[An-lang] Indonesian "menakuti" vs. "menakutkan"

[Postman, Whitney (NIH/NIDCD)]

Dearest fellow AN-LANGers,



I have a couple of questions for those of you familiar with Indonesian about
verbs meaning "fear" and "frighten". Apparently the Indonesian equivalent of
the English stative psychological predicate "fear" is best expressed in
Indonesian with the adjective "takut", as in,



"Saya   takut     ular"

I           afraid    snakes

'I fear/am afraid of snakes'



My first question is, Would I be correct here?



As for the causative psychological predicate "frighten", it would seem as if
both "menakuti" and "menakutkan" can be used to express a similar meaning.
My next question is, are "menakuti" and "menakutkan" completely
interchangeable, or am I missing some subtle semantic difference between the
two? I've come across analyses that attribute more of an agentive meaning to
"menakuti", such that it can mean something stronger than "frighten", like
"intimidate". Would you agree with this assessment? If so, what would be the
semantic difference between the two members of the following minimal pair,
assuming they are well-formed (and please let me know if they are not)?



"Anjing itu         menakuti           anak-anak         dan       lari"

Dog      that       frighten             children            and       run

'The dog frightened the children and ran off'



"Anjing itu         menakutkan       anak-anak         dan       lari"

Dog      that       frighten             children            and       run

'The dog frightened the children and ran off'



Clarifications of these issues are deeply appreciated.



Sincerely yours,

Whitney





____________________________________________

Whitney Anne Postman, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, MD 20892

postmanw at nidcd.nih.gov <mailto:postmanw at nidcd.nih.gov>

(301) 451-6862





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