query: associative plurals via noun-verb disagreement

[David Gil]

Dear Waruno,

Thanks for the example of /pada/ from Jakarta Indonesian.  (I resist 
calling it "colloquial Indonesian" because there are so many different 
regional varieties of colloquial Indonesian, and in fact in most there 
is no /pada/ as in the Jakarta dialect.)
> (1a) _dia ketawa_
>      3S INDIC-laugh
>     '[s]he laugh[s,ed]'
>
> (2a) _dia pada ketawa_
>      3S PLURAL INDIC-laugh
>      'they [all] laugh[-ed]'
Well the problem with this example (and with the very nice googled 
examples that you provided later in your message) is that, pace your 
interlinear "3S" gloss, in Jakarta Indonesian /dia/ can be used *on its 
own* (ie. without /pada/) with plural reference.  (You may be less 
likely to find this in writing, but in spoken language, use of /dia/ on 
its own with plural reference is common.)  Thus, (1a) can also be 
understood as 'they laugh[s,ed]'.

What would be necessary for Jakarta Indonesian to have the 
Associative-Plural-via-Disagreement construction in question is if

Ali pada ketawa
Ali PLURAL laugh
'Ali and his friends laugh[-ed]'

turned out to be grammatical, and with the interpretation indicated 
above.  In fact, just yesterday I wrote to a couple of people in Jakarta 
-- alas, I am right now in late-autumnal Leipzig -- asking them exactly 
this, but I have not yet heard back.  (My best guess, however, is that 
it is not grammatical, and therefore that Jakarta Indonesian does not 
have this construction.) 

By the way, analogous questions can also be asked for Javanese, from 
which Jakarta Indonesian /pada/ came.

Warmest regards,

David




-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany

Telephone: 49-341-3550321 Fax: 49-341-3550119
Email: gil at eva.mpg.de
Webpage:  http://www.eva.mpg.de/~gil/


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