a context or as background information. In example (226) the particular nominal expression langseng ka ‘the pot’ is used to locate the sweet potatoes that Dék is told to get. (226) M: Jukuta Dék. take-irr Dek Ning langseng ka Dék. in pot that.DIST Dek Diwadai ki Dék. di-contain-i this Dek ‘Take (some sweet potatoes), Dék. They’re in that pot, Dék. Put them inside (something), Dék.’ (151:1222–1224)
Although deployed for different purposes, the nominal expressions in these examples have in common the fact that they refer to particular entities rather than to a class or to any member of a class. General nominal expressions are often used to categorize or characterize. In example (227) the interlocutors are discussing whether the village head knew a particular person. Speaker T suggests the head did not know him well because he was originally from another village. (227) T: Dudu ari=, no if .. weru si weru. know part know
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barangé Din. entity-def Din Cuman, only . . . pendatang. outsider.ind ‘No, (he) knew (him) as far as that goes, Din. It’s just that (he) was an outsider.’ (111:776–780)
The general nominal expression pendatang ‘outsider’ is used to characterize the person in question. Information can also be predicated of a general nominal expression. In such a case the referent of the expression is the entire class, rather than a particular instantiation of that class. Example (228) illustrates this type of statement, often called a generic statement in the literature (Chafe 1994). (228) O: Hm. Isuné beli weru duwit mérah. 1sg-def neg know money.red.ind ‘Hm. I didn’t experience red money.’ A: . . . @@[@@] B:
[<X Ya wis X>]. yes already ‘Yeah okay.’
U:
[@@@]@@
X: @@@ U: .. Duwit mérah, money.red.ind tahun lima puluhan ta? year.ind fifties.ind qu masi Sukarno ya Bi Nani. still Sukarno yes aunt Nani ‘Red money was in the fifties wasn’t it? It was still the Sukarno era right Bi Nani.’ (107:559–561)
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Table 4.5 Generality for each expression type Expression
Particular
General
Total
HRC Lexical Name Pronoun Evoked
0 62 65 63 104
0% 40% 97% 98% 85%
8 94 2 1 18
100% 60% 3% 2% 15%
8 156 67 65 122
100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Total
294
71%
123
29%
417
100%
Here the general class of duwit merah ‘red money’ is being tracked through the conversation and discussed by different interlocutors. General nominal expressions can also refer to an individual, but in this case the intention is any example from a class of referents rather than a particular instantiation of the class. This is illustrated in (229) in which speaker U asks for a shrimp chip. He wants an actual chip, but at the point the nominal expression is uttered there is no particular chip he has in mind: any available shrimp chip will do. (229) U: Krupuk maning Bi Nani. shrimp.chip again Aunt Nani ‘[I’ll have] another shrimp chip, Bi Nani.’ (107:458)
Table 4.5 and Figure 4.3 illustrate the types of nominal expressions found in the sample with regard to the category of generality. General nominal expressions are most commonly larger explicit forms such as lexical noun phrases and headless relative clauses. In the sample all headless relative clauses and 60% of the lexical nouns are general nominal expressions. Together these account for 102 or 83% of the 123 general nominal expressions. The vast majority of names and inexplicit forms (pronouns and evoked participants) are used as particular nominals, and account for 232 or 79% of the 294 particular expressions in the sample. Lexical items are also used for particular nominal expression. Forty percent of lexical nouns in the sample account for the remaining 21% of the particular nominal expressions. That proper names are almost always particular is not surprising given that their function is to pick out an individual referent that can be uniquely identified. Nonetheless, in actual practice a number of entities in the world may share that same name, and so a name can be used to indicate the class of individuals or any individual that has the name. In example (230) the speakers know more than one person named Said.
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Particular
Genral
100%
Generality
80% 60% 40% 20% 0% HRC
Lexical
Name
Pronoun
Evoked
Expression Type
Figure 4.3 Generality for each expression type
(230) D: Said sapa? Said who ‘Which Said?’ M: . . . Said adié Réndi. Said younger.sibling Réndi ‘Said Rendi’s brother.’ (140:244–245)
In the first line, the expression Said refers to the class of people with that name. When general nominal expressions refer to a class of objects and something is being said about this class, the class as a whole may be referred to a number of times as more information is given about the class. It may be expressed as a pronoun or not explicitly expressed, and such a situation accounts for pronouns and evoked participants that are general. In (231) the speakers have been talking about chili sauce and speaker P explains how Marisa makes it. (231) P: Sambel goréng, hot.sauce fried ari kepedesan ya, if advr-spicy yes . . . Marisa ka, Marisa that
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ari gawé, if make beli digoreng, neg di-fry aningé wani, but until bagus temen. good.ind very ‘Chili sauce, when it’s too spicy, . . . when Marisa makes (chili sauce), (she) doesn’t fry (it), but (it) ends up very good.’ (151:858–862)
In this case the P arguments of gawé ‘make’ and digoréng ‘fry’ and the S argument of bagus ‘good’ are unexpressed and evoke Marisa’s chili sauce generally, rather than a particular batch of it. Thus this referent is general but is nonetheless being tracked. .. Discourse referentiality Discourse referentiality has to do with the role of a nominal expression at the point at which it occurs in a given text. Discourse referentiality can be broadly divided into two basic functions: tracking and non-tracking (Chafe 1976; Du Bois 1980; Du Bois & Thompson 1991; Hopper & Thompson 1984). Nominal expressions that are tracking are those whose referents have a continuity of identity within the text (Du Bois 1980). In a very general sense, tracking nominal expressions refer to the things speakers are talking about. Discourse referentiality has to do with why a nominal expression is deployed at a particular moment in the discourse. It involves speakers’ intentions and cannot be established by a single quantitative criterion such as, for example, number of mentions. Persistence of a referent in the text provides evidence that each nominal expression of that referent is likely to be an instance of a tracking nominal. However a single expression might be intended to track a referent, as evidenced by what is said about it. Conversely an entity such as a location might be mentioned a number of times in a text, yet it might be serving a purely orienting function locating a series of entities or events and is not itself being tracked. The researcher must take a variety of cues into account in determining whether a nominal expression is tracking or non-tracking. Tracking nominal expressions represent entities about which information is predicated in some way. They represent the people, things and ideas to which things happen in the
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Table 4.6 Discourse referentiality for each expression type Expression
Non-tracking
Tracking
Total
HRC Lexical Name Pronoun Evoked
7 100 51 10 1
88% 65% 76% 15% 1%
1 55 16 55 121
13% 35% 24% 85% 99%
8 155 67 65 122
100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Total
169
41%
248
59%
417
100%
discourse, about which information is added in interlocutors’ knowledge bases. The noun phrases in examples (225) and (228) above are examples of tracking nominal expressions that are particular and general respectively. The role of non-tracking nominal expressions, in contrast, can be to characterize, orient, or predicate something of other entities and events in the discourse (Du Bois & Thompson 1991). The referents of these non-tracking nominal expressions have little continuity in the discourse beyond those functions. The noun phrase in (226), langseng ka ‘the pot’ which appears with the preposition ning ‘at, in’, has an orienting function indicating the location of the sweet potatoes that Dék is supposed to get. The noun phrase in (227), pendatang ‘stranger’, is a predicate nominal and characterizes the referent of the single argument of the clause, the particular person in question. Example (232) includes another type of non-tracking nominal expression, a predicating noun phrase. (232) U: .. duwé laki beli Bi Nani? have husband neg aunt Nani ‘Do you have a husband or not, Bi Nani?’ (151:1565)
In this example, laki ‘husband’ is non-tracking and does not refer to any particular individual. It is part of the predicate duwé laki ‘have a husband’ which is here being treated as a unitary concept and might just as easily be glossed as ‘be married (of a woman)’. This is an example of a non-tracking nominal expression serving a predicating function where the bulk of the semantic intent of the phrase is in the noun phrase and not in the verb (Fox & Thompson 1990). Table 4.6 and Figure 4.4 illustrate the use of various nominal expression types in terms of discourse referentiality. The larger nominal expressions (headless relative clauses and lexical noun phrases) are most often deployed for non-tracking purposes. When these noun phrases are used for non-tracking purposes, they usually make a one-time appearance in the conversation. Larger nominals are also used for tracking
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Tracking
Non Tracking
Discourse Refentality
100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% HRC
Lexical
Name
Pronoun
Evoked
Expression Type
Figure 4.4 Discourse referentiality for each expression type
functions. In this function such nominals also often make only a one time appearance because subsequent reference to these same tracked referents is often accomplished with pronouns and unexpressed arguments. We might expect names to often be used for tracking, as their referents are usually the humans about whom so much of the conversational interaction is centered. However, as mentioned before, names are also used as vocatives, a non-tracking function. The high percentage (76%) of non-tracking use of names in the sample attests to the importance of vocatives in Cirebon Javanese conversation. Examples of vocative use can be seen repeatedly in numerous examples presented throughout this study. We will see in Chapter 6 that the use of vocatives can also have certain grammatical ramifications, as well as serving an important interactive function in conversation. Pronouns are most likely to be used for tracking referents. Because the notion of evoked participants has been operationalized so as to include only those contexts in which there is a strong expectation of a referent being activated (based on the semantics of the verb and pool of referents available to interlocutors), most unexpressed participants are also tracked through discourse.
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. Configurations of information flow properties The five information flow categories discussed above – activation, identifiability, identifiability pathway, generality, and discourse referentiality – are not independent of each other. One way in which these categories are interlinked is definitional. These definitional relationships have been mentioned in passing in the previous discussion, but are consolidated here. Activation and identifiability are closely aligned: while a given element will always be identifiable, an identifiable element may be either given or new. Similarly, while a non-identifiable element will always be new, a new element may be either non-identifiable or identifiable (Du Bois & Thompson 1991). This means that while the pairing of new with non-identifiable, new with identifiable, and given with identifiable are possible, the pairing of given with non-identifiable is not possible. In addition, the notion of identifiability pathway is contingent on the notion of identifiability: identifiability pathway is relevant only for identifiable nominal expression. Finally, identifiability and with it identifiability pathway are relevant only to nominal expressions that have referents. In this study of nominal and referring expressions, all tracking and all particular nominal expressions are considered to have referents; general non-tracking nominal expressions are considered not to have referents and are therefore categorized as not applicable for identifiability and identifiability pathway. If we set aside the notion of identifiability pathway because if its wide range of possibilities for only a subset of expressions, we can look at how the remaining categories interact. Identifiability is coded for three values, while activation, generality, and discourse referentiality are coded for two values each. On the basis of these categories, there are 24 mathematically possible configurations of values for these four categories. But when the definitional constraints outlined above are applied, there are in fact only eleven theoretically possible configurations. As it happens all eleven of these theoretically possible configurations are represented in the sample of nominal expressions analyzed here. Certain combinations are, however, more frequent than others within the data sample. The eleven possible configurations of values for these four information flow categories are listed in Table 4.7 below, together with the number of nominal expressions from the data sample exhibiting each configuration type and their percentages. The configuration types are arranged from most frequent to least frequent. It is immediately apparent from Table 4.7 that not all information flow configuration types have equal frequency in conversational discourse. By far the most common information flow configuration is that of particular track-
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Table 4.7 Configuration of information flow properties in the data sample
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Activation
Identifiability
Generality
Disc. Ref.
Given New Given New New Given Given New New New New
Identifiable NA Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable NA Identifiable Non-identifiable Non-identifiable Non-identifiable
Particular General Particular Particular Particular General General General Particular Particular General
Tracking Non-tracking Non-tracking Non-tracking Tracking Tracking Non-tracking Tracking Non-tracking Tracking Tracking
Total
Frequency 177 70 49 35 30 29 13 10 2 1 1
42% 17% 12% 8% 7% 7% 3% 2% 0.5% 0.2% 0.2%
417
100%
ing nominal expressions representing given identifiable information, labeled as Configuration One. These are the nominal expressions that represent the entities speakers are talking about and are usually high on a scale of accessibility (Ariel 2001). And befitting their function in discourse and their cognitive status in the minds of interlocutors, they are overwhelmingly represented by two forms: unexpressed participants (101 out of 177 or 57%) and pronominal forms (49 or just under 28%). The remaining accessible expressions are represented by names (7%) and lexical noun phrases (8%). The next most commonly occurring information flow configuration is the complement of highly accessible Configuration One. Configuration Two represents the new non-tracking general nominal expressions for which identifiability is not applicable. Such expression are low in accessibility. They are typically the characterizing and predicating nominal expressions which add information about accessible entities to the knowledge base of interlocutors, but which do not themselves represent accessible entities. In the data sample all of these general non-tracking arguments are represented by the larger forms of lexical noun phrases (63 out of 70 or 90%) and headless relative clauses (7 or 10%). These two information flow property configurations, (1) particular tracking expressions that represent given identifiable information and (2) general non-tracking expressions, make up 59% of the expressions in the sample. These two most frequent information flow configurations generally function to represent accessible referents being tracked through discourse on the one hand and non-referential expressions used predicatively on the other.
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These are probably the most common information flow configurations in any language, at least in conversational discourse. The third most common information flow configuration in the sample is the group of particular non-tracking expressions which represent given identifiable information. The majority of these (32 out of 49 or 65%) are names or kin terms used vocatively. The other expressions in Configuration Three are orienting expressions such as places or events which have been previously mentioned in the text, but are not themselves being tracked. Indeed, vocatives can be seen has having a kind of orienting function as well. They function to provide a socially motivated orientation between interlocutors within the interactional context of conversation. This third category of non-tracking particular expressions representing given information is probably not as prevalent cross-linguistically as it is in Cirebon Javanese, a language with extensive use of vocatives. In a language such as American English whose speakers use vocatives much less freely, nominal expressions with this information flow configuration would presumably be much less frequent. Configuration Four involves new but identifiable information represented by particular non-tracking expressions. These are also almost entirely orienting expressions. Such orienting expressions are more likely to occur as new information, are only occasionally repeated, and thus only occasionally have the status of given information. The fifth most frequent configuration involves new identifiable information that is particular and tracked. These tracking expressions are used to first introduce into discourse the referents that then move into the most common configuration type in the sample as they continue to be tracked in discourse. Information flow configuration categories Five and One thus correspond to each other in the classic pattern of a referent that is new when first introduced and then given as it is tracked through the discourse. As noted earlier for Cirebon Javanese conversation (and also noted for English conversation by Du Bois & Thompson 1991), newly introduced tracked referents are most commonly presented as identifiable, with non-identifiable referents very rare in discourse. Configuration Six corresponds with Configuration One. These are both given, identifiable and tracking. The difference is that the expressions in Configuration Six are general. These expressions are used to speak generically about classes of referents rather than individual referents. These two configurations function very similarly in terms of the grammatical structures that will be investigated in Chapter 5. Configuration Seven corresponds with Configuration Two. These are both general, non-tracking expressions that are non-referential and therefore iden-
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tifiable is not applicable to them. The difference is in activation; in Configuration Two they are new, while in Configuration Seven they are given. The difference in activation represents that fact that some of these predicating expressions are used more than once in discourse, thus the concept they represent becomes given when mentioned again. In terms of their grammatical function in discourse as discussed in Chapter 5, these two categories are very similar. Configuration Eight involves identifiable general tracked expressions which are new. These expressions are used to introduce into discourse those referents that, when mentioned subsequently, are represented by Configuration Six. This is the same kind of relationship of introducing and then tracking that holds between Configurations Five and One, discussed above. The last three information flow configurations in Table 4.7 are those configurations that contain non-identifiable information, confirming the infrequency of this category in conversation. All non-identifiable expressions together make up less than one percent of the data sample.
. Summary In this chapter I have discussed five information flow categories and the types of nominal expressions commonly used for different values of each category in Cirebon Javanese, as seen in a sample of nominal and referring expressions from the conversational data base. It was shown that, as in other languages of the world, attenuated forms, including evoked participants and pronouns, are commonly associated with given information, while larger lexical forms are more often associated with new information. In Cirebon Javanese, nominal morphology associated with information flow indicates identifiable referents, while non-identifiable referents and general expressions for which identifiability is not applicable are unmarked. Non-identifiable referents are, however, very rare in the conversational data. Speakers employ a number of identifiability pathways in order to introduce referents as identifiable upon first mention. The various possible configurations of the information flow categories discussed here are not equally frequent in the data sample. The most common configuration involves particular tracking expressions representing given identifiable information, commonly used for the accessible entities about which interlocutors are speaking. These are most commonly expressed with pronouns or are unexpressed. The second most common configuration involves new general non-tracking expressions for which activation is not applicable. These are
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most commonly expressed with full lexical forms. We will see in Chapter 5 that these two most frequent information flow configurations are central to understanding the patterning of clause structure in conversation.
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Chapter 5
Constituents and constituent order
In Chapters 2 and 3, nominal and verbal expressions were analyzed for the morphological cues that they give regarding clause structure. In Chapter 4 we examined the information flow properties of referents and nominal expressions. In Chapter 5 we will now look at two syntactic properties of clauses: constituency and constituent order. We will look specifically at the ordering of core elements of transitive clauses within single intonation units and within clusters of intonation units. It will be shown that variation in constituent order is in large part associated with the information flow properties discussed in Chapter 4. The notion of constituency as it is used in this study is discussed in Section 5.1. Because intonation units and the way they cluster are crucial to the analysis of constituency and constituent order, these are reviewed in Sections 5.2 and 5.3. Sections 5.4 through 5.6 examine constituency and constituent order in P-trigger clauses and A-trigger clauses, asking what constituent order tells us about clause structure and how it relates to information flow. The chapter ends by asking to what extent these constituents coalesce to form a higher order constituent hierarchy.
. Constituency Constituency concerns the grouping of linguistic elements and the part-whole relationships in which such groupings participate. As Langacker says, it has to do with “a connection or association between two or more elements – some reason for considering them together to the exclusion of others” (1997: 1). The constituents that form the basic building blocks of clauses in Cirebon Javanese conversation are the verbs, prepositional phrases, adverbials, and noun phrases that express predicates and arguments. These were discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. In those discussions and in the remainder of this study the status of such units as constituents is taken as uncontroversial. But what about the connections that hold between these elements as a clause unfolds in conversational
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interaction? In conversational discourse the boundaries of a clause and its internal integrity are not always clear. Some conversational material may appear to belong to more than one clause or to no clause at all. Parts of a clause may seem to be separated and spread out amongst non-clausal material or even produced by different speakers. The twists and turns of real-time interactive language use mean that assigning a higher level constituent structure to the elements that make up a clause is often not clear. Until now I have talked about clause structure in terms of the dependency relationships that hold between the core elements in a clause. These relationships are abstract and are often implied but not overtly marked in the speech material. But because conversational language is a means of human interaction that is physically expressed through speech, the abstract grammatical units that have been discussed in the previous chapters are in fact grounded in the physical reality of speech production. In the earlier discussion of predicates and arguments, I commented on the morphological marking that is physically present in the discourse and that can provide cues about the dependency structure of a clause. In the present chapter we turn to another physical aspect of discourse which gives additional information about the structure of the clause: the temporal order in which units representing the core elements of a clause are expressed, and the extent to which these elements are expressed together in units at a higher hierarchical level. One way in which linguistic elements are grouped in speech production is through intonation. The stream of speech is broken into prosodically identifiable units, and these prosodic features have long been seen as important criteria for identifying classical constituents (Zwicky 1978). In the following discussion, constituency and constituent order in Cirebon Javanese conversation are closely linked to intonation units and prosodic clusters. Core elements of a clause that occur together in a single intonation unit will be considered as potential sister constituents, joined together at a higher level of constituent structure. It will be shown that the ordering of clausal elements within a single intonation unit is relatively fixed. Clausal elements that are expressed across different intonation units, but which occur within a single cluster of intonation units, are not considered to be sisters within a single higher level syntactic constituent and are thus not as tightly linked to each other. Constituent order in multi-IU clauses is less fixed than it is in single-IU clauses. We will first look more closely at the intonation unit in Section 5.2 and then at the groupings of intonation units that I call prosodic clusters in Section 5.3. We will return to constituency and constituent order in the later sections.
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. The intonation unit The notion of the intonation unit was briefly introduced in Chapter 1. Its look and feel should now be familiar; in all examples presented in this study, each line represents a single intonation unit. We will now look specifically at the background to this analytical unit and the prosodic cues used in its identification. The importance of intonation to grammatical analysis has long been recognized. Zwicky (1978) includes intonation as an important criterion for identifying grammatical constituents. In his functional grammar, Halliday (1994) uses the cognitively characterized “information unit” as a primary unit of analysis. This is realized in spoken language as the “tone group”, which partially corresponds to the intonation unit. However, he gives no detailed discussion of the prosodic realization of information units as tone groups, nor does he explain how these tone groups might be identified in an analysis of natural discourse. Cruttenden (1997) takes a much closer look at intonation in English to identify prosodically defined units similar to Halliday’s tone groups. He gives a broad functional categorization of intonation types in English and then uses these categories for cross-linguistic comparison. Croft (1995) examines in detail the close relationship between intonation units and grammatical units in English. Du Bois et al. (1993) provide a methodology for identifying the boundaries of intonation units and categorizing them according to terminal pitch contour, called “transitional continuity”. This transcription practice is closely compatible with the work of Cruttenden (1997) and Chafe (1980, 1987) and is the approach used here. The “intonation unit” (Du Bois et al. 1993; Chafe 1994) is “a stretch of speech uttered under a single coherent intonation contour” (Du Bois et al. 1992: 17) whose boundaries are indicated by a combination of pause, pitch reset, accelerated production of initial syllables (anacrusis), and terminal lengthening. The segmentation of a conversational transcript into intonation units results in a document that both reflects an important level of prosodic segmentation in natural speech and provides a unit for grammatical, discourse, and interactional analysis. It has long been recognized that the prosodic phrasing of speech often corresponds with grammatical constituents such as phrases or clauses; however, prosodic cues are the primary means of identifying intonation units. An a priori grammatical analysis is not the basis for dividing a transcript into intonation units. Rather, grammatical analysis is driven by the natural prosodic phrasing used by interactants in conversation. This approach to the transcription and analysis of spoken discourse has proved valuable in the
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study of such diverse languages as Chinese (Tao 1996), Finnish (Laury 1997; Helasvuo 2001), Japanese (Suzuki 1999), and Indonesian (Englebretson 2003). In the present chapter we are specifically concerned with the extent to which elements of the clause coincide with intonation units. Genetti and Slater (2004), Tao (1996), and Helasvuo (2001) are especially concerned with the distribution of grammatical elements across intonation units. .. Identification of intonation units The identification of intonation units in the data is based on the convergence of the prosodic cues mentioned above: coherent intonation contour, pause, pitch reset, anacrusis, and terminal lengthening. Schuetze-Coburn (1994) provides a detailed discussion of how various prosodic cues converge on the intonation unit as well as a thorough discussion of how intonation units and other prosodic units have been approached in the literature. Two of the cues used in the identification of intonation units, transitional continuity and pausing, are represented directly in the transcription system employed in this study and will be briefly discussed here. Each line of the transcript represents a single intonation unit or a truncated intonation unit. Three types of transitional continuity are recognized in completed intonation units: final, continuing, and appeal. Final transitional continuity usually consists of falling terminal pitch indicating completion of what the speaker is saying. Final transitional continuity is marked with a period at the end of the line in the transcript as exemplified in (233). Images of pitch contours can be found in Section 5.3 on prosodic clusters. (233) W: Ya njaluk dimaklumi baé konon. yes n-request di-understand-i just like.that.med ‘I just ask for understanding is all.’ (114:584)
Continuing transitional continuity usually involves slightly rising terminal pitch and indicates that the speaker intends to continue speaking. It is marked with a comma in the transcription. In example (234) the speaker produces two intonation units, each with continuing transitional continuity (which suggests that the utterance is not yet complete) and then finishes with a third intonation unit with a final terminal pitch contour. (234) W: .. Wong fanatik, person fanatic.ind
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dadiné, finally .. bisaé, can-def siji baé. one only ‘A fanatic person, in the end, is only able to do one thing.’ (114:108–111)
A higher rising terminal pitch usually indicates some sort of appeal and is called appeal transitional continuity. This might indicate a yes-no question, as in example (235), or it might form some other sort of appeal for confirmation from an interlocutor. (235) J:
Kenal karo Pak Midi ta? know with Mr. Midi qu ‘Do you know Mr. Midi?’ (108:23)
Because speakers in natural conversational interaction are driven by multiple simultaneous needs and motivations, they will from time to time break off an intonation unit before it is complete. Truncated intonation units are indicated by two dashes at the end of the line. In example (236) the speaker does this twice before finally finishing the utterance. (236) T: Dadi engkoé, so later wo- -maksudé nggo kelanjutané ku=, intention-def for continuation.ind-def that.med .. engkaé beli ke- -later-def neg .. beli kangélan. neg difficult. ‘So later, I mean from then on, it won’t be difficult.’ (111:569–573)
In this example both truncated intonation units happen to end in incomplete words (marked with a single dash), but this is not necessarily always the case. In example (237) speaker N stops before completing the intonation unit he started when he yields the floor to B, who is speaking simultaneously.
