Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-g98kq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-10T11:20:09.598Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Categorial Ambiguity in Mau, Suka, and other Indonesian Predicates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Helen Jeoung
Helen Jeoung*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This research report discusses a set of Indonesian predicates exemplified by mau ‘want’ and suka ‘like’. I demonstrate with several diagnostics that these morphemes occur as either auxiliary or verb, and note that the availability of the auxiliary reading has been overlooked in recent literature. Since mau and suka belong to the set of so-called crossed control predicates, the lexical ambiguity discussed here has implications for potential analyses of crossed control sentences. I suggest that the auxiliary reading for mau, suka, and other predicates must be carefully ruled out before the existence of a crossed reading can be established.

Keywords

auxiliarymodalIndonesiancrossed controlbackward control

Information

Type
Research Report
Information
Language , Volume 96 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. e157 - e172
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

I thank my Indonesian consultants (alphabetized by first given name), Dina Maria, Isya Mahfud, and Maimuna, for providing examples and judgments. I am grateful to those who commented on early versions of this work, including Idan Landau, Julie Legate, Florian Schwarz, and the participants at the 22nd International Symposium on Malay and Indonesian Linguistics. Thanks to Mike Berger, Paul Kroeger, and Eric Potsdam for sharing recent work on this topic or answering questions about methodology. I also thank the Language referees for their questions and suggestions on this paper; their feedback has helped to clarify the argumentation herein.

References

Akbar, Farah. 2013. Malay morphosyntax: The role of meN-. Colchester: University of Essex dissertation.Google Scholar
Arka, I Wayan. 2002. Voice systems in the Austronesian languages of Nusantara: Typology, symmetricality and undergoer orientation. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/41058.Google Scholar
Arka, I Wayan. 2011. On modality and finiteness in Indonesian: Complexities of =nya nominalisation. Workshop on TAM Markers and Evidentiality in Indonesian Languages, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 73–89.Google Scholar
Arka, I Wayan. 2014. Double and backward control in Indonesian: An LFG analysis. Proceedings of the LFG '14 Conference, 26–46. Online: http://web.stanford.edu/group/cslipublications/cslipublications/LFG/19/papers/lfg14arka.pdf.Google Scholar
Arka, I Wayan, and Manning, Christopher. 2008. Voice and grammatical relations in Indonesian: A new perspective. Voice and grammatical relations in Austronesian languages, ed. by Austin, Peter K. and Musgrave, Simon, 45–69. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Berger, Mike. 2018. Indonesian crossed control: Expanding the typology of restructuring. West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) 36. 61–70. Online: http://www.lingref.com/cpp/wccfl/36/paper3447.pdf.Google Scholar
Chung, Sandra. 1976. On the subject of two passives in Indonesian. Subject and topic, ed. by Li, Charles N., 57–98. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo. 2006. Restructuring and functional heads: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 4. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Peter, Hermon, Gabriella; and Yanti, . 2008. Voice in Malay/Indonesian. Lingua 118. 1500–1553. DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2007.08.008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono. 1978. Sentence patterns of Indonesian. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Davies, William D. 2014. Describing Madurese crossed control. Argument realisations and related constructions in Austronesian languages: Papers from 12-ICAL, vol. 2, ed. by Arka, I Wayan and Indrawati, N. L. K., 369–83. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/12059.Google Scholar
Fukuda, Shin. 2007. On the control/raising ambiguity with aspectual verbs: A structural account. Studies in complement control, ed. by Stiebels, Barbara, 159–95. Berlin: Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft.Google Scholar
Gil, David. 2002. The prefixes di- and N- in Malay/Indonesian dialects. The history and typology of Western Austronesian voice systems, ed. by Wouk, Fay and Ross, Malcolm, 241–83. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Guilfoyle, Eithne, Hung, