Reflexives and di-verbs in Standard Indonesian

[Thomas J. Conners]

>>(3)	a. Buku ini diambil saya untuk saya sendiri
>>	b. Buku ini saya ambil untuk saya sendiri
>>	'I'm taking this book for myself'
>
>shd.be: a. Buku ini diambil oleh saya untuk [diri] saya sendiri
>        b. Buku ini saya ambil untuk [diri] saya sendiri
>(_oleh_ is actually only optional for the third person, although
> it is probably sometimes dropped in colloquial speech.
> The [diri] is optional for some speakers, but required by others,
> I'm not quite sure what the "baku" situation is. However, in
> both 2a and 2b one may also say  either_... untuk diri sindiri_
> or simply _... untuk saya_; the explicit "self" is not required
> as in English)
>
>>(4	Lukisan itu dicat kami sendiri
>>	'We did the painting ourselves'
>
>shd.be:  Lukisan itu dicat oleh kami sendiri
>
>also:  b.Lukisan itu kami cat sendiri

For most/many speakers, the 'baku' situation, as far as I can tell, does
not allow first and second person agents with the 'di-' form passives, and
requires the preverbal unaffixed root (i.e. Chung's (1976) type II, or the
Tagalog type passive: Theme-Agent-Root).  That is to say, first and second
person agents are ungrammatical as the object of 'oleh' or postverbally
altogether.  Though this is changing, and certainly now in colloquial
speech postverbal first and second person agents are encountered, in formal
speech only 'ter-' and 'ke-an' passives allow a postverbal first or second
person agent in an optional 'oleh' phrase.

So there are essentially two types of passive:
1. Subject-di-root-(oleh)-agent
2. Subject-agent-root.
Type 2 is obligatory for all first and second person pronouns, clitics, and
proper names when used as pronoun substitutes.  There is strict adjacency
between the preverbal agent and the root.  Third person requires a type 1
passive, where there is strict adjacency between the verb and postverbal
agent only if the 'oleh' is not present.  So, a third person pronoun can
take either type 1 or type 2, patterning with the other pronouns, or with
the other 3rd person agents.  Of course, the 3rd person clitic only appears
postpositionally, and can only take type 1 passive.  The real dividing line
seems to be that only elements with a +human referent can take, indeed must
take, a type 2 passive.  Except the 3rd person pronoun, which can be +human
and appear in a type 1 passive.

So, although this does not really add to the discussion on anaphoric
relations, each of the above examples would be ungrammatical in formal,
prescriptive speech.


>
>But in any case, the Indonesian sentence(s) is(are) ambiguous. One
>could also understand it(them) to mean 'I painted or applied paint
>to the drawings myself' (e.g. vandal speaking ;-), because (a) is
>not specific between drawing and painting, while (b) _mencat_ indeed
>means 'to paint', but more specifically (even if not absolute
>exclusively) with regard to application of paint onto a fence,
>door, etc., rather than the making of a painting.
>
>For 'did' or 'made' I'd have taken _buat_ (also possible: _bikin_),
>e.g.
>         Lukisan itu dibuat oleh kami sendiri
>         Lukisan itu kami buat sendiri
>
>Just my 2p.
>
>Salam,   Waruno
>