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(237) N: O= iya. oh yes [saking karena] -because because ‘Oh yeah, because –’ B: [Karena] isuné wis nanggap orkés, because.ind 1sg-def already n-hire band ngaku bisa=. n-claim can beli? neg ‘Because I had already hired a band, to show that (I) could right?’ (111:272–276)
In the account of intonation units followed here, no single cue, including pausing, is by itself necessary or sufficient for identifying intonation units. Rather intonation unit boundaries emerge through the convergence of a number of different cues. Pausing is one of the cues that frequently occurs at these boundaries, as can be seen in the following example. In the transcription conventions used here, short pauses are marked by two dots as in (238) while longer pauses are marked with three dots, as in example (240) below. (238) D: Bocaé beli nongol-nongol Jok. child-def neg n-appear-redup Jok ‘The girl didn’t appear, Jok. .. Parani kita ning sekolaané Jok. approach-i 1sg at school-def Jok. She approached me at the campus, Jok. .. Kan ado jaraké Jok. part far distance.ind-def Jok You know it’s far, Jok. .. Ana golongan sepulu kilo Jok. exist about ten kilometer Jok It’s about ten kilometers, Jok.’ (108:1787–1790)
But the presence of a pause is not sufficient to indicate such a boundary; pauses can and do occur within intonation units.
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(239) P: .. Iku ning .. penggilingan .. Sipé nu. that.med in mill Sipe that.med ‘That was at the Sipe mill.’ (150:731)
In this example two pauses occur mid-intonation unit. These pauses in fact occur between the words of a prepositional phrase, ning penggilingan Sipé nu ‘at the Sipé mill’. It is however not the fact that the pauses occur within a grammatical constituent that accounts for this stretch of speech being interpreted as one intonation unit. It is the integrity of the pitch contour across the stretch of speech which helps to tie these words together into a single unit. The initial pause is one indication of the intonation unit boundary, together with rapid delivery immediately following the pause. Consistency in syllable duration and lack of pitch reset, together with the unity of the overall pitch contour, are what indicate that these next two pauses do not contribute to intonation unit breaks, but are rather intonation-unit internal. .. IU-final particles In the previous section some of the prosodic features of intonation units were discussed. It was also pointed out that while we expect certain patterning of grammatical units within and across intonation units (indeed such patterning informs the main topic of the current chapter), nonetheless there is not a one-to-one correspondence between the two. Generally it is the case that no grammatical categories need to be defined with reference to intonation units. However, there is a small group of words in Cirebon Javanese which form a natural set based on the fact that at least some of their syntactic properties are closely tied to intonation. These are a closed set of short word types that are virtually always produced in IU-final position. IU-final particles like these seem to be an important feature of many languages. Schuetze-Coburn (1994) identifies German particles that routinely occur in IU-final position and which he uses in addition to prosodic cues for identifying intonation units. The interactive significance of IU-final particles has been pointed out for Chinese (Tao 1996). Because of the prominence of such particles in Cirebon Javanese and their relevance to a discussion of intonation units, I will say a few words about them here. I have identified five classes of words in the transcripts of Cirebon Javanese conversational data used here that routinely occur IU-finally. These include quotative markers, question tags, vocatives, short demonstrative forms, and the discourse particle si. Grammatical details of most of these forms were discussed
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in previous chapters. The following discussion and examples are included to support the claim that they form an interactionally relevant category due to their temporal placement at the end of intonation units. ... Quotatives The position of the quotative particles jé or ’é ‘it is said’ and sun ‘I say’ is invariably IU-final in my data, and in many cases almost every intonation unit of a quote will be closed with such a particle. In example (240) the speaker is recounting something her daughter had said to her. (240) P: . . . Ku jé, that.med quote mak ’é. mother quote “‘There” she said, “mom” she said. . . . Dau dirasani ku jé=, just di-gossip-i that.med quote tek=a ’é. arrive quote “(you) were just talking about her” she said, “(she) showed up” she said.’ (151:930–933)
This suggests that the scope of the quotative particle is the intonation unit, with the particle acting to close the unit. This is illustrated in example (241) in which Wan is reporting to his speech partner, Di, the speech of a third party. (241) W: ’é. like.this Wan quote “‘It’s like this, Wan” he said. , 1sg that , if neg exist medicine that , feeling.eng 1sg neg ’é. neg met quote
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ka Di. like.that.dis Di “If I don’t have my jamu I can’t reach that feeling [in my music].” he said. That’s how it was, Di. -because . because what fee- - suné. hes can feeling.eng neg meet 1sg.quote “Why can’t you reach that feeling?” I asked.’ (114:1763–1772)
The quoted material occurs in Indonesian, representing the language in which the reported interaction took place. But Javanese quotative particles are used IU-finally, marking the matrix language in which Wan and Di are presently speaking. ... Question particles The positive question particle ta and the negative question particles li and ora always occur IU-finally. The response particles ya ‘yes’ and beli ‘no’ can also be used as question tags and in this function also occur IU-finally. The Indonesian question tag kan ‘isn’t it, you know’ is also commonly used in the same way in Cirebon Javanese. (242) D: Balap ta? fast qu Karwan numpak motor lu. Karwan n-ride motorcycle that.med ‘Was Karwan riding the motorcycle fast?’ (114:339–340) (243) J:
.. Nganggo kien li? n-wear this neg.tag ‘(He) wore one of these, didn’t he?’ (108: 462–464)
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... Vocative Speakers regularly employ vocatives, usually the name of their interlocutor or a kinship term. These always occur IU-finally, as in the following examples. (244) D: .. Iya konon diantaré kitaé kepéngéné Wan. yes like.that.med among.ind-def 1sg-def desire-def Wan ‘Yeah that’s one of the things I want to do, Wan.’ (114:163) (245) M: Acak mak. try mother Ta=ti kang masak mak. Tati rel cook mother ‘Come on, mom. Tati should be the one who’s going to cook, mom.’ (151:707–708)
Vocative use is ubiquitous in Cirebon Javanese conversation, as discussed in Chapter 4 and seen in many other examples, including for instance example (238) above. ... Demonstrative particles The short demonstrative forms frequently occur IU-finally, whether used as pronouns, as in example (246), or as determiners, as in (247). (246) P: . . . Mélek tuku ku. bored buy that.med ‘(I’m) bored buying those.’ (151:411) (247) M: Ana Aba ku, exist Aba that.med seduluré kang ng kono ku, relative-def rel at there that.med ning Kemla=ka. at Kemlaka ‘There’s that Aba, the brother of the one who is there, in Kemlaka.’ (151:30–32)
Unlike the three types of IU-final particles previously discussed, short-form demonstratives do not occur exclusively in IU-final position. They can occur medially and sometimes even initially in an intonation unit. They are nonetheless extremely frequent at the ends of intonation units. It is the case that as
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determiners they are always phrase-final, as pronouns they frequently occur post-verbally (see discussion of constituent order below), and as adverbials (meaning ‘like this’ or ‘like that’) they are usually clause final. These facts, together with the fact that intonation unit boundaries regularly coincide with constituent boundaries, mean that there is a strong tendency for short demonstrative forms to occur at the end of intonation units. Following Chafe (1994), Berman (1998) suggests that the occurrence of ku ‘that’ in IU-final position in her Central Javanese data has primarily, if not exclusively, an interactional function: it is used by the speaker to aid the listener’s perception of how the speaker is dividing the stream of speech into packages of information. I have shown that IU-final short-form demonstratives in Cirebon Javanese do in fact have a variety of clear grammatical functions. And I agree that the interactional and information structuring functions of these IU-final demonstratives are also very important to the organization of spoken Javanese, serving both grammatical and pragmatic functions simultaneously. ... The particle si The particle si suggests that the listener should have already been aware of what is being said, and can often be given the English free translation ‘you know.’ This is illustrated in (248). (248) W: .. Waktu bengén si, time past part kaya-kaya masi durung- . . . durung apal. like-redup still not.yet proficient rupané. apparently ‘Earlier you know, it was like (he) wasn’t very good [at driving] yet, apparently.’ (114:353–355)
Si also occurs in questions where it acts as a softener. (249) T: Tuku ning endi si mak. buy at where part mother Ning jero pasar ta? at in market qu ‘Where’d (you) buy (it), mom? Inside the market?’ (151:845–846)
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Like the short-form demonstratives, si occurs most frequently, although not exclusively, in IU-final position. As will have been noted from previous examples, a number of items can occur together at the end of a single intonation unit, e.g. the short-form demonstrative and quotative in (240), and si followed by a vocative in (249). The regular occurrence of such IU-final particles is very characteristic of the feeling and flow of Cirebon Javanese conversation. As mentioned above, some of these items occur exclusively in the IU-final slot while others occur there frequently. As a group, these items occur when there is a convergence of grammatical structure, information structure, and prosody. One outcome of this convergence is the emergence of a class of interactional markers which aid the hearer in perceiving how the speaker is presenting information in the stream of speech. .. Summary: The intonation unit In this section we have looked at individual intonation units, including their prosodic realization, and the importance of taking intonation into account when looking at the grammatical organization of linguistic units. Intonation also plays an important role in the organization of core elements within the clause. This will be the major focus of the second half of this chapter. But first we will look at how intonation units are organized at a higher level into groups that I call prosodic clusters.
. Prosodic clusters The discussion in Section 5.2 was concerned with intonation units. These are bounded units which occur in temporal sequence, one after another. But there is more to the organization of intonation units than a flat linear sequencing. Du Bois et al. (1992) include among their transcription conventions an indication of sub-units of intonation units: while an intonation unit is delimited by a convergence of prosodic cues at its boundaries, it can still have an internally complex structure. In addition, intonation units in conversation will often coalesce into larger structures. Such clusters often correspond to what Cruttenden (1997) calls the declination unit, a stretch of speech in which the overall base-line pitch slowly declines, and which can itself be made up of a series of individual intonation units. Schuetze-Coburn, Shapley and Weber (1991) examine the declination unit in natural discourse.
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Intonationally motivated groupings of intonation-unit-like structures that are reminiscent of the declination unit are important in to G. Poedjosoedarmo’s (1977) work on Standard Central Javanese grammar. She uses the term “utterance” to mean a grouping of information units that “form a complete whole in terms of information structure” (1977: 39). As well as describing the utterance prosodically and informationally, she describes it grammatically and interactionally as ending at the point at which a speaker can stop without being seen as not completing a sentence. Following Halliday (1967a, 1967b, 1968), Poedjosoedarmo also proposes an information unit that has a prosodic realization similar to the intonation unit. Although based on regularized sentences rather than spontaneously produced interactive language, her discussion highlights some important points about the realization of the clause in Javanese speech. For her an utterance may consist of one or more information units, each of which will have either rising, rise-fall, or level intonation. An utterance may consist minimally of a single rise-fall contour which is the focal information unit. This is illustrated in the Standard Central Javanese sentence (250) taken from G. Poedjosoedarmo (1977) and which incorporates the idealized intonation diagram she supplied there. (250)
An utterance may additionally have a number of information units with rising intonation that precede the focal unit. She calls units preceding the information focus “anticipatory” and suggests there would rarely be more than four. An anticipatory unit followed by a focal unit is illustrated in (251), where the pipe symbol indicates a break between information units in Poedjosoedarmo’s notation. (251)
An utterance may also have units with flat intonation that follow the focal unit and contain information “the speaker feels might be optionally left out” (1977: 40). She calls these units “supplementary” and suggests a limit of around three. A focal unit followed by a supplementary unit is illustrated in (252).
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(252)
The terms that Poedjosoedarmo uses for these units describe a relationship to the focal unit: “anticipatory” says the utterance is not complete, has not yet reached the focal point; “supplementary” suggests the utterance was complete, that the focal point had been reached, but that now something additional has been added. This analysis of Javanese sentence prosody is similar to that given by Halim (1981) for Indonesian. The natural discourse data used in this study suggest that Poedjosoedarmo’s description is a useful, but limited, representation of what clustered groups of intonation units can accomplish in discourse. Chafe’s (1994) discussion of prosodic sentences is based on an analysis of spontaneous conversation and suggests an approach more appropriate to natural discourse data. For Chafe, intonation units are foci of consciousness that contain no more than one piece of new information and that can be scanned and comprehended as single entities. They are similar to Halliday’s information units. As speakers work to build up complex ideas consisting of more than a single focus of information, clusters of intonation units are produced which take on characteristics reminiscent of sentences. From a cognitive perspective, Chafe calls these units prosodic sentences and describes them as “centers of interest” which are like “super foci” of consciousness expressed in speech as “super-intonation units” (Chafe 1980, 1994). Prosodic structure at the level of something like the prosodic sentence is probably relevant to our understanding of informational and grammatical organization in all languages. In addition to the work on English cited here and the Javanese data analyzed in this study, the correspondence between grammatical and prosodic sentences was found to be very robust in Dolakh¯a Newar (Genetti & Slater 2004). In Chafe’s (1994) discussion of the prosodic sentence, the intonation units within a super-unit are linked by speakers through a variety of grammatical and prosodic means. There is a strong tendency for sentential or syntactic completeness to coincide with the end of super-intonation units. But syntactic completeness is not requisite for the super-unit: as speakers work to produce informationally rich clusters of intonation units, syntactic and intonational completion will sometimes diverge. One way an intonation unit might be extended into a larger unit is for one or more additional intonation units to be added after there is apparent sentential and prosodic closure. Chafe calls these “afterthoughts” or “antitopics” and they correspond to Poedjosoedarmo’s
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supplementary units. However, the latter are mainly exemplified in her regularized Javanese data by noun phrases, one-word adverbials, or vocatives. In Chafe’s English examples, afterthoughts can consist of full clauses. This is not a language difference, but a difference in methodology. Poedjosoedarmo is mainly concerned with the prosody of single regularized sentences, and so the smaller prosodic units these contain regularly correspond to lower level syntactic constituents. Chafe, on the other hand, is looking at prosody in naturally occurring language and discovering much more varied and complex types of syntactic units deployed in the prosodic units. The methodology that I have employed follows that of Chafe, and so it is not surprising that I have found that in naturally occurring Javanese discourse, the kinds of syntactic elements that occur in intonation units and in clusters of intonation units linked in prosodic groupings are more varied in length, syntactic complexity, and intonational complexity, than those of the regularized examples presented above. A more systematic characterization of the full range of grammatical and prosodic possibilities in Cirebon Javanese conversation awaits further research. In the present study I am concerned specifically with the clause and its production within the prosodic cluster as a whole. Clusters of intonation units, which are like Chafe’s prosodic sentences and Poedjosoedarmo’s utterances, are clear in the Cirebon Javanese data I have worked with. These clusters have an overall intonational trajectory, but unlike Cruttenden’s declination units in English, in Cirebon Javanese they do not always have a general down-drift in base-line pitch, As illustrated below (example (254)) the base-line pitch may actually rise, together with an increase in intensity, as the speaker approaches the climax of the cluster. Although some form of syntactic completeness is often associated with these clusters of units, no particular syntactic organization, such as that implied by the term “prosodic sentence”, is definitional for them. Rather, these clusters are identified by the local prosodic cues which indicate that one intonation unit is linked with the next in a series, until the end of the cluster is produced. I will therefore refer to these groupings of intonation units as prosodic clusters. In the transcripts, the beginning of a prosodic cluster is marked by capitalization of the first word in the first intonation unit of the cluster and free translations are given after each prosodic cluster rather than after each intonation unit. The terminal pitch contour of an intonation unit is an important cue to how it will group with other intonation units. Continuing intonation is generally indicative of a link to the next intonation unit within one cluster. Following Poedjosoedarmo I will call these “anticipatory units”. The intonation unit that is the locus of potential prosodic and informational closure is also usually
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the point at which the grammatical elements of the prosodic cluster can be understood to have been integrated to form some sort of potential syntactic closure. Such intonation units will be called “integrational units”. An integrational unit is typically the first intonation unit with final transitional continuity in a prosodic cluster and usually has a more complex internal prosodic structure than other units. In a yes-no question the integrational unit will typically have appeal transitional continuity. The integrational unit usually indicates the end of the prosodic cluster. However, a series of intonation units with relatively flat contours may follow with no major pitch reset and often a rather gradual down-drift in the base-line pitch level. These would generally be considered part of one prosodic cluster, together with the preceding intonation unit, and correspond to the “afterthoughts” of Chafe. Following Poedjosoedarmo I will call these “supplementary units”. Out of the variation in prosodic realization of intonation units produced linearly in real time emerges this higher order prosodic structure of the prosodic cluster. The distribution of linguistic elements within and across intonation units in prosodic clusters gives us important information about the grammatical and pragmatic organization of language in conversational interaction. The following examples are intended as basic illustrations of how intonation units can combine to form prosodic clusters in Cirebon Javanese. Discussion of the grammar and discourse functions of transitive clauses in relation to the prosodic cluster and its parts will be taken up in remaining sections of this chapter as well as in Chapter 6. As with the first example for Standard Central Javanese given by G. Poedjosoedarmo (1977) and seen above in (250), in Cirebon Javanese a single intonation unit may stand as a prosodic cluster on its own, without anticipatory or supplementary units, as in example (253). (253) W: Mémang isun wis sengaja Di. indeed 1sg already intentional Di ‘Indeed I already [did it] intentionally, Di.’ (114.718)
The pitch contour of the intonation unit in this example is illustrated in Figure 5.1. Rather than the generalized schematic diagrams used by G. Poedjosoedarmo (1977), this and following examples are illustrated with pitch trace diagrams using Praat, a program for acoustic analysis developed at the Institute of Phonetic Sciences of the University of Amsterdam (Boersma & Weenink 2003). In (253) we see the overall down-drift through the intonation unit, with a marked rise and fall in pitch on the word sengaja ‘intentionally’, which cor-
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Chapter 5. Constituents and constituent order 300
Pitch (Hz)
200
100
0 Mémang
isun
0
wis
sengaja Time (s)
Ci. 1.19406
Figure 5.1 Pitch contour of intonation unit in example (253)
responds to the schematic up-down arrow from G. Poedjosoedarmo’s (1977) example presented in (250). Note also the further drop in pitch on the IUfinal vocative. When two or more intonation units cluster together, it is common to have one or more with continuing transitional continuity, followed by an intonation unit with final transitional continuity. This is exemplified in (254), with a prosodic cluster consisting of three anticipatory units followed by the integrational unit. (254) W: .. Wong fanatik, person fanatic dadiné, finally .. bisaé, can-def siji baé. one only ‘A fanatic, in the end, is only able to do one thing.’ (114:108–111)
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Pitch (Hz)
200
100
0 Wong 0
fanatik,
dadiné,
bisaé, Time (s)
siji
baé. 2.14766
Figure 5.2 Pitch contour of prosodic cluster in example (254)
The pitch contours of the intonation units in (254) are shown in Figure 5.2. In this example, the first intonation unit is anticipatory and rises in pitch from the penultimate to final syllable (the break in the line is due to the unvoiced /t/ in fanatik). Each of the next two anticipatory intonation units also has clear rising pitch. Each of these anticipatory units ends on a slightly higher pitch than the previous one, giving an overall rising quality to the prosodic cluster as it approaches the integrational unit. The last intonation unit exhibits the typical rise and fall of an integrational unit. Notice, however, that the final pitch of this unit, and so the end of the prosodic cluster, is slightly higher than the beginning of the prosodic cluster. This is an example of a prosodic cluster which shows a general rise in pitch and increase in intensity as the speaker draws to the climax of what is being said, and is in contrast to the generally expected down-drift in intonation discussed above. The completion of this prosodic cluster, even without down-drift, is clear because the final pitch of the integrational unit is lower than the final pitch of the each of the anticipatory units, the final syllable is drawn out longer than any of the other syllables, and it is interactionally marked by a pause and a change of speaker. Clusters of intonation units can also consist of two or more units with final transitional continuity. In example (255) the speaker had been asked whether he smokes. The pitch contour of this example is shown in Figure 5.3.
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Chapter 5. Constituents and constituent order 300
Pitch (Hz)
200
100
0 Ngu =
d=
ud.
0
isun Time (s)
nu. 0.834014
Figure 5.3 Pitch contour of prosodic cluster in example (255)
(255) U: .. Ngu=d=ud. smoke. isun nu. 1sg that.med ‘I do smoke.’ (140:10–11)
The first intonation unit expresses a syntactically complete clause with a final intonation contour and robust internal prosodic marking in the form of vowel lengthening in the penultimate syllable, followed by a geminate consonant and a slight rise and fall on the final syllable. This is an example of an integrational unit which exhibits a pitch contour more complex than the schematic rise and fall. It expresses a mildly indignant emphasis (‘Of course I smoke!’) and is clearly an integrational unit. There is no pitch reset at the beginning of the second intonation unit, which also has final transition continuity but whose overall prosody is relatively flat compared to the previous unit. This second intonation unit illustrates a supplementary unit. While there can be many anticipatory units in a prosodic cluster in Cirebon Javanese, there is rarely more than one supplementary unit. Example (256), in which speaker T is complaining about being coerced into making charitable contributions,
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Grammar and Inference in Conversation 500
Pitch (Hz)
400 300 200 100 0 Beli PON koé mesjid. 0
Mesjid Agung. Time (s)
mbokatan. 3.58195
Figure 5.4 Pitch contour of prosodic cluster in example (256)
contains two supplementary units. This is the maximum attested within one prosodic cluster in the present corpus. (256) T: .. Beli PON koé mesjid. neg National.Sports.Week later-def mosque . . . Mesjid Agung. mosque great .. mbokatan. maybe ‘If it’s not National Sports Week, it’s the mosque, the Grand Mosque, for example.’ (111:650–653)
The pitch contour for (256) is given in Figure 5.4. Notice that while the intonation of the supplementary units are relatively flat compared to the dramatic shift in pitch exhibited by the integrational unit, they do have interesting internal pitch contours which are more complex than the horizontal line drawn by G. Poedjosoedarmo (1977), as seen in example (252). Prosodic clusters that are multi-clausal and consist of many intonation units are common in the Cirebon Javanese conversational data. The following is an example of such a larger prosodic cluster. (257) W: . . . Kien, this
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biasa, normal upamané, for.example .. niléé= .. lima puluh persén, value.ind-def fifty.ind percent . . . terus-terusan lima puluh persén, continue-redup-an fifty.ind percent ya suwé-suwé péngén na=ék. yes long.time-redup want increase dadiné ku. become-def that.med ‘So, it’s normal, for example, his speed is fifty percent [of the speedometer range], (he)’s going along at fifty percent, after a while (he) wants to go faster, that’s what happens.’ (114:367–373)
We can see from example (257) that the clustering of intonation units in conversation and the relationships between intonation units within the cluster can be rather complex. In the following section we will look at the relevance of intonation units and prosodic clusters to Cirebon Javanese grammar by examining how the core elements of clauses, including both P-trigger and A-trigger types, are distributed across them.
