zero-marked true partitives

[David Gil]

In Riau Indonesian (and probably other colloquial varieties of 
Malay/Indonesian), both "pseudo-partitives" and "true partitives" are 
zero marked:

(1) Aku mau satu kilogram teh
     1SG want one kilogram teh

Sentence (1) can mean either 'I want a kilo of tea' or, in the right 
context, 'I want a kilo of that tea'.  (The latter interpretation can be 
reinforced by the addition of various deictic markers, but such markers 
are not obligatory.)  It's not clear to me that the distinction between 
"pseudo-" and "true" partitives is one that is relevant to the grammmar 
of Indonesian; that is to say, sentence (1) is probably best analyzed as 
vague rather than ambiguous between the two intended interpretations.

In this respect, (1) seems to differ from (2) below, where the two 
possible interpretations are clearly distinguishable:

(2) Aku mau satu gelas teh
     1SG want one glass tea
     'I want a glass of tea'
     'I want a glass for tea (ie. a tea-glass)'

Sentence (2) probably should be analyzed as ambiguous rather than vague: 
eg. when occurring in naturalistic contexts, speakers probably always 
intend one of the two interpetations to the exclusion of the other.


-- 
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
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