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<p>Dear all,<br>
<br>
I am rather puzzled by Claude's factual claims about Indonesian.</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 25/09/2018 19:31, Claude Hagège
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:000501d454ba$e288bf90$a79a3eb0$@fr">
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<div class="WordSection1"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">According
to David, « the use of <i>dari</i> to mark agents is
characteristic of Eastern contact varieties of Malay. [He has]
heard it in, among other places, Papua, Halmahera, Ambon,
Maluku Tenggara and Timor. And it is also attested in the
Kirinda subdialect of Sri Lankan Malay ». This use, though
not quite widespread, is not unknown in Jakarta, in Bandung
and in North-West Sumateran varieties of Indonesian. In these
varieties, the most frequent mark of agents is <i>oleh</i>,
especially, but not only, after a passive verb, marked as such
by the prefix <i>di</i>-. </span></div>
</blockquote>
I am always reluctant to say something doesn't occur in
Malay/Indonesian, there are so many geographically-, ethnically-,
and socially-based dialects that differ from each other in myriad
ways. Having said that, I have never heard <i>dari </i>marking
agents (at least prototypical ones) in Jakarta or other western
Indonesian varieties, so if it does exist, it is uncommon and of
limited distribution.<br>
<br>
As for <i>oleh</i>, it occurs "everywhere" if you're talking about
the standard languages, but almost nowhere if you're concerned with
colloquial varieties, the only exception being in Sabah, where,
rather surprisingly, it is used colloquially to mark agents and also
instruments. In Jakarta and many other places in western Indonesia,
the usual marking of agents is with <i>sama</i> or a reduced form
thereof. If you have data in which the form <i>oleh</i> occurs,
then, other than for Sabah, it is most likely in a less colloquial
register with at least some influence from the standard language. A
case in point is ...<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:000501d454ba$e288bf90$a79a3eb0$@fr">
<div class="WordSection1"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Interestingly,
however, <i>oleh</i> and <i>dari</i> can both be used in
certain constructions. For example, in Bandung, I have heard
both <o:p></o:p></span>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><i><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">dia
tidak mati <b>dari</b> penyakit<o:p></o:p></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">and<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><i><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">dia
tidak mati <b>oleh</b> penyakit</span></i><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">,
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:35.4pt"><span
style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">both
meaning, literally, « he is not dead because of illness ».</span></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
The presence of the negator <i>tidak</i> in the above constructions
is a tip-off that we're dealing here with something closer to the
standard language: in the colloquial Bandung variety of Indonesian,
the most common negators are <i>nggak</i> and <i>ndak</i>. <br>
<br>
The take home message from this rather detailed discussion is that
it's really important, when working on Malay/Indonesian and other
such languages, to be very clear about which variety one is
describing.<br>
<br>
A separate issue here is whether "illness" is really an agent; it
certainly isn't a prototypical one. And in fact, I'm not sure what
marker, if any, would be used to flag the word <i>penyakit</i>
'illness' in the above sentence in Bandung. A quick check of our
MPI Jakarta Field Station corpus suggests that the most common
strategy for expressing 'die from X' is the zero-marked "mati X".<br>
<br>
I attach herewith an (in progress) map from AMILS (Atlas of
Malay/Indonesian Language Structures) showing the forms of the agent
markers across colloquial Malay/Indonesian dialects. (In the map,
Bandung is indicated as having the agent marker <i>sama.</i>)<br>
<br>
Best wishes,<br>
<br>
David<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816
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