. Constituent order Javanese has usually been categorized as an SVO language (B. Grimes 2004; Ogloblin 2005). However, the wide variety of ways in which clauses can be expressed in conversation calls into question the meaningfulness of a statement like this as a general descriptor for language use in interaction. The remainder of this chapter will focus in detail on the variety of possible constituent orders observed among transitive clauses in the conversational database. In languages with a relatively fixed constituent order, this order is often an important cue to the assignment of grammatical roles within the clause. In languages with a relatively free constituent order, this order can be used toward other ends, such as encoding pragmatic information about particular referents. In the following discussion, I will focus on the extent to which constituent order is used by
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Javanese speakers as a cue for establishing clause structure. Additionally, I will be looking at what other functions constituent order plays in Javanese conversation. When examining constituent order in Javanese conversation we must keep in mind the fact that core participants of a clause are often not overtly expressed. Such unexpressed participants are not represented by constituents in the sense that constituents were discussed in Section 5.1 above and so do not have an ordered position in the physically produced speech. Of the arguments that are overtly expressed, their distribution within and across intonation units and prosodic clusters will be an important consideration. Section 5.4.1 will briefly explore constituent order in intransitive clauses, as background to the more detailed discussion of transitive clause constituent order that follows. .. Constituency order in intransitive clauses As shown in Chapter 2, the predicates of intransitive clauses are a disparate group. An extensive analysis of their discourse characteristics would constitute a large scale study of its own. The central question being raised in this chapter is, “what can constituent order tell us about clause structure, especially in terms of assigning different participants to the different roles within a clause?”. Such a question is less problematic for an intransitive clause, with its single core argument, than it is for a transitive clause, with two core participants and the potential for competition among referents for the roles they fill in relation to the predicate. The following discussion of intransitive clause constituent order is therefore presented mainly to give a broader context for the following discussion of transitive clauses and is not intended as a comprehensive study of intransitive constructions. Here I present a snapshot of general trends in intransitive clause structure within a subset of the database. To do this, I have selected a contiguous set of 100 intonation units from each of the five transcripts that were coded for this study. Each set begins at a different randomly selected point within its transcript. Within these 500 intonation units, 151 intransitive clauses were identified. Because clause combining and interrogative constructions can impose certain grammatical constraints on constituent order, only main, indicative clauses were coded for this constituent order study. There were 107 such clauses in the sample, or 71% of the total intransitive clauses. Out of these 107 clauses, 78 (73%) had verbal predicates, 15 (14%) had nominal predicates, 6 (6%) had prepositional phrase predicates, and 8 (7%) had other adverbial predicates. The identification of the verbal predicates, whether or not they had an explicit S argument, was straightforward. The identification of other types
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of intransitive predicates when their S argument was explicitly expressed was also fairly straightforward. The identification of non-verbal elements as predicates when there was no explicitly expressed S argument was more problematic. The difficulty arises because, for example, while there is sometimes discourse evidence to suggest that a noun phrase is being presented predicatively, it is often difficult to make a categorical differentiation between a predicate nominal with no overtly expressed S and a free noun phrase that is not participating in any sort of clause structure (cf. Ono & Thompson 1994). The same is true for prepositional and other adverbial predicate types. Thus the non-verbal predicates that were identified in the sample were skewed towards constructions with explicit S arguments. Because non-verbal intransitives are of such a varied nature and can be difficult to identify in discourse, they are not included in the counts below. Only the 78 verbal intransitive clauses identified among the main indicative clauses are used in the present discussion. This will help to ensure that these results for the intransitive clause counts are comparable with those for transitive clause counts below. In the tables, constituent order configurations are labeled with the following conventions. An intransitive verb preceded by its single argument, whether in the same intonation unit with verb, or in the preceding intonation unit of the same prosodic cluster, is labeled SV. An intransitive verb followed by its single argument, whether in the same intonation unit or in a following intonation unit in the same prosodic cluster, is labeled VS. An intransitive verb without an explicit S argument expressed in the same prosodic cluster is labeled V. (Note that due to the small size of this sample database, the categories of intransitive clause constituent order have not been as finely differentiated as they have been for transitive clauses in the later discussion.) Table 5.1 presents the frequency of word order configurations for the 78 verbal intransitive clauses among main indicative clauses in the sample of 500 intonation units. These are divided between eventive and stative intransitives. We see from the totals for all intransitive verbs on the right of the table that the majority of intransitive clauses in the sample (62%) occur as verbs alone, with no explicit expression of the S-role participant. Constituent order is different, however, for eventive and stative intransitive clauses: 79% of eventive intransitive clauses have unexpressed participants in the S role while only 45% of stative intransitive clauses have unexpressed S participants. Two questions arise: (1) Why are eventive intransitive clauses more likely to have an unexpressed S participant than stative intransitive clauses, and (2) When the S participant is expressed as an argument, what is the functional
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Table 5.1 Constituent order in intransitive clauses Order
Eventive
Stative
SV V VS
7 30 1
18% 79% 3%
12 18 10
30% 45% 25%
Total
38
100%
40
100%
Table 5.2 Activation state of S in intransitive verbal clauses Activation of S
Eventive
Stative
Given New
35 3
92% 8%
28 12
70% 30%
Total
38
100%
40
100%
Table 5.3 Identifiability of S in intransitive verbal clauses Identifiability of S
Eventive
Stative
Identifiable Non-identifiable
35 3
92% 8%
38 2
95% 5%
Total
38
100%
40
100%
Table 5.4 Animacy of S in intransitive verbal clauses Animacy of S
Eventive
Stative
Human Non-human
36 2
95% 5%
15 25
38% 63%
Total
38
100%
40
100%
difference between SV and VS, and why is the distribution between SV and VS strikingly different between eventive and stative verbs? To answer the first of these questions we need to look at the patterning of activation status, identifiability, and animacy of S-role participants of these two types of intransitive clauses. This is shown in Tables 5.2 through 5.4. We see that eventive intransitive verbs are more likely to appear without an explicitly expressed argument, while stative intransitive verbs are more likely to have an explicit argument. This trend is consistent with a preference for continuous human referents in the S role of eventive intransitives, while more non-human and non-continuous participants occur with stative intransitives.
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Table 5.5 Animacy and constituent order Animacy
SV
VS
Human Non-human
11 8
58% 42%
1 10
9% 91%
Total
19
100%
11
100%
Table 5.2 shows that the activation status of S-role participants of both eventive and stative intransitive verbs is more likely to be given than new. However, the likelihood of having a new S is higher for stative verbs (30%) than eventive verbs (8%). In contrast to activation, the identifiability profile of S is about the same for eventive and stative verbs: in both cases more than 90% of S referents are identifiable. This is consistent with the observation pointed out in the discussions of nominal forms (Chapter 3) and information flow (Chapter 4), that there is a strong tendency for referents to be presented as identifiable in Cirebon Javanese conversational discourse, regardless of activation state. S participants of eventive intransitive verbs are more likely than those of stative intransitive verbs to be human (Table 5.4). This is consistent with the semantics of an eventive predicate, which would tend to prefer a volitional agent as an S participant (cf. Mithun 1991). In conversation, human referents are likely to be highly accessible and tracked, and consistent with Cirebon Javanese nominal expressions, very likely to be unexpressed. These discourse preferences converge to give the result that in Cirebon Javanese conversation eventive intransitive verbs are more likely than stative intransitive verbs to have unexpressed S participants, thus yielding a clause configuration of V. Secondly we asked, for intransitive verbal clauses that have an explicit S argument, what distinguishes the orders SV and VS? This is more difficult to answer with the small sample used here, but a certain alignment emerges for consideration. As shown in Table 5.5, the post-verbal S role is most frequently filled by a non-human referent, while pre-verbal S can be either human or non-human. In other words, almost all the explicitly expressed human S participants occur in the constituent order SV, while explicitly expressed nonhuman S participants may occur in SV or VS configurations. There are two trends in the data, (1) that human participants occur almost exclusively in the SV configuration and (2) that the VS configuration attracts almost exclusively non-human S’s. These are consistent with the preference for humans to be participants in eventive intransitive clauses, which tend to have the order SV. Sorting out the causal relationships that may obtain among these various factors, as well as identifying other discourse-functional properties that might
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be relevant in intransitive constituent order in Cirebon Javanese requires future investigation. We turn now to the focus of this chapter, transitive clause structure. .. Constituency order in transitive clauses In the next two sections we will look at the frequency of different constituent orders for P-trigger and A-trigger clauses in the conversational data. Here I first briefly illustrate some of the configuration types that occur in the database and the notation used as a shorthand to represent them. It is possible for both core arguments and the verb of a transitive clause to be expressed together in a single intonation unit, as illustrated in (258). A (258) B:
V
P
Isun= wis ngalami kabé kerja ku Din. 1sg already n-experience-i all work that.med Din ‘I’ve already experienced all kinds of work, Din.’ (111:80)
Using the terms A and P that were introduced in Chapter 2, we can notate the constituent order illustrated in (258) as AVP. Similarly, other orders will be represented by the notations VPA, PVA, and the like. As we saw in the discussion of nominal forms and information flow in Chapters 3 and 4, participants in core grammatical roles are often not explicitly expressed. Thus it is not uncommon for only one of the grammatical roles of a transitive clause to be filled by an explicitly expressed argument, and this may be expressed in the same intonation unit with the verb as illustrated in (259) and (260). A
V
(259) D: Misalé wong tuaé beli ngijinaken , example.ind-def parent-def neg n-approve-aken ‘For example the parents don’t approve (the marriage),’ (114:839) P
V
(260) W: Ya Dédék beli dijak ng sawa jé yes Dedek neg di-invite to rice.field quote ‘Yeah, you weren’t ask to go along to the rice field, they say.’ (151:1197)
The constituent order of (259) can be coded as AV and that of (260) as PV. Other possible orders of transitive verb and one argument would be VA and
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VP. Thus a notation with only one transitive argument expressed indicates that the other participant was not overtly expressed. It is also frequently the case that neither grammatical role is explicitly expressed and the verb stands alone, as in (261). V (261) B:
Dijokoti . di-take-i ‘(I) took (them).’ (107:1036)
The notation for clauses of this type is simply V, indicating that neither of the core roles is overtly expressed. Prosodic clusters were introduced in Section 5.3 above. Often one or both arguments of a transitive clause are not expressed in the same intonation unit as the verb, but are linked to it by being expressed in the same prosodic cluster. In example (262) both arguments of the verb dijak ‘invite’ are expressed with it in the same prosodic cluster. The verb and the P argument are produced in the second intonation unit of the cluster, the integrational unit, while the A argument is produced in the following supplementary unit. (262) D: . . . Boko Syawalan, if Syawalan.celebration P
V
engkoé Kuré dijak belié. later-def Kur-def di-invite neg-def A iraé . 2sg-def ‘During Syawalan, are you going to invite Kur or not?’ (140:228–230)
In the shorthand used here a dash indicates that an argument is separated from its predicate by an intonation unit boundary within the same prosodic cluster. The clause in example (262) is thus coded as PV-A, showing that the three core elements of the clause are expressed within the prosodic cluster, but that the A argument is produced in a separate intonation unit following the verb, while the P argument precedes the V and is expressed together with it in the same intonation unit preceding the A argument.
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There is a wide range of possible configurations that transitive clauses can take when expressed within multi-IU prosodic clusters. In (263) both A and P arguments are produced in separate intonation units from the verb. A (263) N: Ari Pa Tata si, if Mr. Tata part itung-itung, calculate-redup V dirawat pisan , di-maintain very P motor ku , motorcycle that.med ‘As for you, it seems, (you) take good care of the motorcycle,’ (111:911–914)
The constituent order of the clause in (263) is coded A-V-P. In (264) the A role is not overtly expressed within the prosodic cluster, while the P role is filled by an overt argument expressed in an anticipatory unit within the prosodic cluster. (264) B: Kadang-kadang, sometimes P . . . muni lima puluh ku , say fifty.ind that.med V .. bisa njukut Din. can n-take Din ‘Sometimes, (I) can collect say fifty of them, Din.’(111:25–27)
This is represented as P-V. The purpose here is to illustrate how the coding system is used, and not to illustrate all possible configurations. These examples
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should be sufficient to make other codes used below, such as AV-P or PV-A, comprehensible to the reader. Before looking at P-trigger and A-trigger clauses separately, we will first look at the distribution of constituent order configurations across all transitive clauses in the coded conversational material, in order to place the discussion in a broader context. The entire five thousand intonation unit selection of conversational material used for intensive study here was coded exhaustively for transitive clauses. Transitive clauses were identified as those in which the main verb is a transitive verb. Three criteria were used for identifying transitive verbs. The basic criterion, based on actual verb morphology displayed by each verb token in the database, was (1) transitive verbs are those that have the A-trigger prefix N- or either of the P-trigger prefixes di- or tak-. This criterion was further refined by also considering features of verb types that arise out of multiple tokens of usage in discourse. Transitive verbs are also those that (2) are found in both A-trigger and P-trigger constructions in discourse, and (3) as displayed in patterning of usage in discourse, can take both an A and P argument. These additional criteria thus prevent intransitive verbs with the nasal prefix from being included in the count. Thus nyéwot (N-séwot) ‘be angry’ does not have a P-trigger form nor does it ever take A and P arguments. Clauses with such verbs are not coded as transitive. Additionally, there is a small set of verbs in Cirebon Javanese which have P-trigger forms with di- and tak- and which can have both A and P arguments, but which never have the nasal prefix in their A-trigger form. These include bayar ‘pay’, gawé ‘make’, luru ‘look for’ and tuku ‘buy’. Such verbs are coded as transitive although they do not have the nasal prefix. Conversely there are a few verbs which can take two arguments but are low in discourse transitivity in the sense of Hopper and Thompson (1980) and never occur in P-trigger constructions in Cirebon Javanese. These include dagang ‘sell’, duwé ‘have, own’, oli ‘receive’, and weru ‘know’. These were not coded as transitive in the database, although they often occur with what might be considered A and P arguments. Because of the prevalence of unexpressed participants in Cirebon Javanese, many clauses with transitive verbs have only one overtly expressed argument or none at all. Such clauses were coded as transitive and included in the initial counts presented in this chapter. For some languages it might be more appropriate to decide that unexpressed participants do not impact on the grammar of a clause and should not be considered in coding for transitivity (see for example the discussion in Ono & Thompson 1997 regarding Japanese). In the following analysis of Cirebon Javanese, I have chosen to code all clauses as transitive according to the criteria in the previous paragraph, even those whose
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equivalents might be considered intransitive in other languages. This extensive use of unexpressed participants does raise the question of how transitive these clauses actually are and whether there is a cline of structural transitivity. By including possibly border-line cases in the counts, we can compare the range of discourse features that are found with different types of constructions. I will return to this issue in later sections of this chapter and in Chapter 6. In the database of five thousand intonation units there are 399 transitive clauses, as defined above, all of which were coded for clause structure. Of these, 281, or 70%, were independent or main clauses, while the remaining 118, or 30%, were one type of dependent clause or another. The expression of arguments and their order can be grammatically constrained in certain dependent clause types, such as relative clauses, in ways that go beyond the scope of this study. Therefore I will look here exclusively at independent clauses. Nineteen different types of constituent order configurations occurred among the independent transitive clauses in the database. The raw frequency and percentage frequency of each type is listed in Table 5.6. Configurations of clauses expressed entirely within a single intonation unit are labeled single-IU and are listed first in the table, from the most frequent type through to the least frequent type. There were 243 tokens of single-IU configuration clauses, 86% of the 281 total. Clause configurations whose elements are dispersed across multiple intonation units within a prosodic cluster are labeled multi-IU. There were 38 multi-IU configuration clauses, 14% of the total. Two transitive clause configurations stand out as by far the most frequent in the Cirebon conversational data. These are a verb with no overtly expressed arguments, labeled V, and a verb followed by its P argument expressed together in a single intonation unit, labeled VP. Together these two configurations account for 72% of the clauses in the data. AVP and AV tie as the next most frequent types of independent transitive clause configuration, but they come in at a very distant third, each occurring in only five percent of the data. AVP corresponds to the SVO label traditionally given as the constituent order of Javanese. The fact that this configuration is the third most frequent, and indeed the most common configuration of the types that express all three elements – verb, A, and P – together in one intonation unit, suggests there is an empirical basis for the SVO designation given to Javanese. However, the fact that this word order only occurs in five percent of independent transitive clauses in the database suggests that there is more to constituent order than can be encapsulated in an SVO label applied to the language as a whole. In this analysis I am primarily interested in the extent to which the temporally ordered expression of constituents contributes to interlocutors’ under-
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Table 5.6 Constituent order in independent transitive clauses Dispersal
Constituent order
Single-IU Clauses
V VP AVP AV PV VPA PVA VA A-VP P-V V-P VP-A A-V PV-A A-V-P AV-P P-VA V-A V-P-A
Multi-IU Clauses
Total
Frequency 111 89 14 14 8 3 2 2 9 8 5 4 3 3 2 1 1 1 1
40% 32% 5% 5% 3% 1% 1% 1% 3% 3% 2% 1% 1% 1% 1% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4%
281
100%
standing of clause structure and meaning. This question includes three related issues. First, for arguments that are explicitly expressed together with the verb in one intonation unit, what is their temporal order relative to the predicate and what does this tell us about clause structure? Similarly, for arguments expressed in anticipatory or supplementary units, what does this tell us about clause structure? Finally, to what extent do constituency and constituent order communicate additional information, such as information flow status of referents, and how can this aid interlocutors in understanding clause structure in discourse? In Section 5.5 we will look at these issues among P-trigger clauses, while Section 5.6 will cover A-trigger clauses. Finally, in Section 5.7 I return to the question asked at the beginning of this chapter, to what extent do constituents coalesce and thus serve as a source for the emergence of a higher order constituent structure.
