Nias and English Personal Pronouns: A Morphosyntactic Study

NIAS AND ENGLISH PERSONAL PRONOUNS: A MORPHOSYNTACTIC STUDY

By Ingatan Gulö

A THESIS

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Magister Humaniora

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL FACULTY OF HUMANITIES UNIVERSITAS PADJADJARAN 2014

ABSTRACT

While English has only two types of the personal pronouns, Nias has four. As relation between the personal pronouns of each language is not a one-to-one relationship, this research aims to assure which of those four and what other possible constructions are used to render English personal pronouns functioning as subjects and objects. Further, searching for the ‘kinds’ of English subjects and objects consisting of personal pronouns to be rendered by certain Nias personal pronouns is deeper objective of this research entitled Nias and English Personal Pronouns: A Morphosyntactic Study. The data for this research were taken from English and Nias short stories that contain various uses of the personal pronouns of both languages. It was qualitatively conducted to reach the objectives described above. The data were processed by a descriptive-analytical method where available facts and information were carefully analyzed to make critical evaluation. The result shows that all four types of Nias personal pronouns are used to render English personal pronouns functioning as subjects. Three of the types are used to render those functioning as objects. Nias pronominal prefixes are used to render English personal pronouns functioning as subjects in transitive sentences. Pronominal suffixes and mutated personal pronouns are used to render English personal pronouns functioning as subjects in intransitive sentences and those with copular verbs and to render those functioning as objects in simple independent clauses. Unmutated personal pronouns are used to render English personal pronouns functioning as subjects in relative clauses and cleft sentences and to render those functioning as objects in relative clauses. In addition to these four kinds of personal pronouns, Nias possessives are also used with prepositions and nouns to accommodate English personal pronouns used as certain subjects and objects.

PREFACE

Thanks be to God who has providentially helped the writer during the research process. This study emerged as the writer was thinking over the importance of conducting research on Indonesian vernaculars and pose their linguistic features to both national and international linguists as well as to those other people interested in linguistics. Born in Nias Island and grew up with Nias as his mother tongue, the writer thought it would be important to do research on the language. As the writer was studying English linguistics, however, it was impossible to focus on Nias linguistics alone. The idea came in mind was thus to relate the two languages and, finally, it was decided to focus on the languages’ personal pronouns functioning as subjects and objects. The issues questioned were about the kinds of Nias personal pronouns used to render those of English. At glance, this looked simple because English personal pronouns consist of only two kinds: one functioning as subjects and one as objects. However, the fact that Nias has four kinds of personal pronouns which all seemed possible to be subjects and objects made the work challenging. It turned out during the research process that those English personal pronouns functioning as subjects and objects had to be broken down into specific characteristics they had in order to find out how they were rendered into Nias. The works to do then became more complex and arduous. After working hard continuously, it was possible for the researcher to report the result in this thesis.

As Nias is an ergative language, more appropriate terms used in explaining its grammatical structures are supposed to be the ones related to ergativity such as ABS, ERG, Oblique, or other similar terms such as agent and sole argument but to avoid confusion with the terms related to English linguistics, they are not used here. In addition, there has been a tendency to conclude that Nias does not have adjectives. Words with ‘adjective senses’ are considered as stative verbs because they begin with certain groups of similar prefixes and are identical to verbs in meaning. The data in this thesis were analyzed with the opposite point of view, not to strongly disagree to that conclusion even though the researcher thinks that it has to be researched in further details - but to simplify the gloss of the syntactic categories. The researcher, however, is willing to consider any constructive suggestions and revisions for necessary improvement. It is hoped that the readers would get benefits from the analyses and discussions provided in this piece of work.

Bandung, July 2014

Ingatan Gulö

ABSTRAK

Berlawanan dengan fakta bahwa pronomina persona bahasa Inggris hanya dua jenis, pronomina persona bahasa Nias ada empat. Karna penggunaan pronomina kedua bahasa tersebut tidak paralel, penting untuk diteliti mana saja dari pronomina persona bahasa Nias itu yang dapat menggantikan pronomina persona bahasa Inggris yang berfungsi sebagai subjek dan objek. Tujuan lain dari riset berjudul Nias and English Personal Pronouns: A Morphosyntactic Study ini adalah meneliti ciri-ciri subjek dan objek - yang merupakan pronomina persona itu - yang dapat digantikan oleh pronomina persona tertentu dalam bahasa Nias. Data untuk penelitian ini diambil dari beberapa cerita pendek yang tertulis dalam bahasa Inggris dan bahasa Nias. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif. Data diproses dan dianalisis secara saksama dan kritis sehingga tujuan yang ditetapkan dapat dicapai dengan baik. Setelah itu, temuan yang relevan disajikan secara deskriptif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa keempat pronomina persona bahasa Nias dapat dipakai menggantikan pronomina persona bahasa Inggris yang berfungsi sebagai subjek. Tiga di antaranya dapat menggantikan yang berfungsi sebagai objek. Prefiks pronominal bahasa Nias ekuivalen dengan pronomina persona bahasa Inggris yang berfungsi sebagai subjek dalam kalimat transitif. Sufiks pronominal dan pronomina bermutasi dipakai untuk menggantikan pronomina persona bahasa Inggris yang berfungsi sebagai subjek kalimat nominal dan intransitif serta menggantikan yang berfungsi sebagai objek dalam klausa bebas. Pronomina persona tak bermutasi menggantikan pronomina persona bahasa Inggris yang berfungsi sebagai subjek dan objek klausa adjektiva dan subjek cleft sentences. Selain itu, pronomina posesif juga digunakan bersama preposisi dan nomina untuk menggantikan pronomina persona bahasa Inggris yang berfungsi sebagai subjek dan objek tertentu.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ...................................................................... ii PREFACE ............................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................... v ABSTRACT (English) ........................................................................................ vii ABSTRACT (Indonesian) .................................................................................. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................... ix LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................. xiii ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................ xiv NOTES ................................................................................................................ xv CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ................................................................... 1 1.1

