Placement of quantifiers in Standard Indonesian

Waruno Mahdi mahdi at fhi-berlin.mpg.de
Sat Jan 19 19:38:07 UTC 2002


Hi Whitney,

here just a quick and short response (I'm very much in a hurry)
based on my subjective language feeling:

> (1)
> b.	Semua / banyak	buku	dibaca		(oleh)	Nando
>	All	many	book 	PASS-read	  by 	Nando
>	'All/many of the books were read by Nando.'

Gloss of 1b should be 'All/many books were read by Nando.'

> Can the quantifiers semua 'all' and banyak 'many' appear anywhere
....
> (2)
> a.	Mahasiswa 	membaca 	"Tempo"	semua / banyak
>	Student		ACT-read	Tempo	all   / many
>	'All/many students read "Tempo".'
>
> b.	Buku	dibaca		(oleh)	Nando	semua / banyak
>	Book 	PASS-read	  by 	Nando	all   / many
>	'All/many of the books were read by Nando.'

2a&b are OK for _semua_, but not possible for _banyak_, however,
the gloss of 2b for _semua_ should 'All books were read by Nando.'

alternatively, you can put _banyak_ before the verb, e.g.
2a* Mahasiswa banyak membaca "Tempo"
    'Students read Tempo a lot'
2b* Buku banyak dibaca (oleh) Nando
    'books are read a lot by Nando'
    (Nando reads books a lot).

You can also insert _semua_ before the verb in 2a:
2a** Students all read "T"
or after the verb in 2b:
2b** books are/were all read by Nando
    (he reads them all)

> I would also like to know if adding "itu" after "mahasiswa" and
> "buku" improves the sentences.

it would not improve, but change the meaning to (only with _semua_):
2a 'All OF THE/THOSE students read Tempo'
2b 'All OF THE/THOSE books were read by Nando'

                  Finally, does adding "-nya" after
> "semua" have any effect?

Only very subtly, somewhat like adding 'the' (without 'of') before
the topical noun in the gloss. Perhaps because the _nya_ is so far
away from the topical noun in the Indonesian sentences, it's effect
seems not to be as strongly evident as that of an additional 'the'
in the gloss'.

Aloha,   Waruno



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