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Table 5.7 Constituent order among single-IU P-trigger clauses Constituent order
Frequency
V PV VP PVA AV VA VPA
88 8 6 2 1 1 1
82% 7% 6% 2% 1% 1% 1%
Total
107
100%
. P-trigger clauses P-trigger clauses were introduced in Chapter 2. In this section I will look at constituent order first among those P-trigger clauses that are expressed entirely within a single intonation unit (single-IU clauses). I then look at constituent order among multi-IU P-trigger clauses, that is, those which have some core elements distributed across intonation unit boundaries within a prosodic cluster. I will then ask in what way arguments that are separated intonationally from the head verb of the clause differ from those arguments expressed in the same intonation unit as the verb. .. Single-IU P-trigger clauses There are 123 P-trigger clauses in the database, of which 107 are single-IU clauses. Table 5.7 lists the frequency of different constituent order configurations for these single-IU P-trigger clauses. In the following sections we will look first at the most common configuration of single-IU P-trigger clauses: a verb standing alone. This will be followed by a discussion of configurations of verb plus one explicit argument and verb plus two explicit arguments. ... Verb alone By far the most frequent configuration for independent single-IU P-trigger clauses is for the verb to stand alone with no overtly expressed arguments. Eighty-two percent of P-trigger clauses have this configuration. In P-trigger clauses consisting only of an overt verb, constituent order cannot be used as a cue for determining the structure of the clause and speakers must rely entirely
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Table 5.8 Information flow profiles of unexpressed P participants in P-trigger clauses with constituent expression V Information flow Given Given New New Total
Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable Non-identifiable
Frequency Particular General Particular Particular
Tracking Tracking Tracking Tracking
71 14 2 1 88
81% 16% 2% 1% 100%
on their pragmatic and semantic understanding of the discourse in order to determine both the referents of the core participants evoked by the verb as well as the macro-roles of each of these participants. Put another way, only semantics and pragmatics can tell us who did what to whom (or what); constituent order does not help. In a clause consisting only of a verb, the order of constituents is irrelevant, but does the very fact that the participants of such a clause are not realized as explicit arguments contribute to interlocutors’ understanding of clause structure? It seems that this is indeed the case, because the non-expression of participants communicates important pragmatic information and this in turn can be used by interlocutors as a cue in determining the intended referents of the core participants and the grammatical roles that they play within the structure of a clause consisting only of a P-trigger verb. In Chapter 4 it was shown that unexpressed participants in Cirebon Javanese are typically given and identifiable and that a participant is typically unexpressed when its referent is being tracked through discourse. One may therefore hypothesize that constructions with only the verb overtly expressed are used when participants filling both the A and P roles are given, identifiable, and being tracked. This is confirmed by the data in Tables 5.8 and 5.9, which summarize, respectively, the information flow profiles of the unexpressed P and A participants of P-trigger clauses consisting of only an overt verb. In Table 5.8 we see that the majority of unexpressed P participants of Vconfiguration P-trigger clauses represent given identifiable referents that are being tracked. Of these, most are particular (81%) but others are general (16%), being elements in the sort of generic statements mentioned in Chapter 4, Section 4.3.1. Thus, fully 97% of these unexpressed P participants are given, identifiable, and tracking. The remaining 3% of unexpressed P participants of V-configuration P-trigger clauses represent new information which is particular and tracked, while identifiability varies. A P-trigger clause with no
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Table 5.9 Information flow profiles of unexpressed A participants in P-trigger clauses with constituent expression V Information flow Given New Given New New Total
Identifiable NA Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable
Frequency Particular General General General Particular
Tracking Non-tracking Tracking Tracking Tracking
71 11 3 2 1
81% 13% 3% 2% 1%
88
100%
explicit arguments is highly likely to have an identifiable tracked P participant, and thus when confronted with a P-trigger clause consisting solely of a verb, a hearer may feel confident that the referent of the P argument should be one which is readily recoverable from the discourse. Determining which is the most probable referent when there are competing possibilities will depend on other semantic and extra-linguistic factors, and will vary for each actual case. Of the unexpressed A participants of V-configuration P-trigger clauses, outlined in Table 5.9, 84% represent given identifiable referents that are being tracked; this includes both particular (81%) and general (3%) nominal expressions. The next type of information flow configuration among these unexpressed A participants is general non-tracking nominal expressions, which are thus non-referential and identifiability is not applicable. These account for 13% of the sample. The remaining 3% of the unexpressed A participants of V-configuration P-trigger clauses represent new identifiable referents that are being tracked, both general and particular. Because a P-trigger clause with no explicit arguments is very likely to have an identifiable tracked A participant, when confronted with a P-trigger clause consisting solely of a verb, a hearer can feel fairly confident that the referent of the unexpressed A participant should be one that is readily recoverable from the discourse. In this configuration there is also the possibility that the speaker intends that the A participant not be tracked and can be understood to have a generic reading. This would be the likely reading when there is no clearly tracked referent to fill the role of A. As with the case of any unexpressed participant, determining which is the most probable referent when there are competing possibilities will depend on other semantic and extra-linguistic factors, and will vary for each actual case. Taking the above discussion of P and A information flow properties together, we see that the most common type of P-trigger clause is one that is only expressed overtly by a verb, and whose A and P participants are unex-
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pressed and represent identifiable tracked referents. This situation is illustrated in example (261) repeated here as (265): V (265) B:
Dijokoti . di-take-i ‘(I) took (them).’ (107:1036)
Less common, but also important in discourse, are cases of V-configuration P-trigger clauses in which the P participant is a tracked referent, but the A argument is not tracked and the speaker does not intend that any particular referent be activated by the hearer. This is exemplified by the first clause in (266). V (266) W: Wong durung diramé-ramé , conc not.yet di-celebrate-redup wis nika ndikit kan? already married first part ‘Although (we) hadn’t been given a [wedding] party yet, (we) had already gotten [officially] married, you know?’ (114:686–687)
Such P-trigger clauses with non-referential A participants are lower in discourse transitivity than clauses that have a tracking accessible A. Low discourse transitive P-trigger clauses are a small subset of P-trigger clauses in the Cirebon Javanese conversational data. Clauses of this sort more closely resemble canonical European-style passive constructions. In summary, what can the constituency of a single-IU P-trigger clause that contains only a verb tell interlocutors about clause structure? As far as the order of constituents is concerned, there is no information because unexpressed participants have no temporal order in relation to the verb. But the fact that in this pattern no participants are expressed as overt arguments means that the construction itself can be used as a clue for a likely assignment of referents to macro-roles. Such a construction is likely to signal hearers to look for a given (and thus identifiable) referent that is being tracked in the discourse to fill the macro-role of P. Similarly the hearer would be on fairly solid ground locating a given and tracked referent to serve in the A macro-role. A second important, but less common pattern is one in which the P role will be filled by an identifiable referent, but the A role will be non-referential. Because this is a statistical expectation it can serve as a cue, but an understanding of the pragmatics and
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semantics of the situation is also necessary for the appropriate assignment of likely referents to these macro-roles. ... Verb with one argument Looking again at Table 5.7, we see that among single-IU P-trigger clauses with one explicitly expressed argument in the sample, the expressed argument is much more likely to have the macro-role P than A. Among these there are 14 cases in which the single expressed argument is the P argument, and thus the trigger of the clause. These include eight PV and six VP configurations. In contrast, there are only two cases in which the single expressed participant is the A argument, and thus the non-trigger argument of the clause. These include one example each of VA and AV configurations. Based solely on the possible formal arrangements of elements among these single-IU P-trigger clauses with one explicit argument, it would appear that constituent order alone would not be able to be used as a cue for determining the macro-role of the one argument. This is because both P and A arguments can occur either before or following the verb. However, there is a preference in discourse (88% or 14 out of 16) for the single expressed argument of a P-trigger clause to have the role of P. Thus, if only one argument of a P-trigger verb is expressed explicitly, this fact in itself strongly suggests to a hearer that it is likely to be the P, regardless of constituent order. There are of course other considerations besides constituent order which also aid in determining clause structure. One of these cues is alternate P-trigger verb morphology. When a P-trigger verbs is prefixed with tak- rather than di-, this cross-referencing clarifies that the referent of the A participant is first person and the A argument can be further identified by use of the preposition ning (see Chapter 2, Section 2.3.1). In such cases the referent of the A argument is clear regardless of constituent order. A closer examination of the examples of single argument P-trigger clauses reveals that stress is another important linguistic resource that interlocutors use for establishing the macro-role of that single overt argument. In the following examples, primary intonation unit stress is marked with a caret preceding the syllable that carries the stress. V (267) B:
P
Dititip^aken nu= . di-entrust-aken that.med ‘(She) entrusted it [with someone].’ (107:1073)
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V
A
(268) W: .. Di=gejolak rasa kasian ^iku . di-enflame.ind feeling love that.med ‘(I) was enflamed by love.’ (114:652)
Example (267) illustrates a P-trigger clause with the VP configuration. In this example, primary stress within the intonation unit occurs on the verb. All Ptrigger VP clauses in the sample have this stress pattern. Example (268) is a P-trigger clause with the VA configuration. In this VA example, primary stress within the intonation unit occurs on the A argument. This is the only P-trigger VA that occurred in the sample, but a perusal of the larger databases shows that this stress pattern is repeated in other clauses of this type. While the small number of examples in the sample is not sufficient as a basis for broader generalizations, there are two points to be made. First, this pattern does not simply differentiate P and A arguments, but simultaneously differentiates the trigger and non-trigger arguments. The pattern is for a non-trigger following the verb to receive primary stress within the intonation unit, while a trigger following the verb will not receive primary stress. While it may seem now that these two claims are making the same point, when we look later at A-trigger constructions, we will see that the same pattern is repeated as it relates to trigger and non-trigger elements, rather than specifically to the P or A argument. Secondly, in these examples primary stress is not simply a mechanism for disambiguating clause structure in lieu of a fixed constituent order. Rather, stress in these examples is tied to information flow. In the VP-order P-trigger examples, the unstressed P arguments represent continuous referents: given elements that have been recently evoked in the discourse. The stress-carrying A arguments in the VA-order P-trigger clauses tend to represent new or discontinuous referents. In example (268) the referent of the A argument is new. If constituent order itself is not strongly associated with establishing macro-roles within single-IU P-trigger clauses made up of a verb and one argument, what is the function of the alternation between VP and PV orders and the alternation between VA and AV orders that we can observe in the data? The very low frequency of single-IU P-trigger clauses with an overt A argument means that it would not be fruitful to pursue the second part of this question with the present database; however, a possible answer can be proposed for the first part, concerning the order of overtly expressed P arguments relative to the verb. We will again turn to information flow for this answer. It does need to be kept in mind, however, that because these numbers are fairly small, we can only
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Table 5.10 Activation of overt P arguments in PV and VP configurations of P-trigger clauses Constituent order
Information flow
PV
Given New
Identifiable Identifiable
Frequency Particular General
Tracking Tracking
Total VP
Given New
Identifiable Identifiable
Particular Particular
Tracking Tracking
Total
6 2
75% 25%
8
100%
4 2
67% 33%
6
100%
Table 5.11 Nominal type of overt P arguments in VP and PV configurations of Ptrigger clauses Nominal type
PV order
VP order
Pronoun Lexical NP
3 5
38% 63%
5 1
83% 17%
Total
8
100%
6
100%
Table 5.12 Semantic class of overt P arguments in VP and PV configurations of Ptrigger clauses Semantic class
PV order
VP order
Human Non-human
3 5
38% 63%
0 6
0% 100%
Total
8
100%
6
100%
note apparent trends. A larger database would tell us how robust these patterns might turn out to be. None of the information flow characteristics discussed for nominal expressions consistently differentiates VP and PV constituent orders in single-IU P-trigger clauses. This is seen in Table 5.10. All of these P arguments are identifiable and tracked, regardless of order. Both constituent orders include more given than new P arguments. The two examples of general P arguments both occur in the order PV, but the numbers are too small to make any generalization about this. A more robust differentiation is seen in the types of nominal expression used in pre-verbal and post-verbal position, illustrated in Table 5.11, and in the
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semantic class of the referents of these nominal expressions, illustrated in Table 5.12. Pre-verbal overt P arguments of single-IU P-trigger clauses are more likely to be lexical noun phrases, while post-verbal P arguments are much more likely to be pronominal. As it happens the three pre-verbal pronouns are all personal pronouns representing human referents, while the five post-verbal pronouns are all demonstrative pronouns representing non-human referents. We also see that in the database human referents only occur as pre-verbal P arguments, while post-verbal P arguments are entirely non-human. The preference for human referents to occur in preverbal position coupled with the preference for post-verbal position to be filled by non-human referents is similar to that found among intransitive clauses (Table 5.5). Finally, what about the unexpressed participants of single-IU P-trigger clauses that have one overt argument: do these have the same characteristics as unexpressed participants in single-IU P-trigger clauses that have no overt arguments? Again, the AV and VA configurations are so rare, I will not have more to say about the unexpressed P participants of these examples, but to note that both are tracked and represent given referents, and thus do have the same information flow characteristics as the majority of unexpressed P participants of V-configuration P-trigger clauses. The unexpressed A participants of the PV and VP clauses are predominately tracking (11 out of 14 or 79%). This is similar to the unexpressed A participants of V configuration P-trigger clauses, which are also predominately tracking (78 of 88 or 88%). The characteristics of unexpressed A participants of single-IU P-trigger clauses are similar, whether the P participant is overtly expressed or not. ... Verb with two arguments Among single-IU P-trigger clauses only 3% occur with both arguments overtly expressed. Because of their scarcity in the data there is little that can be said about trends in their patterning. In these few cases we can note that fully expressed arguments are expressed for the same reasons that any argument might be fully expressed, for example to establish a new referent in discourse or to clarify the intended referent in a context where there are potentially competing established referents which might cause confusion were the participant unexpressed. Example (269) illustrates this.
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(269) D: .. % Pas Yoyom sembayang, just.when Yoyom pray P
V
A
clana dalemé takumpetaken <@ ning kita nu @>. underpants-def tak-hide-aken by 1sg that.med ‘Just when Yoyom was praying, I hid her underpants.’ (140:647–648)
Here the referent of the P argument is new and identifiable, and so is expressed with a full lexical noun marked as identifiable by association with -é. The A argument is first person and so is given and tracked. Indeed in this case it is unambiguously implied by the prefix tak- on the verb. This argument is nonetheless explicitly expressed. This may be due in part to the fact that the established referent Yoyom is mentioned in the introductory intonation unit of the prosodic cluster, and so the explicitly expressed first person referent in the second clause serves a resumptive function. This explicit mention may also be due to the fact that the speaker is describing a humorous event that he himself instigated and so he wants to be sure he receives full credit as principal actor. While the business of competition between referents is a possible motivation for speakers to make explicit reference, we will see in examples in Chapter 6 that competition between two recently activated referents, either of which might logically fill a certain role, is not enough to make speakers use explicit forms. In Chapter 6 it is shown that if there are pragmatic or shared cultural cues that might help in establishing what referent is intended in a given role, it is often the case that the speaker will use unexpressed participants and thus shift the onus of establishing reference to the hearer. ... Summary: Single-IU P-trigger clauses The large majority of single-IU P-trigger independent clauses in the sample consist of only a verb with no explicit arguments. Consistent with the nature of unexpressed participants, this means that the majority of these clauses have P- and A-role participants that are identifiable and are being tracked. Among single-IU P-trigger clauses with one explicit argument, this argument is almost always the P argument. The orders VP and PV occur with similar frequency. There are very few examples in which the single expressed argument of a P-trigger clause is the A argument, but among those that do occur, both VA and AV orders are attested. Thus, constituent order alone cannot distinguish whether the single argument of a single-IU P-trigger clause will have the role of A or P. However, the high frequency of P arguments among
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single expressed arguments in these clauses means that the mere expression of a single argument strongly suggests that this argument is more likely to be the P than the A argument. Other cues that will sometimes help identify the A argument are verb morphology (if the first person A prefix tak- is used) and nominal morphology (if the preposition ning is used). Constituent order together with stress can indicate macro-role because primary stress will occur on the verb group if the trigger (the P argument) follows a P-trigger verb, but primary stress will occur on the argument following a P-trigger verb if it is the non-trigger (the A argument). Single-IU P-trigger clauses with two expressed arguments are very few in the database and so no generalizations were drawn about them, although it was pointed out that the expression of arguments with explicit lexical items in these clauses is consistent with the observation that more explicit forms tend to be used to represent new information or information that is resumptive or contrastive. .. Multi-IU P-trigger clauses In this section we will look at constituent order in multi-IU P-trigger clauses. There are sixteen of these clauses in the sample, 13% of the total P-trigger clauses. The different configurations that occurred among multi-IU P-trigger clauses in the sample are listed in Table 5.13 in descending order of frequency. A multi-IU clause was defined as a clause whose elements are produced within a single prosodic cluster but with at least one argument produced within an intonation unit separate from the integrational unit containing the predicate. Thus, by definition, there are no multi-IU clauses that consist only of a verb
Table 5.13 Constituent order among multi-IU P-trigger clauses Order
Frequency
P-V PV-A V-P A-V A-V-P P-VA V-A
7 3 2 1 1 1 1
44% 19% 13% 6% 6% 6% 6%
Total
16
100%
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Table 5.14 Information flow characteristics of P arguments in integrational units of P-trigger clauses Information flow Given New New Given Total
Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable
N Particular Particular General General
Tracking Tracking Tracking Tracking
%
13 3 3 1
65% 15% 15% 5%
20
100%
with no expressed arguments. Multi-IU P-trigger clauses are not as frequent in the sample as single-IU P-trigger clauses. In the following section we will look at the integrational unit and peripheral arguments of multi-IU P-trigger independent clauses. The first question we will ask is whether constituent order is an important cue to clause structure when we are looking at arguments of P-trigger clauses that are expressed in intonation units separate from their verbs. As it happens, all possible orders are attested. Separate P arguments may be expressed before or after the integrational unit containing the verb. Separate A arguments may also be expressed before or after the integrational unit containing the verb. It is only in conjunction with other information, such as identification of the role of the other argument, information flow properties, and world knowledge, that interlocutors can interpret the structure of P-trigger clauses produced over multiple intonation units. ... Peripheral P arguments In this section we will look specifically at P arguments that are expressed within a prosodic cluster, but in an intonation unit separate from the predicate of the clause. Among P-trigger clauses, in what way do P arguments produced in the integrational unit with their verb differ from P arguments that are produced in an intonation unit separate from the integrational unit? Table 5.14 shows the information flow properties of P arguments produced within the integrational unit of P-trigger clauses (including both single-IU and multi-IU clauses). Table 5.15 shows the information flow properties of P arguments produced in a peripheral intonation unit separated from the P-trigger verbs in the integrational unit (and thus, by definition, only in multi-IU clauses). Of overt P arguments of P-trigger clauses, whether produced in the integrational unit or the peripheral unit, all but one have identifiable referents
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Table 5.15 Information flow characteristics of P arguments in peripheral units of Ptrigger clauses Information flow New Given New New New
Frequency
Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable Non-identifiable
Particular Particular General Particular General
Tracking Tracking Tracking Non-tracking Tracking
Total
4 3 2 1 1
36% 27% 18% 9% 9%
11
100%
Table 5.16 Activation of overt P arguments of P-trigger clauses Activation
Integrational P
Peripheral P
Given New
14 6
70% 30%
3 8
27% 73%
Total
20
100%
11
100%
and all but one are used for tracking. Most are particular, and the proportion of general to particular P arguments is roughly the same among those appearing in the integrational unit and those appearing in peripheral units. The primary information flow factor differentiating P arguments expressed in these two contrasting ways is activation. Overt P arguments expressed in the integrational unit of a P-trigger clause are much more likely to represent given referents, while P arguments expressed in separate intonation units from their P-trigger verbs are much more likely to represent new referents. This contrast can be seen in Table 5.16, which summarizes activation values for P arguments expressed inside and outside the integrational unit of P-trigger clauses. The new information occurring in P arguments of P-trigger clauses that are peripheral to the integrational unit of the prosodic cluster is typically presented with heavier nominal phrases such as lexical nominal expressions, which are often modified with prepositional phrases or relative clauses. Most new referents serving as the P argument of P-trigger clauses are presented as identifiable at first mention. This is illustrated in (270). P (270) D: Aké-akéé me- mélodi Roma , many-redup-def melody.ind Roma
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V terus. diapalnang= di-memorize-aken continue ‘(You)’ve mastered the majority of Roma’s melodies.’ (114:83–84)
Example (271) illustrates the case of a new and non-identifiable referent being introduced through a nominal expression peripheral to the integrational unit that contains the P-trigger verb. P (271) D: Sabeneré lamun jago keding, actual-def if fighting.cock also kang ari apan manjing kalangan , rel if FUT enter arena beneré ku, true-def that.med V Mat. dicacak dikit Ang di-try first older.sibling Mat ‘Actually, for a fighting cock that’s going to enter the arena, the right thing to do is to try (it) out first, Ang Mat.’ (140:403–406)
The P argument of the clause in example (271) is introduced with the topic establishing marker lamun ‘if, given’. Such a construction is a common way speakers of Cirebon Javanese present a tracking nominal expression that represents a new referent. In a construction such as this it is not immediately apparent whether one should consider such a nominal expression as an argument of the verb in the integrational unit, as completely external to the clause, or possibly as something in between. For now, constructions like this have been labeled as arguments of the verb in the integrational unit. We will return to the issue of whether this is the most appropriate analysis in Chapter 6. Not all information presented in a peripheral P argument of a P-trigger clause is new. There is, however, usually some sense in which the speaker intends that special consideration be paid to such a referent, for example as resumptive or contrastive. In example (272) the referent of the P argument has been previously mentioned. The speaker has been explaining how she needed to cook for her father-in-law because her mother-in-law and sister-in-law were away and there was no one to prepare the rice. She goes on to complain about
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another family member who lives closer to the father-in-law and could just send over food she was preparing for her family. P (272) M: Toli wong [tua] siji , then parent one T:
[He`eh]. uhuh V
M: dikirim di-send
baé. just
‘Then (she)’d just send one [more] person [food].’ (151:1344–1346)
In the earlier part of the story the speaker refers to her father-in-law as mamang ‘father’. During twenty-odd intervening intonation units she describes what there was to eat. In example (272) the father-in-law is reintroduced. The fact that this is a resumptive referent and is being characterized in a particular and newly relevant way, as only one person, contributes to this noun phrase being produced separately from its predicate. Thus part of the work of peripheral arguments is to (re)establish a referent, rather than to put a referent in a particular role relationship with a verb. ... Peripheral A arguments We now look at overt A arguments produced in peripheral units of multiIU P-trigger clauses. To place these in perspective we will compare them to A arguments produced in the integrational unit. Table 5.17 illustrates the information flow properties of A arguments of P-trigger clauses that are expressed in the integrational unit. Table 5.18 shows those A arguments expressed in peripheral units.
Table 5.17 Information flow profiles of integrational A arguments of P-trigger clauses Information flow Given New New Total
Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable
Frequency Particular Particular General
Tracking Tracking Tracking
4 1 1
67% 17% 17%
6
100%
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Table 5.18 Information flow profiles of peripheral A arguments of P-trigger clauses Information flow Given Given New
Frequency
Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable
Particular General Particular
Tracking Tracking Non-tracking
Total
4 1 1
67% 17% 17%
6
100%
Table 5.19 Nominal form of overt A arguments of P-trigger clauses Nominal form
Integrational A
Peripheral A
NP Pro
2 4
33% 67%
5 1
83% 17%
Total
6
100%
6
100%
Most A participants in Cirebon Javanese discourse are not overtly expressed, and so there are very few examples of expressed A arguments in the tables. Of the 123 P-trigger clauses in the sample, 111, or 90%, have unexpressed A participants. The small number of overt A arguments means it is difficult to make generalizations, but certain trends can be observed. The overt A arguments of P-trigger clauses, like most A-role participants in discourse, are all identifiable and most are represented by particular tracking nominal expressions, whether expressed in the integrational unit or separate intonation unit. This is in contrast with peripheral P arguments, which, as shown in Table 5.15 above, are usually new. But while the integrational and peripheral P arguments differed in terms of activation, the integrational and peripheral A arguments are fairly similar. The small differences observable in discourse referentiality cannot be generalized as a distinction between these two types of A arguments due to the low numbers in the database. As mentioned in Section 5.5.2.1, P arguments expressed in separate intonation units tended to represent new information and this was consistent with the fact that they were expressed by relatively weighty nominal expressions. The cognitive energy and discourse space needed to express these referents in this way contribute to their being produced in separate intonation units. Why then would A arguments representing given information also be produced in separate intonation units? Closer examination of other aspects of these arguments reveals differences in integrational and peripheral A arguments which may suggest their different functions. While all the overt A arguments of P-trigger clauses in the database have human referents, they are represented by different types of nominal expressions, as illustrated in Table 5.19.
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Examples (273) and (274) help us to understand the reasons for this trend. P (273) P:
V
Kiené ni digeru=s , this-def this this di-grind A .. ning Marisaé anu, by Marisa-def hes .. Kadira ku , Kadira that.med lagi kaen. when that.dis ‘Marisa uh, Kadira’s [wife], ground these [spices] at that time.’ (151:862–865)
In example (273) Marisa has already been introduced in the preceding prosodic cluster, which begins this story of how she makes her fried chili dish. As the story continues, the speaker feels it is necessary to clarify which Marisa she is speaking about: Kadira’s wife. Because of the relatively lengthy process of refining the identity of the referent, its expression is spread over two intonation units and is peripheral to the intonation unit carrying the verb of the clause. In (274) the A argument is expressed before the verb. A (274) N: . . . Ari Pa Tata if Mr Tata
si, part
itung-itung, calculate-redup V dirawat pisan , di-maintain very P motor ku , motorcycle that.med
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.. beli lok istilaé kaya kita, neg often expression-def like 1sg .. bwéng=. expr.motorcycle.sound ‘As for you, it seems, (you) take good care of the motorcycle, (you) don’t rev the engine like I do’. (114:911–916)
The referent of the A argument is a fellow participant in the speech event who has recently made some comments about motorcycles. In the segment in (274) the speaker is contrasting the way that this interlocutor, Mr. Tata, uses his motorcycle with the way the speaker himself uses his own motorcycle. Another speaker has just been talking about motorcycles in general. To make the particular observation cited in (274), the speaker returns attention to Mr. Tata as a discourse referent that will play a role in the utterance he is producing. To do this, the speaker mentions Mr. Tata in a separate intonation unit using the conditional particle ari ‘if ’, similar to the use of lamun ‘if ’ in example (271) above. As the speaker produces this clause, the listener must build up his understanding of the meaning in a step-by-step fashion. Appropriate macro-roles and the overall clause structure cannot actually be assigned until the whole clause is produced. At the point that the speaker mentions Mr. Tata in the first line of (274), it is not yet possible to determine his role in an upcoming clause. There is an intervening evidential expression (itung-itung ‘reckon, figure’). When the verb is uttered, it is possible to interpret Mr. Tata as the P argument, that is, the one whom someone looks after, or nurses. Indeed, this potential ambiguity may be a motivation for the speaker to include explicit reference to the P argument in the following line. It is only at the point when the motorcycle is mentioned here that the hearer can confidently interpret Mr. Tata as filling the role of A, based on the animacy of the two participants: it is not probable in the known world for a motorcycle to be looking after a human. This example shows that clauses uttered in conversation cannot be viewed as timeless products, but rather are expressions that unfold through time and whose structure may not be clear to the hearers, and possibly even to the speaker, until an entire prosodic cluster has been completed. ... Summary: Multi-IU P-trigger clauses Arguments are produced in separate intonation units when they serve particular informational needs, most notably involving activation. Peripheral P arguments tend to be new and thus are produced with larger nominal expressions. The few given peripheral P arguments tend to be resumptive or contrastive.
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Peripheral A arguments tend to be given like most A arguments, but when produced in separate intonation units are often contrastive or resumptive, and in those contexts are therefore often expressed with larger nominal expressions. .. Summary: P-trigger clauses In this section we have looked at P-trigger independent clauses. It was noted that constituent order can only be used by interlocutors as a possible cue to clause structure in less than one quarter of single-IU clauses because the majority of P-trigger clauses consist of only a verb with both A and P arguments implied but not explicitly expressed. Consistent with information flow properties of nominal expressions in general in Cirebon Javanese, these arguments are usually identifiable and tracked. A minority of these unexpressed A participants are non-referential. When an argument of a P-trigger clause is produced in a separate intonation unit from its predicate, it typically represents new information or a referent that is resumptive or contrastive, usually expressed with a larger nominal expression. Thus the function of a peripheral argument in the clause is geared toward (re)establishing its referent. Establishing its role relationship within the clause occurs at a temporally separate point, and often is based on pragmatic inferencing. Based on the discussion in Section 5.5, we see that P-trigger clauses in Cirebon Javanese tend not to have a hierarchical constituency structure (Ewing 2005b). Constituent structure emerges in discourse when there is a frequently repeated pattern of convergence between the temporally congruent production of units and abstract grammatical categories, such as role relations (Bybee 2002). Two characteristics of P-trigger clauses tend to circumvent the possibility of the emergence of higher level constituents. The first of these characteristics is the fact that P-trigger clauses are most commonly produced with only a verb and no overt arguments. Because these clauses do not have overt arguments, there are no units to combine with the verb to form higher level constituents. The second of these characteristics is that when arguments are produced they can occur in large number of low-frequency configurations. This means that there is no frequently occurring pattern of the verb being produced with either of its arguments and thus no convergence between such a production pattern and the grammatical structure of the verb and its arguments. The dispersed and flat structure of the P-trigger clause is in contrast to the structure of A-trigger clauses, discussed in the next section.