Rationale ...................................................................................................... 1

1.2

Formulation of the Study ............................................................................. 4

1.3

Objective of the Study .................................................................................. 4

1.4

Theoretical Outline ....................................................................................... 5

1.5

Method and Technique ................................................................................. 5 1.5.1 Method ................................................................................................ 6 1.5.2 Technique ........................................................................................... 6 1.5.2.1 Data Collecting Technique ................................................... 6 1.5.2.2 Data Analysis Technique ...................................................... 7

1.6

Data Sources ................................................................................................. 8

1.7

Weight and Relevance .................................................................................. 8

CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ...................................... 10 2.1

Previous Research ...................................................................................... 10

2.2

Contrastive Analysis .................................................................................. 15

2.3

Morphosyntax ............................................................................................ 17

2.4

Morphology ................................................................................................ 18 2.4.1 Affix .................................................................................................. 18 2.4.2 Clitic ................................................................................................. 19 2.4.3 Mutation ............................................................................................ 19

2.5

Syntax ......................................................................................................... 20 2.5.1 Syntactic Units .................................................................................. 20 2.5.2 Syntactic Categories ......................................................................... 21 2.5.3 Syntactic Functions ........................................................................... 22 2.5.4 Pronouns ........................................................................................... 24 2.4.4.1 English Personal Pronouns ................................................. 24 2.4.4.2 Nias Personal and Possessive Pronouns ............................. 26

2.6

Semantics ................................................................................................... 29 2.6.1 Meaning and Grammar ..................................................................... 30 2.6.2 Semantic Set of Personal Pronouns .................................................. 30

CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSIS ........................................................... 32 3.1

Rendering English Personal Pronouns as Subjects ··························· 32 3.1.1 As Subjects in Transitive Sentences (STS) ····························· 33 3.1.1.1 STS Rendered by Pronominal Prefixes ······················· 33 3.1.1.2 STS Rendered by Mutated Personal Pronouns ·············· 45 3.1.1.3 STS Rendered by Unmutated Personal Pronouns ··········· 48 3.1.1.4 STS Rendered by Possessives ································· 51

3.1.2 As Subjects in Intransitive Sentences (SIS) ····························· 58 3.1.2.1 SIS Rendered by Mutated Personal Pronouns ··············· 59 3.1.2.2 SIS Rendered by Pronominal Suffixes ······················· 61 3.1.2.3 SIS Rendered by Pronominal Prefixes and MP ············· 64 3.1.2.4 SIS Rendered by Unmutated Personal Pronouns ··········· 67 3.1.3 As Subjects in Sentences with Copular Verbs (SSC) ················· 70 3.1.3.1 SSC Rendered by Mutated Personal Pronouns ············· 71 3.1.3.2 SSC Rendered by Pronominal Suffixes ······················ 75 3.1.3.3 SSC Rendered by Unmutated Personal Pronouns ·········· 76 3.1.3.4 SSC Being Omitted ············································· 81 3.2

Rendering English Personal Pronouns as Objects ···························· 84 3.2.1 As Direct Objects (DO) ··················································· 85 3.2.1.1 DO Rendered by Mutated Personal Pronouns ·············· 85 3.2.1.2 DO Rendered by Pronominal Suffixes ······················· 90 3.2.1.3 DO Rendered by Unmutated Personal Pronouns ············ 91 3.2.1.4 DO Rendered by N-Pos ········································ 94 3.2.2 As Indirect Objects (IO) ··················································· 96 3.2.3 As Preposition Objects (PO) ············································· 102 3.2.3.1 PO Rendered by Khö-Pos ····································· 102 3.2.3.2 PO Rendered by Pre + Khö-Pos ······························ 104 3.2.3.3 PO Rendered by N-Pos ········································ 106 3.2.3.4 PO Rendered by Pre + N-Pos ································· 108

CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ······················ 110 4.1

Conclusion ········································································ 110

4.2

Suggestion ········································································· 111

REFERENCES ·········································································· 112 LIST OF DICTIONARIES ····························································· 118 APPENDICES ·············································································A1 English Data ················································································A2 Nias Data ···················································································A6 Curriculum Vitae ········································································ A11

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