2 more Qs about Indonesian...

[Waruno Mahdi]

> (1) a. Anak itu dapat dijaga Gita sendiri
>     b. Anak itu dapat Gita jaga sendiri
>       'Gita can look after the child herself'
>
> (2) a. Lukisan itu dibuat Mentary sendiri
>     b. Lukisan itu Mentary buat sendiri
>       'Mentary did the painting herself'

Whitney,
In both, the translation is possible for a., but not normally for b.,
I think. For b. the translation is normally:

(1) 'I/you can look after the child my-/your-self'
(2) 'I/you did the painting my-/your-self'

The same translations are also possible for the respective a.-versions.
Whether 'I' or 'you" depends on whether Gita/Mentary is the speaker (I)
or speaker's speech partner (you).
The b.-construction is restricted to use with pronominal agent,
hence any non-pronoun in the agent position must be a pronominalised
word (proper name, kinship/titulary term, noun denoting profession/rank)
or nominal phrase (e.g. Pak Guru, saudara-saudara yang terhormat,
sang pembaca, etc.) with the meaning 'I' or 'you' on the surface plane.

However, at least for some speakers, the translations you give can
under certain circumstances also be correct for the b.-versions.
That is when Gita/Mentary is not 1st or 2nd person, but sort of
"2-and-halfth" or "kiebitz". That is, she is present and participant of
the speech event. E.g. "look, you don't have to worry, Gita here can
look after...." and you are not only saying this to the worried person,
but sort of for Gita to hear as well, perhaps e.g. allowing for her to
either confirm "oh, yeah, sure I could" or contradict, or in any case
to get the message as well.

> (3)  Pegawai itu disogok dengan sengaja.
>     'The official was bribed deliberately'

Sounds fine to me.

> next 2 sentences. Specifically, who is trying to avoid the draft--
> the official or the understood agent? Is it ambiguous?
>
> (4) a. Pegawai itu disogok untuk melarikan diri dari tugas wajib militer
>     b. Pegawai itu disogok untuk menghindari wajib militer
>       'The official got bribed to avoid the draft'

At first, I understand the sentences to mean that the official got
bribed to induce him to avoid the draft. As this is not a very realistic
prospect (one normally bribes an official to escape some unopleasant
commitment of one's own), it is semantically puzzling.
But essentially, the construction is ambiguous, and by variating between
various possible aternants of _untuk_ one can shift the weighting of the
alternative interpretations 'official avoids draft' and 'briber avoids
draft'. _agar_ 'so/in-order that' is about the same as _untuk_ (official
avoids),  _demi_ 'for sake of' shifts more to briber avoids, and
_dengan maksud_ 'with intent of' lets the briber unambiguously be the
draft avoider. But I'd recommend interviewing some native speakers from
various areas and different age groups on this point.

Salam,   Waruno