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. A-trigger clauses In Chapter 2, Cirebon Javanese A-trigger clauses were defined as clauses with overt or implied A and P arguments and verbs marked with the nasal prefix N-. As further explained in Chapter 2, a small number of transitive verbs never take the prefix N- in the Cirebon Javanese conversational data, but their status as heads of A-trigger clauses is confirmed because of their paradigmatic relationship with di- forms. These specific unprefixed verbs are also classified as transitive verbs and included in the following counts. Instances of a clause whose verb would usually take the nasal prefix but which occurs without the nasal in the database are not included in the counts. In the present section we will look at constituent order and information flow characteristics of the Atrigger clauses in the sample. As in the previous section on P-trigger clauses, we will look first at single-IU clauses and then at multi-IU clauses. We will be asking what constituency and constituent order can tell us about clause structure in A-trigger clauses as well as how information flow characteristics are associated with constituent order and expression. .. Single-IU A-trigger clauses Table 5.20 shows the frequency of different constituent order configurations among single-IU independent A-trigger clauses in the Cirebon Javanese conversational database. Among single-IU A-trigger clauses, the most common constituent order, accounting for 61%, is a verb followed by an overtly expressed P argument (VP configuration), but with no overt A argument. The second most common configuration is for the verb to appear with no overt arguments. The next most frequent configurations consists of AVP and AV, that
Table 5.20 Constituent order among single-IU A-trigger clauses Order
Frequency
VP V AVP AV VPA VA
83 23 14 13 2 1
61% 17% 10% 10% 1% 1%
Total
136
100%
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is, the two most frequent types just mentioned with the addition of a pre-verbal A argument. The remaining two percent are variations with final A arguments. Of 136 single-IU A-trigger clauses, 90, or 72%, have overtly expressed P arguments. In all these cases the P argument immediately follows the verb. A arguments are overtly expressed in 30, or 22% of these single-IU A-trigger clauses. The overt A argument may appear either before or after the verb. Preverbal expression of A arguments is much more common than post-verbal. Because overt P arguments of single-IU A-trigger clauses immediately follow the verb, when the A argument is also expressed after the verb the order is always VPA. These facts about constituent order preferences mean that constituent order is less flexible in single-IU A-trigger clauses than it is in single-IU P-trigger clauses. The predictability of constituent order means that in A-trigger clauses, unlike P-trigger clauses, constituent order is a reliable indicator of clause structure. The one context in which constituent order alone would give a potentially ambiguous reading for the clause structure is that of a single-IU A-trigger clause in which there is only one overt argument expressed following the verb. In this case discourse frequency indicates such a construction would be more likely to represent a VP structure, but VA structures are also possible. This situation is similar to that of the single-IU P-trigger clauses discussed in Section 5.1. As it happens, a similar pattern appears here, in which prosody is an important factor in establishing clause structure. This is illustrated in examples (275) and (276); primary intonation unit stress is indicated with a caret. (275) O: . . . Sengaja kuen si, intentional that.med part V
P
beli mangan ^seg=a . neg n-eat rice ‘(He) intentionally does that you know, (he) doesn’t eat rice.’ (107:615–616) (276) U: .. Baka tuku ning kéné Bi Nani, if buy at here aunt Nani V
A
.. beli mangan ^maning isun nu . neg n-eat more 1sg that.med
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‘When (I)’m going to buy (food) here, Bi Nani, (I) don’t eat anything else.’ (107:611–613)
As exemplified in (275), when the P argument follows an A-trigger verb, primary stress in the intonation unit is on the P argument. In contrast, when an A argument directly follows an A-trigger verb in the same intonation unit, the A argument is unstressed and the primary stress occurs in the verb group, as seen in example (276). In these examples, it is of course also the case that the structure of each clause is quite clear from the semantic role each postverbal nominal expression is playing. For example, the verb mangan ‘eat’ is followed by the lexical noun sega ‘rice’ in (275) and by the pronoun isun nu ‘1sg’ in (276). World knowledge allows us to immediately assign these the roles of P and A respectively. From a real-time language processing perspective, the norms of constituent order and prosodic patterning in the language help to reinforce this semantic interpretation. From the perspective of emergent grammar, it is out of the recurrent association of these semantic realities with these ordering and prosodic patterns that this structure has grammaticization. There are cases where semantics may not be so helpful in disambiguating macro-role assignment, as when the single expressed argument in an A-trigger clause is a demonstrative pronoun. Such a pronoun might be interpreted as representing either the A referent or the P referent. Because of differences in the grammatical patterning of constituent order and stress, it is possible to determine the macro-role of a post-verbal argument in an A-trigger clause. This is illustrated in examples (277) and (278). V (277) T:
A
Wis ^ngrungu ku nu , already n-hear that.med that.med ‘She has heard (it),’ (151:962) V
P
(278) M: Nginum kuen ^iku lu . n-drink that.med that.med that.med ‘(She) drank the very thing.’ (140:295–297)
This A-trigger clause pattern, in which the post-verbal P argument is stressed while the post-verbal A argument is not stressed, is the complement of that seen in Section 5.5.1.2 above for P-trigger clauses. With post-verbal arguments of Ptrigger clauses, the A argument is stressed while the P argument is unstressed. As pointed out at that time, this patterning can also be viewed in terms of trig-
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ger. In the A-trigger clauses illustrated here, a post-verbal trigger is not stressed while a post-verbal non-trigger will receive primary stress within the intonation unit. Expressed in terms of trigger, this is exactly the same pattern found for P-trigger verbs. When the notion of trigger was first introduced in Chapter 2, it was described in terms of clause combining as the argument within a subordinate clause which can serve as pivot in a clause combining context such as relativization. At that point the trigger was identified in independent clauses, by extension, as that argument which could serve as pivot if such a clause were participating in an appropriate sort of clause combining structure. In the analysis of the patterning of constituent order and stress discussed in this section and Section 5.5.1.2 the notion of trigger links the patterns seen in A-trigger and P-trigger clauses. This is evidence for the reality of the category trigger within main clauses produced in natural discourse, independent of clause combining contexts. In this section we have seen that constituent order and argument macrorole assignment is fairly predictable in single-IU A-trigger clauses, especially as compared to that of single-IU P-trigger clauses in Section 5.5.3. There I noted that the flexibility of constituent order and the fact that participants are regularly unexpressed in P-trigger clauses means there is little evidence in the conversational data for a hierarchical sub-grouping of clause elements below the level of the clause as a whole. In the A-trigger clauses, an especially stable constituent order configuration is the expression of the verb and the Pargument, which are virtually always expressed in the order VP in single-IU clauses. Indeed this most stable configuration is also the most frequent among single-IU A-trigger clauses. An explicit A argument is less constrained in terms of order, occurring either before or after the verb. Much more likely, however, is for the A participant not to be expressed explicitly. The relatively stable nature of V plus P in A-trigger clauses suggests that these two constituents stand in a sister relationship as parts of a higher level constituent which corresponds to the verb phrase of formal syntactic descriptions (Ewing 2005b). The A argument is then rather free in relation to the verb phrase, appearing before it, after it, or not at all. No such intermediary constituent structure below the level of the clause was found among P-trigger clauses, in which the A and P arguments are relatively independent of the verb. We now turn to information flow properties of arguments to see how these are related to constituent order configurations in single-IU A-trigger clauses.
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Table 5.21 Information flow characteristics of A participants of single-IU A-trigger clauses Information flow Given Given New New New
Identifiable Identifiable NA Identifiable Identifiable
Frequency Particular General General Particular General
Tracking Tracking Non-tracking Tracking Tracking
Total
122 7 4 2 1
90% 5% 3% 1% 1%
136
100%
Table 5.22 Information flow profiles of P arguments of single-IU A-trigger clauses Information flow New Given Given New New Given New New Given New New Total
NA Identifiable NA Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable Identifiable Non-identifiable Identifiable Non-identifiable Non-identifiable
Frequency General Particular General Particular Particular General General Particular Particular Particular General
Non-tracking Tracking Non-tracking Non-tracking Tracking Tracking Tracking Tracking Non-tracking Non-tracking Tracking
58 24 23 8 7 5 5 3 1 1 1
43% 18% 17% 6% 5% 4% 4% 2% 1% 1% 1%
136
100%
... A participants The frequency of different information flow configurations of A participants in single-IU A-trigger clauses is summarized in Table 5.21. Like the A arguments of P-trigger clauses, the A participants of single-IU A-trigger clauses are overwhelmingly identifiable referents represented by tracking nominal expressions. Almost all of these are given. Only three percent of the A participants are new, general and non-tracking. The fact that the vast majority of these A participants are identifiable and tracked is reflected formally in the fact that 90% of A participants are unexpressed among single-IU A-trigger clauses. ... P participants The information flow profiles of P participants in these clauses, summarized in Table 5.22, are quite different from those of A arguments.
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The most striking thing about Table 5.22 is that it contains all the different types of information flow configurations that occur in the data (see discussion in Chapter 4). The most frequent type of information flow configuration found among these P participants of single-IU A-trigger clauses is of new general non-tracking nominal expressions for which identifiability is not relevant. These account for just under half of the sample. If we look at discourse referentiality, we find that only 45 or 33% of these P participants are tracking with the remaining 67% non-tracking expressions. These non-tracking P participants function as predicating nominal expressions, which are regularly expressed by full lexical forms (see Chapter 4, Section 4.3.2). Example (279) illustrates a typical A-trigger clause with an unexpressed tracking A participant and a lexical predicating P argument. V
P
(279) T: .. pada ngenggo tapi . PL n-wear batik.cloth konon ta? like.that.med qu ‘(They) were wearing batik, was it like that?’ (151:570–571)
Example (280) illustrates a tracking P argument, the second most common type of P argument in A-trigger clauses. V
P
(280) O: Ngadang Bi Nani , n-await aunt Nani sampé suwé= pisan. until.ind long very ‘(He) was waiting for you for a really long time.’ (107:617–618)
It should also be noted that 23 of these non-referential P participants are unexpressed. These are clauses which semantically can be understood to have two arguments, and which have transitive morphology on their verbs, but which would be considered intransitive in languages where explicit occurrence of arguments is more frequent than in Javanese. These complement the low transitive P-trigger clauses mentioned in Section 5.5.1 above. In both cases an unmentioned non-referential non-trigger item suggests that these clauses might be better understood as having only one core participant. In Chapter
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6 a cline of transitivity will be suggested as an appropriate way to deal with these cases. ... Summary: Single-IU A-trigger clauses We have seen that among single-IU A-trigger clauses, A arguments, as we would expect, are generally tracked and identifiable. P arguments in contrast are often non-tracking and function as predicating nominals. Constituent order is fairly predictable among single-IU A-trigger clauses, especially with regards to the P argument. The frequency of P arguments that are explicitly expressed directly following the verb suggests that these two elements are sister constituents in a higher level verb phrase constituent. Constituent order and the emergence of a higher level of constituency within A-trigger clauses is a productive cue which can be used by interlocutors to indicate clause structure in A-trigger clauses. .. Multi-IU A-trigger clauses Of the 158 A-trigger clauses in the sample, 22, or 14%, have arguments that are overtly expressed in an intonation unit peripheral to the integrational unit that contains the head verb of the clause. Table 5.23 indicates the frequency of different constituent orders for these multi-IU A-trigger clauses. In the most frequent type of multi-IU A-trigger clause, the integrational unit has the form VP, like the most common single-IU A-trigger clause type, and reflects the constituent of verb phrase. The following sections will first discuss peripheral A arguments, followed by peripheral P arguments.
Table 5.23 Constituent order among multi-IU A-trigger clauses Constituent order
Frequency
A-VP VP-A V-P A-V AV-P A-V-P P-V V-P-A
9 4 3 2 1 1 1 1
41% 18% 14% 9% 5% 5% 5% 5%
Total
22
100%
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... Peripheral A arguments The information flow properties of peripheral A arguments among A-trigger clauses are very similar to those of A arguments produced in single-IU clauses. The forms used are a similar range of pronouns, kinship terms, and names in both cases. As with peripheral arguments of P-trigger clauses, peripheral A arguments of A-trigger clauses are often given special presentational morphology, such as the conditional ari ‘if ’ and greater elaboration through modification. Both of these attributes are seen in example (281). A (281) D: . . . (Tsk) ari wong tua= , if parent .. kang= bener-bener , rel true-redup V maksudé nuruti anak Wan ya. intend-def n-follow-i child Wan yes ‘As for parents who are doing the right thing, I mean (they)’ll go along with what the child wants, Wan.’ (114:797–799)
In the conversation previous to the segment in example (281) the notion of parents has already been presented with a general nominal expression. In this segment the speaker reformulates the referent to the subset of those who are particularly good at parenting. Situations like this also arise when the speaker resumes talk about a referent that has already been mentioned previously. The expectation that a peripheral argument is often resumptive can be used by interlocutors to disambiguate what might otherwise be an ambiguous use of pronouns. This is exemplified in (282), in which the speakers are discussing whether a motorcycle is legitimately owned by Cardi or he might be acting as an agent or fence selling a stolen vehicle. (282) X: Ari STNK kan, if registration.ind part beli mungkin calo jaré kitaé. neg possible.ind agent say 1sg-def ‘If there’s the registration, you know, it’s not likely (Cardi) is an agent I’d say.’
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B: [Ya iya ari STNK si]. yes yes if registration.ind part ‘Yeah that’s right, if the registration is involved.’ a. →
N: [Kang duwé] kien si pasti. rel own this part definite ‘He’s definitely the owner. A
b. →
. . . Toli déwéké , then 3sg V .. nggulati wong. n-look.for-i person Then he himself looked for the guy.’ (111:829–834)
In (282) the speaker had been talking previously about the head of a particular village who was helping locate the previous owner of the motorcycle. The conversation shifts to talking about the previous owner. When the speaker refers to the previous owner in the line at arrow (a), he uses the pronoun kien ‘this’. In the immediately following intonation unit, indicated with arrow (b), the speaker uses the pronoun déwéké ‘3sg, self ’. Here déwéké is not used to continuously track reference to the previous owner of the motorcycle from the previous line. Rather, déwéké resumes tracking of the village head who is helping in the search for the previous owner. The use of this (quasi-)pronoun, which is extremely rare in the data (see Section 3.2.4), together with its separation from the verb by an intonation unit break, is a signal that this is a resumptive pronoun. It represents a change of referent and helps the listener keep track of who is doing what. In this section we have seen that peripheral A arguments in A-trigger clauses, like the vast majority of all A-role participants, represent given referents that are being tracked. The distinctive function of peripheral A arguments is to represent resumptive referents or to recharacterize a referent in some way. ... Peripheral P arguments When P arguments of A-trigger clauses are expressed peripherally in multi-IU constructions, there are usually special issues with perspective, voice, and representation of information flow structure that cause the P argument to be sep-
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arated intonationally from its verb. In example (283) the speaker is telling her granddaughter what she should say when she borrows a knife from a neighbor. V Mbak Ku=s. (283) P: . . . Nyili n.-borrow older.sister Kus P ladingé , knife-def konon. like.that.med “‘[May I] borrow (it) Mbak Kus, your knife,” that’s what you should say.’ (151:789–791)
Here the fact the grandmother’s good knife is missing and that they should borrow a knife from Mbak Kus has already been discussed. In fact they have already suggested a couple of times to the granddaughter that she should go next door to get the knife. The knife then is a given and identifiable referent for the speakers, but within the world of the quoted speech in which the granddaughter is meant to be speaking to Mbak Kus, ladingé ‘the knife’ represents new information. This double layering of information status contributes to the nominal expression being represented in a separate intonation unit. ... Summary: Multi-IU A-trigger clauses When arguments of A-trigger clauses are expressed separately from the integrational unit of the clauses, they usually represent some sort of non-continuous argument, either a resumptive expression or some other shift in perspective or representation of information flow. .. Summary: A-trigger clauses Among A-trigger clauses, A participants are overwhelmingly identifiable and tracked through discourse. The P participants on the other hand are most commonly non-referential and expressed as a lexical noun phrase immediately following the verb. This means that constituent order is much more predictable among A-trigger clauses than among P-trigger clauses, which most frequently consist of a verb alone. This constituent order can be used by interlocutors in the process of establishing clause structure in A-trigger clauses. Peripheral
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arguments of A-trigger clauses generally represent a resumptive expression or some other shift in perspective or representation of information flow.
. Hierarchical constituency In the previous discussion I have shown ways that constituent order can be used by speakers and hearers to signal information about clause structure, and thus to aid in communication. This discussion has dealt with the basic building blocks of the transitive clause, the verb and its A and P arguments. These basic units, when explicitly produced, are represented by low level constituents such as noun phrases or a verb with its associated auxiliaries. At the beginning of the chapter the question was asked, whether clauses in Cirebon Javanese conversation are produced by associating these constituents in linear order, or whether there is evidence for a more complex tightly linked hierarchical constituent structure. I return to that question here. I follow Langacker’s (1997) view of constituency as the convergence between conceptual groups and production groups. Bybee (2002) points out that because it is a phenomenon resulting from the convergence of various features, constituency is an emergent category, rather than basic to linguistic structure. Crucial to Bybee’s discussion is the fact that this category emerges out of the most frequent occurrences of such a convergence. She puts forward the Linear Fusion Hypothesis according to which “hierarchies of constituent structure are derivable from frequent sequential co-occurrence. In this view, the more often particular elements occur together, the tighter the constituent structure” (Bybee 2002: 11). Data presented in this chapter suggest there is some link between dependency structure (the relationship between the verb and its arguments) and prosodic structure (the chunking of elements into intonation units). The relationship between grammar and prosody has sometimes been characterized as loose, for example by Bolinger (1989), who nonetheless views intonation as important for demarking and chunking parts of language. He points out that intonational units “generally coincide with segments of discourse that are unitary on other grounds as well” (Bolinger 1989: 82). The relationship between intonation and grammar is more than a convergence for Fox (2002), who views language as inherently embodied in the physical reality of human interaction. Prosody is an integral part of the physical production of speech and is thus one of the clearest manifestations of this embodiment. For her, prosody is not an ‘extra’ added on to grammar, for example when structural ambiguity might be
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clarified by intonation. Rather, it is as inseparable a part of grammar as more traditional aspects, such as word order or morphology. Langacker points out that “approximations to classical constituency emerge just to the extent that conceptual groupings of a certain kind happen to be symbolized by phonological groupings of a certain kind” (1997: 11). Tao (1996), in his analysis of Mandarin, suggests that it is in the convergence of grammatical units and intonation units that constituency emerges. I follow a similar approach here. It is through the most frequent recurrent patterns in the physical (prosodic) organization of clausal elements (A, P and V) that we will see the emergence of a constituent-like structure among the transitive clauses of conversational Cirebon Javanese. Because we are looking for the emergence of constituency where elements are brought together within a single intonation unit, I will look specifically at frequency of structures occurring within the integrational unit of clauses. The relationship between peripheral elements and the integrational unit is also important and will be investigated further in Chapter 6, but these relationships are grammatically looser and are not seen as the basis for the tighter connection of constituency. Table 5.24 shows the frequency of configurations for the basic clausal elements within the integrational unit, including both single-IU clauses and multi-IU clauses. This means, for example, the frequency of 131 for the V configuration includes all 111 V-configuration single-IU clauses plus all 20 multi-IU clauses that have V as the configuration of their integrational units. Of the 281 transitive clauses included here, 11 are low-transitivity P-trigger clauses of the type discussed in Section 5.5.1. A further 23 A-trigger clauses are of the low-transitivity type discussed in Section 5.6.1. Because these might be best considered as having actually only one core participant, whether explicit or not, these low transitivity clauses have few possibilities for the coalescence of elements into a higher level of constituency and so will not be included in the counts below. Table 5.25 shows the configuration of clause elements in the integrational units of the 107 higher-transitivity P-trigger clauses in the data. As illustrated in the table and noted previously, by far the most common configuration for P-trigger clauses is for a P-trigger verb to occur alone in its intonation unit. Why is a lone verb the most common configuration for a P-trigger clause? The A arguments of P-trigger clauses are rarely produced explicitly. This is not surprising, considering that in natural discourse A arguments tend to be both identifiable and highly continuous (Chafe 1994; Du Bois 1987). In contrast, P arguments in natural discourse may be identifiable and tracked, new, or non-referential. The P arguments of P-trigger clauses in Cirebon Javanese
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Table 5.24 Constituent order in integrational IU’s of all transitive clauses Constituent order
Frequency
V VP AV AVP PV VA VPA PVA
131 102 15 14 11 3 3 2
47% 36% 5% 5% 4% 1% 1% 1%
Total
281
100%
Table 5.25 Constituent order in integrational IU among higher-transitivity P-trigger clauses Constituent order
Frequency
V PV VP PVA VA AV VPA
87 10 4 2 2 1 1
81% 9% 4% 2% 2% 1% 1%
Total
107
100%
are most commonly identifiable and tracked, as shown in Section 5.5. They are thus most frequently being tracked as unexpressed arguments. Because the referents of both A and P arguments are usually identifiable, referential, and individuated, these clauses tend to be relatively high in discourse transitivity in the sense of Hopper and Thompson (1980). When no arguments occur in the same intonation unit with the verb, there cannot be a co-constituent relationship based on physical contiguity between elements of the clause. The dependency links between a predicate and its arguments in such cases are established through the semantics and morphology of the verb situated within its discourse context. P-trigger clauses tend not to be expressed through constituent relationships, but are understood through other semantic, prosodic, and pragmatic means. P-trigger clauses in Cirebon Javanese conversation are not a strong locus for the emergence of a hierarchical constituent structure above the level of the individual elements that make up the clause.
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Table 5.26 Constituent order in integrational IU’s among higher transitivity A-trigger clauses Constituent order
Frequency
VP V AVP AV VPA
96 16 14 7 2
71% 12% 10% 5% 1%
Total
135
100%
Table 5.26 shows the configuration of clause elements in the integrational units of the 135 higher-transitivity A-trigger clauses in the data. The most common configuration of A-trigger clauses is for the referent of the P argument to be fully expressed and immediately following the verb in the same intonation unit, while the A participant is unexpressed. This is consistent with their information flow profiles. These A participants tend to be given, identifiable, and continuous, while the P arguments tend to be either new or non-referential. Here we see a highly frequent convergence of a conceptual grouping of V and P with a prosodic grouping in the form of a single intonation unit. Out of this convergence, a higher order constituent structure emerges. This unit of V and P, within A-trigger clauses, clearly corresponds to the traditional verb phrase of formal grammars, but it is important to recall that its origin is quite different. In a generativist model, the verb phrase is seen as a lower order constituent of the sentence and is derived via the application of a top-down rule. In the emergence model used here, this verb phrase constituent arises out of the frequent use in discourse of the construction A-trigger Verb + Noun Phrase. A-trigger clauses in Cirebon Javanese conversational discourse can thus be seen as having a more hierarchical structure, with some elements more closely bound together in speech production than is the case for P-trigger clauses. With the emergence in discourse of this higher-level constituent structure among A-trigger clauses, speakers can in turn make use of this patterning as another cue in expressing grammatical structure. Thus, the data show that one important distinction between transitive clause types in Cirebon Javanese is that A-trigger clauses make use of the grammatical tool of constituency to mark the relationship between the P argument and the verb. In contrast, P-trigger clauses have a flatter and more dispersed structure in discourse, with the various elements being produced independently of each other; they are thus more likely to be linked to each other by pragmatic understanding rather than by the grammatical tool of constituency.
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. Summary Cirebon Javanese conversational language is produced in prosodic clusters that consist of one or more intonation units. The intonation unit that carries the predicate of the independent or main clause is usually also the first intonation unit in the cluster to have a final pitch contour. This is called the integrational unit. Intonation units preceding the integrational unit, and usually marked with continuing pitch contour, are called anticipatory units. Intonation units following the integrational unit usually have a final pitch contour and are called supplementary units. The prosodic realization of language in intonation units and prosodic clusters is an important consideration in understanding constituency and constituent structure. While the language produced by Cirebon Javanese conversationalists can pattern in complex ways across these prosodic clusters, in this chapter we have focused on the order and distribution of verbs and core participants of transitive clauses. Explicitly expressed arguments may occur together with the verb in a single intonation unit and these are called single-IU clauses. Overtly expressed arguments also occur in anticipatory or supplementary units, separated from the predicate of the clause by intonation unit boundaries. Clauses like this are called multi-IU clauses. It was seen that in naturally occurring conversation, clauses with a constituent order that matches the norm cited in the literature on Javanese, SVO, are actually rare in the data. Nonetheless a certain amount of patterning is clearly observable in the data, and this patterning means that interactants can at least sometimes use constituent order as a cue for understanding the structure of clauses produced in conversation. In addition, it was found that these cues are different for P-trigger and A-trigger clauses. Typically, P-trigger clauses consist of only a verb with both A and P participants implied but not explicitly expressed. Consistent with information flow properties of nominal expressions in general in Cirebon Javanese, these participants are usually identifiable and tracked. A minority of these unexpressed A participants are non-referential. A-trigger clauses can also consist of only a verb with both A and P participants implied but not explicitly expressed. More frequent, however, is the configuration in which the P argument is explicitly expressed. In these cases the P argument is usually general and non-tracking and has a predicating function. Consistent with its predicating function, this type of P argument is closely linked to the verb of the predicate, regularly occurring in the same intonation unit in the order, verb followed by P argument. Out of this regular patterning in discourse emerges a hierarchical constituent structure resembling a verb phrase. When arguments of P-trigger or A-trigger clauses are
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produced in separate intonation units from their predicates, they usually represent either new information or a referent that is resumptive, contrastive or otherwise non-continuous. This chapter has been concerned with constituency and constituent order and the extent to which these features tell conversational interlocutors about clause structure. It was shown that constituency and constituent order provide important cues about clause structure, but that other linguistic cues must play an integral role as well. These additional cues include verb morphology, nominal morphology, and information flow. In the following chapter we will look more directly at how these various linguistic cues interact with each other and with interlocutors’ real-world knowledge in such a way that participants and their roles within clauses are understood by interlocutors. It will be shown that all of these resources are integral to the identification of clause structure in conversation, and thus to the co-construction of meaning by conversationalists.
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Chapter 6
Clauses and interaction
. Working together In this study I have regularly asked, “What linguistic cues are there for interlocutors to use in interpreting the structure of clauses in Cirebon Javanese conversation?” By “interpreting the structure of the clause” I mean sorting out what referents are participating in the event or state communicated by the predicate and the macro-role each has in relation to that predicate. In Chapters 2 through 5 we looked at verb morphology, nominal morphology, information flow, and constituent order. At each stage we asked what that particular linguistic resource can tell interlocutors about clause structure. At each point we have seen that some information is communicated, but that it is often only a cue, suggesting a possible clause structure, but not sufficient in itself to communicate a complete understanding of the structure of the clause. We often needed to look at various morphosyntactic resources interacting together. For example in Chapter 5 we could not address constituent order without taking into account trigger type, which is usually indicated by verb morphology. All along we have also needed to look at the role played by pragmatic inferencing in understanding clause structure. In this chapter we will now look more closely at how these various features of Cirebon Javanese clauses work together at one time. In Section 6.2 we will look at how the various morphosyntactic properties of Cirebon Javanese clauses interact with each other in conversation. The essential role of pragmatic inferencing and interaction between conversationalists in determining clause structure will also be discussed. In Section 6.3 we will look at an extended segment of one conversation to see how morphosyntax and pragmatics work together in the interaction between clauses in discourse. In both sections the interaction between speech partners is also highlighted as an essential part of how clauses are constructed and understood in conversation.
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. Differing amounts of morphosyntax This section looks at examples of clauses that exhibit different amounts of interaction between the various morphosyntactic resources discussed in previous chapters. In the first part of this section we will look at how morphosyntax helps to build up an understanding of clause structure, beginning with an example of a clause that explicitly and redundantly indicates its structure using all the types of cues we have discussed. This is followed by an example which contains no explicit morphosyntactic cues. Two additional examples illustrate intermediary amounts of morphosyntactic marking. In the second part of this section we will look at how the task of identifying clause structure can cause communicative breakdown, and the importance of interlocutor interaction in repairing this breakdown. .. Buildup In the clause in example (284) all the morphosyntactic cues that have been discussed are deployed to indicate its structure explicitly and redundantly. P
V
A
(284) D: clana dalemé takumpetaken <@ ning kita nu @>. underpants-def tak-hide-aken by 1sg that.med ‘I hid her underpants.’ (140:648)
As it happens, in the entire extended database used for this study, this is the only example that has this many explicit grammatical cues converging in one independent clause with multiple instances of redundancy to reinforce the intended interpretation of the clause structure. These grammatical cues, outlined in the order of the topics discussed in the previous four chapters, are as follows: 1. Verb morphology. The verb has the suffix -aken, which explicitly indicates that it is transitive, instructing the hearer to identify two core arguments in the roles A and P. In this case -aken serves to produce a causative transitive verb umpetaken ‘to hide’ from the intransitive umpet ‘to be hidden’. The P-trigger prefix tak- further reinforces the fact that this is a transitive verb. It also indicates that the trigger is P and the referent of A is the speaker. 2. Nominal morphology. Both arguments are explicitly expressed, the P argument with a lexical noun phrase and the A argument with a first person pronoun. This pronoun confirms that the referent of the A argument is the
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speaker, as indicated by the prefix tak-. This pronoun is further marked with the preposition ning, which reinforces our understanding of its role as the A argument in this P-trigger clause. 3. Information flow. The P argument is marked with -é, indicating it as identifiable by association. The referent of the A argument is identifiable as a speech participant and this is consistent with use of the personal pronoun. P-trigger clauses most commonly contain identifiable, tracking arguments and so the information flow properties of the arguments in this clause are typical and help confirm the assignment of referents. 4. Constituent order. Both arguments are expressed explicitly and in the same intonation unit with the predicate, making their association relatively clear. The order of the constituents is consistent with the most common order of P-trigger clause elements when both arguments are expressed. This fact supports the interpretation of clause structure already made explicit by other linguistic resources. The verb in example (284), takumpetaken ‘tak-hidden-cause’ already contains information about clause structure that is complete except for the identity of the P argument. Nonetheless, other grammatical cues are also present, redundantly and mutually supporting each other. For example, three features converge on the identify of A: verb prefix, pronoun, and preposition. As noted, this one clause is morphosyntactically the most explicit and redundant clause in the database. All other clauses have fewer cues and fewer redundancies, and so interlocutors must rely more heavily on semantic and pragmatic cues and world knowledge in order to be able to understand the structures intended by the speaker. The speaker may be using this full deployment of grammar in (284) to highlight both a crucial point in a story and his role in the action. Example (285) illustrates a clause with minimal morphosyntactic cues regarding argument structure. V (285) T:
mak. Tuku ning endi si buy at where part mother ‘Where did (you) buy (it), mom? (151:1125)
Considering the same four topics used above, we will now look at example (285). 1. Verb Morphology. There are no explicit morphological cues on the verb to indicate that it is transitive or to direct the hearer toward any particu-
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lar referent to fill the A or P argument roles. That tuku ‘buy’ is a transitive verb is communicated by its meaning. Because the verb tuku ‘buy’ does not take the nasal prefix in Cirebon Javanese conversation, it is in the appropriate form to be interpreted as an A-trigger verb. But remembering that speakers do sometimes produce unprefixed verbs that can be interpreted as P-trigger, lack of a prefix in this case does not categorically mean it is A-trigger. 2. Nominal morphology. There are no explicit nominal expressions that are candidates for core argument status in this clause. The A and P participants are unexpressed, so there is no nominal morphology to give us any cue as to clause structure. 3. Information flow. The fact that the arguments are not expressed does suggest trends in information flow that might help us in identifying the referents of the arguments, in that they are most likely to be identifiable, given, and tracked, although this is not entirely certain. 4. Constituent order. In this clause the only expressed core element is the verb. There are no nominal constituents, and so no constituent order to tell us about the clause structure. The structure of this clause can only be interpreted based on pragmatic inferencing in the context in which it was uttered. The clearest cue is the use of the vocative. This clause is a question and the vocative mak ‘mother’ makes it clear to whom the question is directed. In conversation, questions are often about second persons and so mother is a likely candidate for the role of A argument. This is reinforced by the context, in which it is already known that mother had been shopping. Similarly, the hearer will look for a referent in the discourse environment that makes a likely P argument. As it happens, mother (speaker P) has just mentioned that she had bought some popsicles and then she also says that the porridge is about finished. Porridge is the most recently mentioned potential participant, but the notion of ‘buying’ has also just been explicitly mentioned and is most closely associated with the popsicles. In fact, the speakers share the knowledge that the porridge was not home made, and so it also becomes a likely candidate in the role of P argument. The reply and the continuing conversation confirm that the interlocutors understand the P argument to be referring to the porridge. A fuller context is given in (285a). The clause in question occurs in line 1125.
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(285a) Buying Porridge 1111 P: Wong mak kang tuku jé=. but mother rel buy excl ‘I’m the one who bought (them [the popsicles]). 1112
Beli dipai=, neg di-give
1113
.. ésé. popsicle-def But (I) didn’t get my popsicle.
1114
.. Dék. Dek Dek.
1115
. . . Méné. to.here Over here.
1116
Njaluk iku. n-ask.for that (I) want one.
1117
Ning cangkir ki Dé=k. at cup this Dek In this cup, Dek.
1118
. . . Dé=k. Dek Dek.
1119
. . . Tumpleknang ki, pour-nang this
1120
ning kéné ki Dék. at here this Dek pour one out here, Dek.
1121
@@@
1122
Buburé suwé-suwé entong. porridge-def long.time-redup finished
1123
bubur sopé. porridge soup-def After a while the porridge is all gone.’
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1124 M: .. Daripada disépak [ning jaran]. than.ind di-kick by horse ‘Rather than get kicked by a horse.’ [= worse things could happen] →
1125 T: [Tuku ning endi si mak]. buy at where part mother 1126
ning jero pasar ta? at inside market qu ‘Where’d (you) buy (it), mom? Inside the market?’
1127 P: .. Tukué Mulus. buy-def Mulus ‘Mulus bought (it).’ 1128
Ya embu [ning] .. jaba. yes I.don’t.know at outside ‘Maybe outside’.
1129 X:
[Hm].
1130 P: Ngenténi kan ning umaé Jon- -n-wait-i part at house-def ‘(I) was waiting at Joni’s house – 1131
ni=ng .. tempat .. potongané Joni nu. at place.ind cutting-def Joni that.med at Joni’s barber shop.’
1132 X: [X] 1133 M: [Ari] bubur sop ku, if porridge soup that.med 1134
kang énak ku, rel tasty that.med
1135
laka maning ng Jamil. neg.exist more at Jamil ‘As for porridge, the tasty kind, there is none other than Jamil’s.’ (150:1111–1135)
The interlocutors have no trouble interpreting the arguments of the clause in line 1125 in its full context. Note also that while one might assume mother was the one who bought the porridge, and it seems safe to assume that T thinks this
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as well, it turns out that the porridge was bought by Mulus. Although Javanese has many grammatical indicators of clause structure, illustrated in (284), there are numerous cases like (285) in which none of the indicators operate and an understanding of the clause structure is only possible in the situated context in which the clause is uttered. The examples of clauses in (284) and (285) represent extremes in terms of the amount of morphosyntactic marking and redundancy they contain. It is not the case that all clauses in the database are at one extreme or the other, and most are intermediary between these extremes. Examples (286) and (287) illustrate intermediary points on the cline of marking and redundancy displayed by clauses in Cirebon Javanese. (286) B: . . . Nangis wongé, cry person-def duwité langka [maning]. money-def neg.exist again ‘She cried, (she) had no more money.’ O:
[Dadi dititip]aken? so di-enrust-aken ‘So (she) left (her things) [with someone]?’ V
→
B:
P
Dititipaken nu . di-entrust that. ‘(she) entrusted them.’ (107:1070–1073)
In the clause at the arrow above, the overtly expressed indicators of structure are the verbal prefix di- and suffix -aken, and the combination of word order and intonation that indicates that the short form demonstrative pronoun nu ‘that.med’ represents the P argument of the clause. These overt indicators do not completely specify the clause structure. The prefix di- does not indicate person or other semantic cues about what referents may fill these roles, and, unlike example (284) above, -aken here only redundantly indicates that the clause is transitive; it does not change to the meaning of the base titip, which by itself already means ‘entrust’. Only one argument is explicitly expressed and it has no morphological case marking. Because there is one pronominal form and one unexpressed argument, the final assignment of argument status to certain referents requires pragmatic inference. The P argument is expressed by a short pronoun. This suggests a recoverable tracked referent. The A argument
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is unexpressed, which strongly suggests a continuous referent, although in the case of P-trigger clauses, there is also the possibility that the A argument is general and non-tracking. The clause is in fact a response to a question asked in the previous line and uses the same verb form as that question. So, assuming that speaker B has made the correct interpretation of speaker O’s intention in asking the question, then what B says in the line with the arrow should be easily and correctly interpreted by O as an affirmative response. If we look back to see how the referents that occupy the roles of A and P have been evoked and tracked in the discourse, we see in the first line of the segment that the woman whose things were lost is explicitly mentioned with the general nominal expression wongé ‘the person, she’. This story is about two baskets of flowers to be sold but which were stolen at the market. Speaker B had not explicitly said that the flowers had been left with someone else. In her question, O is asking whether this was the situation, a likely hypothesis since the previous story is about the fact that B often entrusts her goods with someone else in the market. Based on how the story is progressing, there is little doubt that the participants implied by the clause at the arrow are clear to the interlocutors involved, although there are few explicit morphosyntactic indicators of what these arguments are. The following example contains a clause with an unaffixed verb, both of whose arguments are explicitly represented. A
V
P
(287) B: .. Sun gawa duwit patangatus, 1sg bring money four.hundred sékét , .. telungatus three.hundred fifty yong beli diterima Ton. but neg di-receive.ind Ton. ‘I brought four hundred, three hundred fifty [thousand rupiah’s worth of] money, but (they) wouldn’t take (it), Ton.’ (111:239–21)
In this example, the only explicit grammatical indication of clause structure is the constituent order of the two explicitly expressed arguments relative to the verb. There is no verb morphology to indicate the trigger type of the clauses nor any other information regarding the clause type. There is no nominal morphology which indicates case of arguments. Nonetheless, the structure of this clause is quite unambiguous because the arguments are expressed and are consistent with the common constituent order of an A-trigger clause. Because of
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the meaning of the verb gawa ‘carry, bring’, it would be impossible to interpret the assignment of the referents of sun ‘1sg’ and duwit ‘money’ to anything other than the roles A and P respectively. Examples (284) through (287) have shown the range of explicit morphosyntactic marking that can occur in Cirebon Javanese transitive clauses in conversation. When there are fewer morphosyntactic cues, interlocutors must rely heavily on pragmatic inferencing to understand intended clause structures. This is not to say that pragmatic inferencing is not important to understanding clauses with extensive and redundant morphosyntactic marking. In cases with extensive morphosyntactic marking, inferencing can confirm an interpretation suggested grammatically. In cases with no morphosyntactic cues, interlocutors must rely exclusively on pragmatic inferencing to interpret the intended structural relationships. .. Breakdown The inferencing task that a speaker sets up for a listener may not always be performed successfully on the first attempt. Example (288) contains a segment which occurred some fifty lines before that in example (286). This is the point in the conversation where the general topic of entrusting one’s goods with someone else at the market is first introduced. The family have been asking Bi Nani, the snack seller, about how and when she makes her snacks and where she buys her ingredients. In the segment in (288) speaker A then asks what time Bi Nani begins to go around selling door-to-door. Before Bi Nani has answered, speaker Q asks, in the clause marked by the arrow, whether she still leaves goods with someone else in the market. (288) A: Keprak-keprak jam sewelas, strike-redup hour eleven wis mulai mider. already begin go.around Ya Bi Nani ya? yes aunt Nani yes ‘At eleven o’clock (you) are already making the rounds, isn’t that right Bi Nani?’
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V →
beli Bi Nani. Q: Masi sering titip still often entrust neg aunt Nani ‘Do (you) still often entrust (things) [with people] or not, Bi Nani.’ A B: .. Sapa . who ‘Who?’ P Q: . . . Dagangané . goods-def ‘Your goods.’ V B: .. Titip . entrust ‘(I do) entrust (them).’ P Q: Blanjaané . shopping-def ‘Your shopping.’ O: @@@@ Lagi ila- ilang ka muni. when lost that.dist say ‘(Laughing) When it got lost they say.’ (107:1023–1031)
Like the clause discussed in example (285) above, the clause at the arrow in (288) consists only of a verb which has no explicit verbal morphology and no overt arguments. As with this and many other examples of clauses we have seen in this study, the onus of interpreting the referents that are involved in the proposition being expressed and the roles that each referent has as a participant in relation to the predicate is firmly on the hearer. When this task is greater than the hearer is either able or willing to perform, there is potential for a breakdown in communication. For whatever reason, in example (288)
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speaker B does not complete the task of identifying the A argument of the verb and so asks for clarification in the next line, asking sapa ‘who’. I have labeled this as representing an A argument. The purpose of this label and the P labels on the other two nominal expressions in the example are to indicate the nominal expressions which are part of the process of identifying the arguments of clause. We will return to the question of how appropriate this labeling is in Chapter 7, where we review the nature of arguments in conversation. Interestingly, the original producer of the clause at the arrow, rather than recognizing the communication breakdown that his speech partner has indicated, assumes that what might not have been clear was the referent filling the role of P. He clarifies this with the nominal expression dagangané ‘the goods’. We of course do not know whether this clarification was necessary. It may have been that speaker B was clear about the P participant, was on the verge of asking about it, or was not interested in it at that point. In any case, by the next line, speaker B is confident enough in her interpretation of Q’s question that she is willing to answer in the affirmative. Q, still continuing in the direction he has already set for himself, adds a further clarification of the referent of the P argument, blanjané ‘the shopping’. At this point another interlocutor laughs and mentions that she heard somebody had lost goods that had been entrusted with someone else at the market and Bi Nani begins the story of which (286) is a segment. Because much Cirebon Javanese conversation relies on inferencing, there can be mismatches between what the speaker intends and expects of the hearer and what the hearer is actually capable of gleaning from the discourse and its context. In such cases a certain amount of interactional work may have to be done in order for interlocutors to feel secure in the fact that their individual understandings of what has transpired overlap sufficiently so that interaction can continue. As well as the example above, we have also seen this in Chapter 3, example (194), in which use of the associative suffix -é was not enough to establish a referent and further interactional work was needed. It is interesting how infrequently mismatches of this sort actually occur, given how much is implied and non-redundant in Cirebon Javanese conversation. In Chapter 1 and elsewhere I have already discussed how I worked through the data used in this study, but it bears repeating here. The understanding I have as a researcher that what Bi Nani is saying means the equivalent of ‘I entrusted my goods to someone’ rather than, for example ‘She entrusted her money to me’, was gained through close discussions with my research consultant, who in this case had participated in the conversation and knew all the other participants as family and friends. As it happened, this whole portion of the conversation with the stories about leaving one’s goods at the market
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was somewhat problematic for him at first. He had to make a few different hypotheses about what the speakers were referring to, reading though the transcript, listening to the tape, and modifying his interpretation a few times before finally feeling confident that this was an appropriate interpretation. This tells us a number of things. First, we cannot ever be completely sure that the interpretation we are working with as researchers is ‘correct’ in the sense that it is exactly what was in the interlocutor’s mind at the time of the interaction. But this is actually always the case in all readings of transcripts of this sort. This example simply brings this point more explicitly to the fore. This example also highlights the vital and inescapable role played by inferencing in understanding the language used in Cirebon Javanese conversation. Pragmatic inferencing is of course also necessary in genres other than conversation and in languages other than Javanese. It is the fact that so much of Cirebon Javanese conversation relies exclusively on such inferencing that makes it an especially rich arena in which to investigate this phenomenon.
. Tracking referents in extended discourse We have touched on the issue of inferring referents, both for pronouns and for unexpressed participants. In the literature it is often suggested that unexpressed participants are used in various languages when the referent is clearly recoverable from the context, and this claim has been made for Standard Central Javanese by Ogloblin (2005). When an unexpressed participant is evoked and there is no intervening nominal between it and the previous mention of the same referent, it is straightforward to understand how this implication happens. In other cases when there are competing referents, there may be clear semantic grounds that help to distribute these referents according to macrorole in a transitive clause with no overt arguments. This would be the case in example (286) above, where both the seller and her goods are referents that have been established. When the verb dititipaken ‘to entrust’ is expressed without overt arguments, the semantics clearly dictate that the A participant will be the seller and the P participant will be the goods. But what about cases where semantics alone cannot help in assigning roles to referents, and in what way do the morphosyntactic cues we have been discussing aid in this process? These issues are illustrated in example (289). Example (289) is an extended segment of a conversation between a group of six male university students. The segment includes the entire story of a fight between two rival gangs. It also includes the transitional material just preceding
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and following the story. The purpose of this example is primarily to illustrate the importance of inferencing in the interlocutors’ task of understanding the structures produced, and thus ultimately the communicative intent of the various speakers both in terms of imparting information, i.e. the basic events that happened, as well as expressing a perspective, i.e. a sense of loyalty and admiration. In the lead-up to the segment, the conversationalists have been discussing cultural and linguistic differences among different areas around Cirebon. This leads speaker U to ask if a certain area is still known for being violent. Speaker K, who is from the area, tries to downplay the violence, saying there are violent people everywhere. Speaker A says the violence is related to the fact that these people live in the area of Gunungjati, which is known for the practice of mysticism, including that used for invulnerability in battle. Speaker K shifts to Indonesian, telling about a series of mysterious killings during the eighties which were part of a phenomenon in many parts of Indonesia and attributed to rogue elements working clandestinely for the government. This is presumably to show that violence is not characteristic of his village alone, but part of a wider trend. Speaker A then enters with the story about the mystical power of people from Gunungjati, illustrated by their fight with people from Jatiwangi. The main thing to notice in first reading through this example is that most of the clauses describing the events in the narrative have few overt arguments. Other linguistic signs of the continuity of referents, whether in terms of immediate previous mention, chaining of referents associated with a certain trigger, or chaining of referents in a specific macro-role, are not consistent and cannot be used to establish who acts upon whom at any point in the narrative. Only by being aware of the topic of mystical power and where it lies can one infer the outcome, that the outnumbered Gunungjati gang are victorious over Jatiwangi. And only by knowing the outcome in advance can one determine who does what to whom during the course of the telling of the story. In the example, the predicates of transitive clauses and their overtly expressed arguments are labeled. The points in the narrative where the two gangs, Gunungjati and Jatiwangi, are explicitly mentioned, whether by name or pronoun, are in bold face. All implied participants are stated explicitly in parentheses in the free translation, according to the understanding of my language consultant, who was also a participant in this conversation. As the segment begins, K is still telling about the mysterious killings.
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(289) Gunungjati vs. Jatiwangi 285 J: . . . Banyak [yang kena mas]. many rel struck brother ‘There were many victims, Mas.’ 286 K: [Kalau di] tontonan tu wa=, if at performance that excl 287
.. tidak .. asing lagi, neg strange again
288
kalau .. ada anak-anak bawa, if exist child-redup carry
289
pedang, sword
290
atau [bawa=], or carry ‘At performances wow, there was nothing strange about guys carrying swords or carrying,’
291 T:
[Beli]. neg ‘No.
292
. . . Bengién [2 perna ning anu2 ], formerly ever at ws Once in um,’
293 K:
[2 golok yang panjang2 ]. machete rel long ‘long machetes.’
294 T: .. Mas Akwan. older.bother Akwan 295
. . . ning Jatiwangi. at Jatiwangi ‘Mas Akwan. In Jatiwangi.
296
.. Wong kéné wong s- -person here person
297
.. apa? what
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298
.. Gunungjati. Gunungjati People from here, from where was it? Gunungjati.’
299 K: .. Celancang. Celancang 300
.. Na. that ‘Celancang. That’s it!’
301 T: .. Pada mana. pl to.there.dist ‘(They-gunungjati ) all went there-jatiwangi .’ V 302 K: .. Waktu dipaténi ya? time di-kill-i yes ‘When (someone-gunungjati ) was killed (by them-jatiwangi ) right?’ V
P
303 T: . . . Nganggo [ anu baé], n-wear ws just ‘(They-gunungjati ) wore what,’ V 304 K:
[ Dipaténi melas] pisan. di-kill-i pity very ‘(Someone-gunungjati ) got killed it’s so sad.’
305
. . . [2 X 2 ].
308
. . . jaman bengénan. era earlier ‘(They-gunungjati ) wore clothes like warriors from olden times.’
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V 309
. . . Nggo= , n-wear P
310
. . . apa ? what (They-gunungjati ) wore, what?’
311 J:
.. Iket. head.cloth ‘Head cloths.’
312 X: .. Iket. head.cloth ‘Head cloths.’ 313 X:
[XX]
314 T: .. [Toli], then 315
gulet ning kana Ko. fight at there.dist Joko,
316
. . . [Ramé]. busy ‘Then (they-gunungjati ) fought there, Ko. It was wild.’
317 J:
[Ana duél]. exist duel
318
.. duél Tin. duel T. ‘There was a duel. A duel, Tin.’ V
A
[ wong aké ], 319 T: . . . Yong dikroyok although di-attack.by.many person many 320
beli .. wani kabé. neg brave all ‘Although (they-gunungjati ) were attacked by many people, (they-jatiwangi ) had no courage.’
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321 K:
[wong Gunungjati]. person Gunungjati ‘the Gunungjati people.’
322 T: .. Kuen wong limaan. that person five-an ‘They-jatiwangi were about five.’ 323 J:
.. Wong kénéé li? person here-def isn’t.it
324
.. Wong kéné li? person here isn’t.it ‘The local people-jatiwangi right? Local people-jatiwangi right?’
325 T: Iya. yes ‘Yes.’ 326 J:
. . . Laka sing wani dadi? neg.exist rel brave become ‘There were none who were courageous?’ V
P
327 T: Pertamaé nganggo botol first.ind-def n-use bottle P 328
V
endasé di[=prang ]. head-def di-expr.glass.breaking ‘First (they-jatiwangi ) used bottles like that, (their-gunungjati ) heads were smashed (by them-jatiwangi ).’
329 J: 330
ka, like.that
[Créng. [expr.glass.breaking Créng]. expr.glass.breaking ‘Crash. Crash.’
331 U: Wadu. gosh ‘Gosh.’
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332 J:
. . . Kuat tapi ya? strong but yes ‘But (they-gunungjati ) stood firm right?’
333 T: .. Toli=, then 334
boca w- -child
335
.. anué, HES.PRT-def
336
Jatiwangié ka bubar kabé. Jatiwangi-def that.dist disperse all ‘Then, the guys – the um, Jatiwangi all ran off.’
337 J:
Hm. hm ‘Hm.’
338 A: .. Kewedien. scared ‘(They-jatiwangi ) were scared.’ V 339
Yong digolok jé, because di-slash exlc
340
beli apa-apa. neg anything ‘Even though (they-gunungjati ) were slashed (by them-jatiwangi ), (they-gunungjati ) were not affected .’
341
Beli mempan. neg vulnerable ‘(They-gunungjati ) were invulnerable.’
342 U: @@ 343 J:
. . . XXXXX
344 A: Baka ning kono sok- -if at there.med often
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345
.. sok ribut beli? often rowdy neg ‘Over there it’s often rowdy isn’t it?’ (108:285–345)
The story proper unfolds from line 291, when speaker T uses the topic change marker beli ‘neg’, and runs through line 341, when speaker A concludes his synopsis of T’s main point before he shifts to a new topic himself in line 344. The primary teller of this story is speaker T. K had been explaining how the particular area he comes from is not as violent as it is reputed to be. T then initiates his story, presenting its time, location, and actors (291–301), and giving background information about what one gang was wearing (303–312). He tells the main event followed by an evaluation at two different points (314–322 and 327–336), and closes it off with Jatiwangi’s final retreat, thus illustrating again the main point (333–336). There is considerable input from others along the way. Speaker K starts to second-guess that the story is going to be about the time someone from Gunungjati was killed (299–304). But he is mistaken in his assessment and he then keeps quiet. J makes suggestions and additions (311, 317–318). Speaker K checks on the identity of one of the participating groups (321), but nothing can be said about the macro-role of this unattached nominal expression. J checks on the point of the story (326). It is at this point that the main storyteller recounts a specific event in the fight to make his point a second time (327–336). This is not so much a continuation of the story; rather, the first and second tellings are like snapshots of the event taken at different angles. J adds sound effects (329–330) and U is appropriately impressed (331). J once again asks for confirmation about the main point of the story (332), and T provides it with his concluding statement (333–336). Speaker A now comes in with a third snapshot and conclusion (338–341). Speaker A then makes a more general comment (344–345). This leads to other topics as the conversation continues. In this story the A-trigger and P-trigger clauses illustrate the major trends observed in previous chapters. Within the 51 lines of the story proper, there are twenty clauses, of which five are P-trigger, four are A-trigger, and the remaining eleven are intransitive. Of the P-trigger clauses, one has an explicit P argument (328), one has an explicit A argument (319) and the other three have no explicit arguments. Of these, three relate events in the story and among them both A and P arguments are particular, identifiable, and tracking. The other two P-trigger clauses are part of speaker K’s abortive attempt to second-guess what the story is going to be about. Both of these have unexpressed arguments. The P arguments are particular, identifiable, and tracking. My language con-
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sultant also understood these two clauses as having particular, identifiable, and tracking A arguments, but because the context is not developed and it is not clear that speaker A is talking about the same events as speaker T, it might also be that he had a different referent, or a general A argument, in mind. The A-trigger clauses all have particular, identifiable, tracking A arguments, and general, non-tracking P-arguments. Interestingly, all the A-trigger clauses in this example have the same verb, nganggo ‘use, wear’ and are used in background contexts: describing the participants’ appearance or the implements used. The P-trigger verbs are varied, including dipaténi ‘kill’, dikroyok ‘attack’ , diprang ‘smash’, digolok ‘slash’, but are all tightly involved in the action of the main events in the story. As with many other examples we have seen, the transitive clauses in this example require a certain amount of work on the part of the hearer to sort out the structure, that is, to sort out what referents have what role relationship within the clauses. What makes this example especially interesting is that because there are two main participants, which are both groups of humans, the kinds of semantic cues that allowed for assignment of roles to, say, the seller and her goods in example (286) above, do not aid us here. The hearer must rely on other cues to help sort out the structure in many of these clauses. Are there grammatical cues that can aid the hearer? As was mentioned in Chapter 3, for many languages of the world zero anaphora and other phenomena similar to the evoked participants of Cirebon Javanese often produce syntactic chains of topics or subjects. It was pointed out there that this does not seem to apply in the case of unexpressed participants and triggers in Cirebon Javanese. That is, sets of verbs with unexpressed arguments do not necessarily share the same trigger. This is illustrated a number of times in example (289), among the segments repeated here in examples (290) through (292). (290) T: . . . Yong dikroyok wong aké, although di-attack.by.many person many beli .. wani kabé. neg brave all ‘Although (they-gunungjati ) were attacked by many people, (they-jatiwangi ) had no courage.’ (108:319–320)
In example (290) the trigger of the verb dikroyok ‘attack by many’ is Gunungjati, the victim of the attack. The predicate beli wani ‘not brave’ is a not an additional commentary on these people who were attacked, but rather on their attackers. There is no morphosyntactic device that signals this interpretation,
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rather it is based on pragmatic understanding supported by various clues. The fact that the Jatiwangi side has many people resonates with the use of the quantifier kabé ‘all’; however, Gunungjati also consists of more than one person and could also be suggested by this quantifier. We would expect the outnumbered group to be the ones lacking in courage and so the use of the concessive yong gives us a cue to look for an interpretation that is counter to expectation, in this case that it is the attackers with superior numbers who are not brave. This interpretation is consistent with the general understanding that this story has to do with the mystical powers of the people from Gunungjati. It is these rhetorical devices and world knowledge that work together to make the clause interpretable when neither explicit mention nor morphosyntactic marking helps. Indeed, the interlocutors do not feel completely confident that they have made the correct interpretation and they need confirmation. K asks about the Gunungjati people, although it is not clear what his intention is with this. T explains that one side has five people. When J asks if that is the side from the scene of the battle (Jatiwangi), T confirms that it is. This information helps confirm the interpretation of the A and P arguments of the first clause in the example, that is, that the wong akéh ‘many people’ are Jatiwangi, but does not aid in confirming that the Jatiwangi side is the argument of beli wani ‘not brave’. (291) T: Pertamaé nganggo botol ka, first.ind-def n-use bottle like.that endasé di[=prang]. head-def di-expr.glass.breaking ‘First (they-jatiwangi ) used bottles like that, (their-gunungjati ) heads were smashed (by them-jatiwangi ).’ (108:327–328)
In segment (291) the referent of the trigger of the A-trigger verb nganggo ‘use’, Jatiwangi, is continuous from its activation in the preceding clauses where it was repeated that none of them were brave. In the next clause this referent continues in the role of A, but now of a P-trigger clause, and so no longer serves as trigger. There are no morphosyntactic cues to help in assigning the role of the referents in the second clause. It is only through our understanding of the fact that the bottle must have been used to smash the heads of the other gang that we are able to assume that the heads belong to Gunungjati and the smashing is done by Jatiwangi. (292) A: .. Kewedien. scared ‘(They-jatiwangi ) were scared.’
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Yong digolok jé, because di-slash exlc beli apa-apa. neg anything ‘Even though (they-gunungjati ) were slashed (by them-jatiwangi ), (they-gunungjati ) were not affected.’ Beli mempan. neg vulnerable ‘(They-gunungjati ) were invulnerable.’ (108:338–341)
In the second prosodic cluster of example (292), which contains a P-trigger verb and an intransitive predicate, there happens to be a continuity of trigger between this P-trigger verb, digolok ‘slashed’, and the trigger of the following predicate beli apa-apa ‘not affected’. This referent continues as the trigger of the following predicate beli mempan ‘invulnerable’. However from the single argument of the first verb kewedian ‘be scared’ to the second clause, the assignment of roles must be based on the pragmatic understanding of the story as it has been developed. That is, we already know it was Jatiwangi that was afraid. Indeed in the previous line the original storyteller just concluded saying that Jatiwangi had run away. We also know from the clauses excerpted in (290) and (291) that it is Gunungjati who were attacked. Out of context one might expect those who were attacked to be frightened. But the context and intent of the story are about the spiritual power that prevents harm and the reaction of the opposing gang, and it is from this pragmatic understanding that role assignment can be made, rather that from any morphosyntactic cues. While we have seen that the assignment of macro-roles can sometimes seem to follow what might be thought of as morphosyntactic patterning, this may be epiphenomenal. We have seen cases where syntactic considerations are not part of this process. Instead it is pragmatic knowledge that is fundamental in understanding what is going on. The morphosyntactic cues that do exist are supportive of these conclusions, helping to confirm hypotheses about clause structure, but are no substitute for the pragmatic understanding and interactive cues that are essential for following a story like this. A brief observation on the distribution of expressed and unexpressed arguments is appropriate here. It was mentioned in Chapter 3 that the fact that a participant is unexpressed is often a signal of continuous referents and as such helps to signal a link between clauses. In this example, these links help to give coherence to the story in its various retellings. In contrast, fully expressed nom-
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inals can express a kind of discontinuity. This is illustrated here by the fact that the full nominal forms occur in the beginning of the story. This makes sense, because the referents are new and need to be introduced, deployed in order to become tracked by the speakers as participants through the story. And as they are tracked, they are only evoked, not expressed, by the storyteller. It is just at those points where a couple of the hearers are feeling they need confirmation of who does what to whom that there is again overt mention of the referents. The discontinuity that encourages the use of full nominal forms is not only at the beginning of the story, but also the end. When the primary storyteller has recounted what happened from two points of view, he then concludes by restating the one gang’s cowardice; as a sign of the close of the story, the Jatiwangi gang is mentioned explicitly again at this time.
. Summary: Clauses and interaction In Chapters 2 through 5 we looked at various morphosyntactic and information flow characteristics separately, but it became clear that none of these properties operate independently to communicate the structure of clauses. In Chapter 6 we have looked at examples of clauses in their discourse contexts to see how all these various properties can interact. While Cirebon Javanese has many grammatical indicators of clause structure, there are numerous cases in which none of these indicators operates. An understanding of the structure is only possible in the situated context in which a clause is uttered. It was further pointed out that this inferencing process is in fact important to the understanding of all clauses. In cases with no morphosyntactic cues, interlocutors must rely exclusively on pragmatic inferencing to interpret the intended clause structure. Even in clauses with explicit and redundant grammatical marking, pragmatic knowledge is fundamental not only to understanding meaning, but also to understanding the basic structural analysis of the clause.
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Chapter 7
Conclusion
. The clause in Cirebon Javanese conversation In this study I have examined the various morphosyntactic structures and information flow characteristics that are used by interlocutors in producing and understanding clauses in conversational Cirebon Javanese. Predicates in Cirebon Javanese may be either verbal or non-verbal. Verbal predicates may occur in transitive and intransitive clauses. There is one prefix, m-, which only occurs on intransitive verbs and then only on a limited number of intransitive verbs. Other than this, there is no morphological cue to argument structure on intransitive verbs or non-verbal predicates. The verbs of transitive clauses show a wider range of morphological marking that gives information about clause structure. The verbs of P-trigger clauses are usually marked with the prefix di-, or if the A argument is first person, optionally with the alternative prefix tak-. A small number of P-trigger clauses in the database have no prefix. A-trigger clauses are marked with the prefix N-. A small number of transitive verbs in Cirebon Javanese do not take a prefix in A-trigger clauses. These transitive prefixes help hearers to recognize that a verb is transitive and so to try and identify referents for its two core arguments, one of which is the trigger. Beyond this, there is no other morphological indication of what these arguments might be, except in the case of tak-, which indicates a first person agent. In addition to these prefixes, there are two transitive suffixes, -i and -aken (-nang), which can provide additional semantic cues that can be used to help identify the referents of the arguments of the verb on semantic grounds. We examined the form of nominal expressions and saw that core arguments are generally unmarked for case, while oblique arguments are usually marked by prepositions. However, the A arguments of P-trigger clauses can be marked with the preposition ning, which is also used to mark a variety of semantic cases such as locative, allative, and dative. Thus, while a cue to argument structure can occur within the form of nominal expressions, when the preposition ning is used its function can be ambiguous, and when it is not used the role of the unmarked nominal can be indeterminate. We also saw that
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in addition to various types of derivational morphology, the most common marking on nouns includes the definite suffix and demonstrative determiners, which both mark information flow properties. Unexpressed participants were also discussed. More than sixty percent of core arguments in transitive clauses are unexpressed in the Cirebon Javanese conversational data. Information flow characteristics of different types of nominal expression were examined. Unexpressed participants and pronouns were found overwhelmingly to represent identifiable and given referents that were intended to be tracked through discourse. Larger expressions such as those with lexical heads, as well as headless relative clauses, tended to be more often nonreferential, although some were also used for tracking identifiable referents. It was found that there are very few non-identifiable referents in Cirebon Javanese conversation. Most referents are coded as identifiable upon first mention and the few that are non-identifiable are usually props or supporting characters that do not persist long in discourse. Names and kinship terms can be used for tracking referents through discourse, and are also very commonly used as vocatives. These information flow properties, together with trigger morphology on verbs, were found to be particularly relevant to constituent order in transitive clauses. First of all, the high proportion of unexpressed participants, which usually represent identifiable referents that are being tracked, means that most clauses do not consist of both explicit A and P arguments. This makes discussion of constituent order more complex than simply claiming a single basic order for the language. P-trigger clauses most frequently consist of only an overt verb with no explicit P or A arguments. This is consistent with the fact that the referents of both P and A arguments in P-trigger clauses tend to be given and tracked. A-trigger clauses, on the other hand, most frequently consist of a verb with an overt P argument. This P argument is commonly non-referential, while the A argument is usually given and tracked. As it happens, this non-referential P argument is usually produced directly following the verb and together with it in the same intonation unit. This is evidence for the emergence of a verb phrase constituent among A-trigger clauses. There is no evidence for the emergence of clausal elements linked together as sisters in a higher order constituent among P-trigger clauses. There are a small number of non-referential A arguments among P-trigger clauses, while there are virtually none among A-trigger clauses. Nonetheless, the information flow properties of A arguments are in general roughly comparable between P-trigger and A-trigger clauses. The main differences between these two types of transitive clauses has primarily to do with the status of the P participant; P-trigger
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constructions are preferred with identifiable tracked P elements and A-trigger clauses are preferred with non-referential P elements. When arguments are overtly expressed, they may precede or follow the verb, but patterning in primary stress within the intonation unit helps to clarify which explicit argument has the role of trigger within the clause. We also saw that the elements of a clause are not always produced in a single intonation unit, but are often dispersed over a number of intonation units in larger structures called prosodic clusters. Arguments that were produced in intonation units separated from their verbs usually represented resumptive or contrastive information. With regard to the information that is communicated about argument structure by constituency and constituent order, if arguments are expressed in the same intonation unit with the verb, their role is usually clear from constituent order in combination with stress. In cases where arguments are expressed in separate intonation units or are not expressed explicitly, constituent order tells us little or nothing about clause structure. In these cases, interlocutors must depend on inferencing rather than morphosyntax in interpreting argument structure. When examples of clauses in conversational discourse were examined to see how these various cues about argument structure interact, it was found that in some clauses multiple morphosyntactic markings are used to explicitly and redundantly indicate argument structure. In other cases little or no morphosyntactic marking is used. In these later cases inferencing and shared knowledge are essential to interpret what is being said. But even in the case of the most elaborately marked clauses in the conversational database, some forms of inferencing are important for a full understanding of the meaning of these clauses. In all cases, hearers must always be actively engaged in the clause production and interpretation process, grounded in the ongoing discourse, in order for communication to be successful. It is in fact not only essential for these clauses to be seen in their context in order for their meaning to be understood, but often even their basic grammatical structure can only be understood within the context of their utterance, and often with reference to the ongoing interaction. After this discussion and the many examples presented in this study, we will now return for a brief look at two related issues. The first has to do with what should actually count as an argument within conversational discourse, the second is a look again at what a clause might be.
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. What are arguments? Although I have frequently placed labels referring to argument macro-roles above nominal expressions in various examples throughout this study, it should be remembered that arguments were defined as abstract entities, not as spoken or written phrases in the data. An argument was defined in Chapter 3 as a referent acting in a certain role relationship with a predicate. This means that the labeled nominal expressions in the examples are not themselves arguments, but rather are linguistic entities that serve as cues about the identity of a referent serving in an argument role. After the discussion in the intervening chapters of this book, is it still important to maintain this abstract understanding of what an argument is, or can we now find a more concrete way of locating arguments within the text itself? I think it is still most productive for a clear understanding of Cirebon Javanese conversational grammar to maintain this abstract definition. First, this lets us talk about participants evoked in the discourse and it allows us to relate them in a meaningful way to expressed arguments. This abstract definition of arguments also lets us maintain a varied and flexible understanding of the range of ways that speakers express the relationships between different elements in a clause. This variety in the expression of arguments has been illustrated in numerous examples in this study, three of which are repeated here. P (293) D: Ya= ari khas tradisional wong Cerbon ku , yes if specialty.ind traditional.ind person Cirebon that.med V aja diilangaken lud. neg.imp di-loose-aken voc ‘Yeah, as for the Cirebon people’s traditional specialties, (they) shouldn’t be lost man.’ (140:1673–1674)
The nominal expression labeled P in example (293) is in a different intonation unit from the predicate of the clause and it is marked with the resumptive referent particle ari ‘if, given’. These characteristics indicate a clear separation of the nominal expression representing the P argument from the verb. Example (294) illustrates a nominal expression that is less separated.
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P (294) D: Aké-akéé me- mélodi Roma , many-redup-def melody.ind Roma V diapalnang= terus. di-memorize-nang continue ‘(You)’ve mastered most of Roma’s melodies.’ (114:83–84)
Here the expression meaning ‘most of Roma’s melodies’ is produced in an intonation unit separate from the predicate, but because it is not marked by a particle such as ari ‘if ’, it is not as separated from the predicate as the expression representing the P argument in example (293). But it is not linked as closely to the predicate as the nominal representing the P argument in example (295), which is produced in the same intonation unit with the verb. P
V
(295) W: Ya mélodié beli apal . yes melody.ind-def neg understand ‘Yeah, (you) won’t know the melody.’ (114:87)
By maintaining an abstract definition of argument and then asking in what ways arguments are or are not expressed in discourse, we are able to see both the full range of variation and patterns that emerge from this variation. One such pattern, discussed in Chapter 5, was that of the verb phrase. Because of the frequency of the pattern in which the P argument of an A-trigger clause is expressed immediately following the verb in the same intonation unit with it, it was suggested that this is evidence for an emergent verb phrase constituent in Cirebon Javanese conversational grammar. Such an argument consistently expressed in such a tight relationship with the verb might be thought of as a candidate for the sort of concrete argument that can be identified in planned, written discourse. However, to draw a line that says nominal expressions of this type are true arguments while expressions such as those in (293) and (294) are not arguments would exclude many different expressions types and we would lose sight of the range of resources available to Cirebon Javanese speakers for expressing the arguments of clauses. I therefore suggest that the most productive way of analyzing argument relationships in Cirebon Javanese remains the abstract understanding used throughout this study.
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. What are clauses? A clause was defined in Chapter 2 in terms of a dependency relationship between a predicate and its arguments. We have now looked in detail at transitive clauses in order to investigate the morphosyntactic mechanisms that are used by interlocutors to express the relationship between arguments and predicates in Cirebon Javanese. It was shown that although various kinds of marking, such as verbal and nominal morphology and constituent order, are important in the grammar, the amount of morphosyntactic marking that occurs can vary greatly from clause to clause. In addition it was shown that pragmatic inferencing plays an important role in the process. If we recall from Chapter 2 the range of predicate types that can occur in intransitive clauses, and that these can, like transitive clauses, also often have unexpressed participants, we see that the notion of a range of differing amounts of morphosyntactic marking is also relevant for intransitive clauses. The relationship between the elements of an intransitive clause can be expressed in more explicit or less explicit ways and also often depends on pragmatic inferencing. In Chapter 5, transitive clauses were identified on morphological and semantic grounds as those which imply two core participants. After the investigation discussed in the previous chapters, is it appropriate to rethink our definition of transitive clauses and to try to arrive at a grammatically rather than semantically motivated definition? For example is there a grammatical case to be made that in Cirebon Javanese either P-trigger or A-trigger clauses should be reclassified as grammatically intransitive? Such a situation would follow a pattern similar to other languages. For example, in an accusative language a passive clause might be considered intransitive, while in an ergative language an antipassive clause would be considered intransitive. It now seems that the neutral stance taken heuristically at the beginning of the study, is in fact the correct analysis, based on the results of the investigation. A major component of the alternation in Javanese is a realignment of semantic and syntactic roles (the alternation between A and P as potential syntactic pivot) without evidence of a “demotion” of either element. For example, while P-trigger clauses can be used to express a situation in which the A argument is unknown or unimportant, this is a low frequency function of this clause types. Additionally, there is no clear evidence that either of these two construction types is more basic. On some criteria of basicness they are similar; for example, there is a tendency toward similar text frequency. Other criteria may appear contradictory; for example, P-trigger clauses tend to be higher in discourse transitivity and occur in foregrounded discourse contexts, yet can be described as morphosyntacti-
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Chapter 7. Conclusion
cally marked, with A (optionally) expressed by a prepositional phrase. And as we saw in Chapter 5, both clause types can be used with a variety of different argument types and can exhibit various types of morphosyntactic patterning. This, coupled with the fact that the group of clauses that we have called intransitive is actually a miscellany of many different predicate types, suggests that neither A-trigger nor P-trigger clause types align with intransitive clauses in a way that would be useful to a grammatical analysis of Cirebon Javanese. Similarly, neither A arguments nor P arguments align more appropriately with the single arguments of intransitive verbs of Cirebon Javanese, and thus neither an ergative nor an accusative type of patterning that characterizes clause organization in many languages of the world is appropriate to Cirebon Javanese. The general organization of clauses in Cirebon Javanese that has emerged from the analysis presented here is one in which intransitive clauses form a mixed group of different predicate types with generally loose grammatical marking. In contrast, transitive clauses can be grouped together grammatically by the fact that they involve the problem of assigning roles to two arguments and that for this purpose speakers have available to them a wider variety of morphosyntactic mechanisms to indicate clause structure than there are in intransitive clauses. Among transitive clauses, a grammatical differentiation between P-trigger and A-trigger clauses has emerged which reflects the split in the category P between the two major types of argument that tend to fill this role, those that are identifiable and tracking and those which are non-referential. One major point of this study has been to show that there are clear and describable grammatical mechanisms used in transitive clauses in Cirebon Javanese and that these mechanisms can all work together to code clause structure explicitly and redundantly. At the same time there are many transitive clauses that use only some of these resources and others that use none. The second major point of this study has been that pragmatic inferencing is an important factor in understanding the structure of any clause and indeed no clause can be clearly understood out of the context in which it was uttered. In the case where there is a greater amount of morphosyntactic marking, pragmatic inferencing can support the information communicated by this marking; in the case where there is less morphosyntactic marking, pragmatic inferencing is crucial in working out clause structure. These generalizations about various amounts of morphosyntax and the importance of pragmatic inferencing cut across both P-trigger and A-trigger clauses. While these generalizations are also true for intransitive clauses, they are particularly pronounced among transitive clauses because the potential for complex and redundant morphosyntactic marking is much greater among
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them than it is among intransitive clauses. This was illustrated in example (277) in Chapter 6, in which the argument structure was completely transparent, based on redundant morphosyntactic cues. And while we have seen the importance of pragmatic inferencing among transitive clauses, it seems that it is among intransitive clauses that this process is the most developed. Intransitive constructions allow greater flexibility for interlocutors to imbue them with meanings grounded in the moment of interaction. This was illustrated in example (92) from Chapter 2 in which a first person pronoun and the phrase meaning ‘red money’ were juxtaposed, being understood in the context to mean ‘I was born during the era of red money.’ Between these two extremes we see what could be characterized as a cline between morphosyntactic and paratactic expressions of clauses. Semantically transitive clauses more heavily populate the morphosyntactic end of the cline, while semantically intransitive clauses more heavily occupy the paratactic end of the cline. This suggests that trying to find a clear dividing line between grammatically transitive and grammatically intransitive clauses would not be productive and that the semantic characterizations against which grammatical patterning has been investigated here remain the more productive approach to take when looking at the nature of the clause in Cirebon Javanese conversation. Looking at the extremes of the cline also suggests the usefulness of this system for speakers of Cirebon Javanese. Morphosyntactically rich clauses communicate clause structure clearly with minimal cognitive demand on interlocutors, but can be constrained in the kinds of information communicated economically. Paratactic constructions, while demanding a greater burden of inferencing, allow a freedom to produce language tailored to the immediate needs of interlocutors in situated interaction. This range of forms allows speakers of Cirebon Javanese a mechanism to maintain a balance between neatly precise and organically contingent modes of speaking, providing a rich texture to the flow of Cirebon Javanese conversation.
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Notes
Chapter 1 . Indonesia is divided into hierarchically organized administrative regions. Below the national level of government are the provinces and special autonomous regions. These in turn are divided into kota madya ‘municipalities’ and kabupaten, usually translated ‘regency’ and something like the level of county in the United States. Below these are the kecamatan or districts, which in turn can consist of a number of désa ‘villages’ (in rural areas) or kelurahan ‘wards’ (in urban areas). . Ayatrohaedi (1985) estimated about 1.3 million speakers of Cirebon Javanese in the greater Cirebon area in 1975. Based on discussion with government representatives in each district (kecamatan) in conjunction with results of a 1990 census (Kantor Statistik Kabupaten Cirebon 1992), I estimated approximately 1.6 million in the regency (kabupaten) of Cirebon alone, not including the city. Cohen (1997) suggests a much higher speaker population of 5 million, but his estimate involves a much larger area including parts of seven regencies and the municipality. My estimate is just for the Regency and Municipality of Cirebon. . The URLs for these discussion groups change over time, but see for example GrageCirebon – Mailing List Cirebonan which was operating in 2005 at: .
Chapter 2 . Information in square brackets in the free translation of examples is intended to give background material that makes the example more easily understood out of context. Placing this information in square brackets in the free translation is not intended to suggest that it is somehow elided from or otherwise implied by the Cirebon Javanese clause in the example. . Information in parentheses in the free translation of examples refers to a core participant that is implied by the argument structure of the clause in the example. These are the unexpressed participants that are sometimes called zero anaphora and will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. The explicit inclusion of these referents in the free translation is intended both for ease of understanding and for grammaticality in the English translation. The use of parentheses is intended to highlight in the English translation, the participants that are unexpressed in the Cirebon Javanese original.
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It was noted in the introduction that the conversational material was transcribed into intonation units whose terminal pitch contour is indicated by punctuation at the end of each line. This intonation structure is not always reflected in the free translation. In the free translation certain norms of written English punctuation are employed for ease of readability, for example, the use of commas to set off a vocative form. . In Cirebon Javanese manjing (with its derived forms) is the usual word for ‘enter’ while in Standard Central Javanese the usage is more literary or with reference to spiritual matters. . From the conversational database and my field notes, I have collected more than a hundred expressives. There are no doubt many more. Following is a representative list of some Cirebon Javanese expressives together with the action, event, or state of which they are said to by onomatopoetic. While many are clearly direct imitations of sounds, for example créng for breaking glass, others are much more abstract, like jebred for the sound of an event happening. While there is quite a bit of phonological variety, in general the phonotactics of these expressives are different from typical lexical items in Cirebon Javanese, most notably in the frequent occurrence of monosyllabic forms and consonant clusters. bladus blak bles blus brébét brubul bruk ceg ces crak créng dar des geblag ger glondang grembul
arriving open speaking putting inside tearing slowly many exiting setting down giving deliciousness hitting glass breaking a disturbance starting cutting hair or cord opening laughing rolling down tile roof walking together
jebréd jeger jes jrék jréng jubar klég kruyuk lep mék plek plong prak rer set slep terlap
happening loud sound releasing giving gamelan falling in water walking water pouring sinking touching adhering, slapping release falling, breaking engine passing by, pulling cord entering departing
. Punctuation in the Cirebon Javanese text represents transitional continuity between intonation units while capitalization is used to indicate prosodic cluster boundaries (see Sections 5.2 and 5.3). Punctuation and capitalization in the free translation follows conventional English usage. There will occasionally be a mismatch between these as in example (21). . The ‘_’ notation connects extra phonation to a word with which it has been produced, as with the extra aspiration produced at the end of beli ‘neg’ in example (25). . The verb pelajari ‘to study (something)’ is clearly an Indonesian loan. Indonesian has an unprefixed P-trigger form and so it could be that the status of this verb as a loan word might contribute to its occurrence in an unprefixed form. However, with this unprefixed P-trigger construction in Indonesian, a pronominal A argument is always explicitly expressed pre-
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Notes
ceding the verb, whereas in Cirebon Javanese unprefixed forms need not have an expressed A argument. . While in Cirebon Javanese kita is usually a first person singular personal pronoun, here the speaker is using it as a generic pronoun equivalent to English generic ‘you’ or ‘one’. This is presumably based on the use in Indonesian of the first person inclusive kita for this meaning.
Chapter 3 . The choice of whether or not to translate a kin term or title in the free English translation has been made simply on impressionistic and aesthetic grounds, with the aim of producing translations that do not sound stilted in the variety of English being used here. Use or not of titles in the free translation should not be interpreted as a principled statement about equivalencies between the two languages. . In the original transcript my research consultant chose to transcribe this as bos su. However, capturing the phonetic reality in such a way in the orthography would result in a proliferation of morphemically equivalent words. Instead, I have adopted the orthographic convention of using an apostrophe to capture this morphemic equivalence. Because forms with k-, g-, n-, and l- are unpredictable, occurring in any context, these different realizations are retained in the orthography employed here. . Initial segment assimilation is found with other particles as well. In the following example the form ri is equivalent to the discourse particle si: B:
beli lapor ri pribén. neg report part how ‘How was it (you) didn’t end up reporting?’ (111:793)
Chapter 4 . The noun phrase boca enom ‘a young child, some young children’ is ambiguous as to number. It is translated as a plural here because of the reduplicated verb, which indicates iterative action. While it might be the case that the neighborhood leader was interrogating a single young person, the nature of the information received suggests that he may have simply been trying to find out who a particular person is, and thus it is more likely that the reduplication of takon ‘ask’ indicates that he was asking a number of different people. . Cirebon Javanese does have indefinite marking which can be used on noun phrases representing non-identifiable information (e.g. sewijining ‘one of ’ or ‘a certain’). Such forms seem to be exclusive to literary styles and do not appear in any of my conversational data. . A similar dearth of non-identifiable referents has also been noted for English conversation (Du Bois & Thompson 1991).
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Appendix
Orthographic note In general, the orthography used here follows that of Standard Indonesian and Standard Central Javanese. Three points of variance should be noted. I have represented the phoneme /e/ as é, regardless of phonetic realization. This mirrors the practice of the indigenous Javanese writing system, but differs from the common convention in the Latin orthography for Standard Central Javanese which, following Dutch practice, is to indicate two allophones of /e/ in the orthography. In Standard Central Javanese there is a distinction between dental and retroflex stops, represented as in the orthography. This distinction does not occur in Cirebon Javanese, except prescriptively by those who are familiar with Central Javanese spelling, and so it is not represented in the orthography used here. These two points mean that, for example, the third person pronoun spelled dhèwèké in Central Java, is spelled déwéké here. Finally, post-vocalic /h/ has been lost in the Cirebon variety of Javanese and so is not represented in the orthography used here.
Transcription conventions . , ? -line break .. ... @ % _ = <@ @> A: [] X:
final transitional continuity continuing transitional continuity appeal transitional continuity truncated intonation unit each complete or truncated intonation unit appears on a separate line short pause long pause pulse of laughter glottal vocalization extra segment added to word lengthening of preceding segment truncated word words between brackets are spoken with while laughing speaker attribution overlapping segment of speech entire line following this notation is in Indonesian unknown speaker
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<X X> X
unsure hearing of words between brackets unclear syllable
Abbreviations 1inc 1sg 2sg 3sg advr -aken -an beb c6conc def didis disbelief emph eng excl exist expr fut -i ind irr k.o. kelig mmed n-nang neg neg.exist neg.imp neg.tag part poss prep prog qu
first person inclusive first person singular second person singular third person singular adversative suffix -aken suffix -an bebasan (polite vocabulary) partial reduplication concessive definite prefix didistal expression of disbelief emphasis English exclamation existential expressive future suffix -i Indonesian irrealis kind of prefix keligature prefix mmedial nasal prefix suffix -nang negative negative existential negative imperative negative question tag discourse particle possessive preposition progressive question particle
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Appendix
quote redup rel repair takvoc ws
quotative particle full reduplication relative clause particle repair particle prefix takvocative word search
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Author index
A Andrews, Avery , Ariel, Mira , Arps, Ben Ashbey, William J. Ayatrohaedi , ,
B Baribin, Raminah Berman, Laine Boersma, Paul Bogaerts, Els Bolinger, Dwight , Brown, Roger Bybee, Joan L. , , , ,
C Chafe, Wallace , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Chappel, Hilary Clancy, Patricia M. , Cohen, Matthew Isaac , Comrie, Bernard Croft, William Cruttenden, Alan , , Cumming, Susanna , , , ,
D Dixon, R. M. W. Du Bois, John W. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Durie, Mark
E Englebretson, Robert , , , Errington, J. Joseph , Ewing, Michael C. , , , , ,
K Kartomihardjo, Soeseno Keeler, Ward , Kelly, Barbara F. , Kumpf, Lorraine E.
F Fillimore, Charles J. Fincke, Steven C. , Firbas, J. Florey, Margaret , Foley, William Fox, Barbara A. , , ,
L Langacker, Ronald W. , , Laury, Ritva , ,
G Geertz, Clifford Genetti, Carol , Gilman, Albert Givón, Talmy , , Grimes, Barbara F. Grimes, John Gundel, Jeanette K. H Halim, Amran Halliday, M. A. K. , , , Hedberg, Nancy Helasvuo, Marja-Liisa Hengeveld, Kees Himmelman, Nikolaus P. , , , Hopper, Paul J. , , , , , , I Iskandarwassid
M McGregor, William Mithun, Marianne , , Moedjanto, G. Molen, Willem van der Moravcsik, Edith Mulatsih, Indah
N Nanang Noonan, Michael Nothofer, Bernd
O Ochs, Elinor Ogloblin, Alexander K. , , , , Ono, Tsuyoshi , , , ,
P Paolino, Danae Poedjosoedarmo, Gloria R. , , , , , ,
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Grammar and Inference in Conversation Poedjosoedarmo, Soepomo Prince, Ellen R Ras, J. J. Robson, Stuart O. Ruliana S Schegloff, Emanuel A. Schuetze-Coburn, Stephan , , Shapley, Marian Siegel, James T. Slater, Keith , Smith, J. N. ,
Smith-Hefner, Nancy Soedjarwo Soetoko Suharno, Ignatius Sukamto, Katharina E. K. , Supriyanto, Ignatius Suzuki, Ryoko
T Tao, Hongyin , , , Thompson, Sandra A. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Traugot, Elizabeth C.
U Uhlenbeck, E. M. V Valin, Robert D. van Veerdonk, Jan van den W Weber, Elizabeth Weenink, David Wolfowitz, Claire Wouk, Fay Z Zacharaski, Ron Zwicky, Arnold ,
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Subject index
A A (role) –, –, –, , –, , , , –, , –, –, , –, –, –, , –, –, –, –, –, –, –, – accessibility , –, , , , activation , –, , , –, , adjectives –, see also attributive constructions adverbial predicates – adverbials –, , –, , , , , , affixation , , , – afterthoughts see supplementary units -aken –, , , , alienable possession , allative , ambiguity –, –, , , -an – anacrusis – anaphoric reference , , anchoring , – animacy , , anticipatory unit –, , applicative suffixes –, see also -aken, -i argument structure , , , –, , , , – arguments –, –, , , , , –, –, , , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , –, assimilation , association see identifiability by association A-trigger clauses –, –, , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , –, –, – attributive constructions , , –, , , , Austronesian , , , – B bebasan , , , , , , , , benefactive – bound pronouns , , breakdown (communicative) , – C case , , , –, cataphoric reference , –, causative , , , –, , cause , , Central Java , , , characterizing Cirebon –, , , –, , , classifying – clause structure –, –, –, , –, –, , , –, , , , –, , , –, , –, , –, ,
, , , , –, , –, – cleft constructions , common speech style , , , , complementizer conceptual groups constituency , , –, –, constituent order –, , –, , , , –, , –, , , context –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , continuity of referents , , , contrastive –, , , , conversation –, , , –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, copula , core arguments , –, , , –, , , –, , , , core participants –, , , , , , , , , , cues –, , –, , , –, , , –, , , , , , –, –, , , , , D dative –, –, declination unit –,
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definite suffix see -é deixis –, , , , demonstratives –, , –, , –, –, , , , , , , , –, , , dependency structure , , derivational morphology , , determiners , , , , –, , , , –, –, di- –, , –, –, , , , , discourse , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, –, , , , , , , –, , distributive –, down-drift –
generality , –, –, –, , –, , , , generic expression , , givenness –, , , , , , , –, , , , , grammar , , , , ,
E -é –, –, , , , , , , , , elision , , ellipsis , emphasis , epenthesis –, –, ergative-antipassive , , , eventive verbs –, – events , , , , , , evoked participants , –, –, , , existential –, expectations , expressives , –,
I -i –, , , identifiability –, , , –, , , –, –, –, –, –, , , , –, , –, , –, –, –, , identifiability by association , , –, , , –, , identifiability pathway –, , , , , –, , imperative , implication , , , –, see also inference inalienable possession , inanimacy , , , , , , independent clauses , indicative indirectness , Indonesia , , , Indonesian –, , , , , , , , , , , , –
F final transitional continuity , , , frame-evoked associations , , –, – G gemination ,
H head noun , , –, , head verb , headless relative clauses –, , , , , , –, –, , , , , hesitation , , hierarchy , – human referents , , , , –, ,
inference , , , –, , , , , –, –, , , , – inflection informal , information flow , –, , –, , –, –, , , –, , –, , –, –, –, , –, , –, –, , –, , – information flow categories – integrational unit –, , –, , , , – interaction , , , – interrogative , intonation , –, , , , –, –, , –, , , intonation contour , , , – intonation unit (IU) , , , , , –, –, , , , –, , –, –, –, –, , –, intonation unit boundaries , , , , intransitive clauses , –, –, , , , intransitivity –, –, , –, , IU-final particles , –, ,
J Jakarta , , Javanese –, see also Standard Central Javanese juxtaposition –, , –, , –,
K ke-/-an ,
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Subject index kinship , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , L lexical noun phrases –, –, –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , locative , –, , , , , , , , , , M m- –, , , , macro-roles –, , , , , , –, , , –, , –, , , Malay , , misunderstanding , , modification – modifiers , , , , morphology –, –, –, –, –, –, –, , , , , , , , , –, , , morphosyntax –, –, , , , , , , –, , –, , , – multi-IU clauses , –, –, , , , N N- –, , , , , , , , , , , , , names –, –, , , , , , –, , , , , , , -nang , –, , new information –, , –, , , –, , , , – ning , , , , –, , , , nominal expressions , –, , –, , , , –, –, , , , , , –, , –, , –, , , , , ,
–, , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , non-referential , , , , , , , , , non-tracking , , , –, , , , , , , , non-trigger , , , , non-verbal clauses , –, , –, , O obliques , , , , , –, , overt arguments , , , –, , , , , ownership , P P (role) –, , , –, , , –, –, , –, , , –, , , , , –, –, –, –, –, –, –, –, –, –, –, –, , , –, paratactic , particular –, , –, –, , , , , – part-whole relationships , , , , pause –, –, peripheral arguments –, –, personal pronouns , , , –, , , , , , , , , physical presence , , pitch contour , –, pitch reset –, pivot , , , places , , possessive , , –, –, pragmatics –, , , –, , –, , –, ,
, , , , , , , , , , , –, –, –, –, , – predicates –, , –, , –, , –, , , –, , , , , –, , , , , , , , prefixes , , , , , , prepositional phrases –, , , –, , , , , , , –, , prepositions , , –, , , , presence , , – previous mention –, – pronouns , –, , –, , –, , –, –, –, , –, , , –, –, –, –, –, , , , , , , , , –, , , , , proper nouns see names propositional content , , , , –, props , , , , prosodic clusters , , –, –, , –, –, , , –, , , prosody , –, , , – P-trigger clause , –, –, , , , , –, , , , , –, , –, , –, –, , –, , , –, Q quantifiers , , , –, , questions , , , , , quotative markers , –,
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R recipient , – reduced forms , –, –, see also short-from demonstratives redundancy , , , , , , , , reduplication , –, , , referentiality , , –, referents , , , , , , , –, , –, , –, –, –, –, –, –, , , –, –, , , , –, –, –, , –, , , –, –, referring expressions , relative clauses , –, , –, , , , repair , resumptive forms , –, , , , , , , S S (role) –, , , , , – semantics –, , , , , –, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , shared knowledge , , , , short-form demonstratives –, –, , , , , , single argument , , , –, –, , , , –, , –, –, , , single-IU clauses –, , , , , –, –, , –,
social speech styles , , , –, see also bebasan space , , speech levels see social speech style Standard Central Javanese , , , –, , , , , , , , –, , , –, , –, , –, , stative verbs , , , – stress –, , –, suffixes , , –, –, , , , , , Sundanese –, , , supplementary units , –, –, , supporting characters , , T tak- , , –, , , –, , , , –, –, temporal sequence , , , , , terminal lengthening , terminal pitch contour , titles , , , , tone group tracking , , , –, –, , , –, , , –, , –, –, –, –, –, –, , transitional continuity –, – transitive clauses , , , , –, , , , , –, –, , –, –, –, –, , , – transitivity –, , –, , , –, , , , , , trigger , , –, , , , , , , , , –,
, , , , , –, , – truncated intonation unit U unexpressed participants , , , , , –, –, , , , , , –, , , , , , –, –, –, , , , –, , , , , , , unprefixed verbs –, –, utterances , , , , V verbs , –, –, –, –, –, , –, –, , , , , , –, , , , , , –, –, , , –, , –, –, , –, , –, , , , – vocative –, , , , , , , , –, , voice –, , , vowel lengthening vowel lowering , , W word search , –, world knowledge , –, , , , , , , Y yes-no question , Yogyakarta , Z zero anaphora see unexpressed participants
In the series Studies in Discourse and Grammar the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 19 TALEGHANI-NIKAZM, Carmen: Request Sequences. The interaction of grammar, interaction and social context. Expected April 2006 18 EWING, Michael C.: Grammar and Inference in Conversation. Identifying clause structure in spoken Javanese. 2005. ix, 276 pp. 17 HAKULINEN, Auli and Margret SELTING (eds.): Syntax and Lexis in Conversation. Studies on the use of linguistic resources in talk-in-interaction. 2005. viii, 408 pp. 16 KOSHIK, Irene: Beyond Rhetorical Questions. Assertive questions in everyday interaction. 2005. x, 183 pp. 15 GOLATO, Andrea: Compliments and Compliment Responses. Grammatical structure and sequential organization. 2005. xii, 249 pp. 14 DU BOIS, John W., Lorraine E. KUMPF and William J. ASHBY (eds.): Preferred Argument Structure. Grammar as architecture for function. 2003. x, 459 pp. 13 ENGLEBRETSON, Robert: Searching for Structure. The problem of complementation in colloquial Indonesian conversation. 2003. x, 206 pp. 12 HAYASHI, Makoto: Joint Utterance Construction in Japanese Conversation. 2003. xii, 250 pp. 11 SCHEIBMAN, Joanne: Point of View and Grammar. Structural patterns of subjectivity in American English conversation. 2002. xiv, 188 pp. 10 SELTING, Margret and Elizabeth COUPER-KUHLEN (eds.): Studies in Interactional Linguistics. 2001. viii, 438 pp. 9 HELASVUO, Marja-Liisa: Syntax in the Making. The emergence of syntactic units in Finnish conversation. 2001. xiv, 176 pp. 8 MORI, Junko: Negotiating Agreement and Disagreement in Japanese. Connective expressions and turn construction. 1999. xii, 240 pp. 7 LAURY, Ritva: Demonstratives in Interaction. The emergence of a definite article in Finnish. 1997. viii, 294 pp. 6 DORGELOH, Heidrun: Inversion in Modern English. Form and function. 1997. x, 236 pp. 5 TAO, Hongyin: Units in Mandarin Conversation. Prosody, discourse, and grammar. 1996. xvi, 226 pp. 4 DOWNING, Pamela A.: Numeral Classifier Systems: The Case of Japanese. 1996. xx, 336 pp. 3 WEBER, Elizabeth G.: Varieties of Questions in English Conversation. 1993. x, 252 pp. 2 IWASAKI, Shoichi: Subjectivity in Grammar and Discourse. Theoretical considerations and a case study of Japanese spoken discourse. 1992. xii, 152 pp. 1 GELUYKENS, Ronald: From Discourse Process to Grammatical Construction. On Left-Dislocation in English. 1992. xii, 182 pp.
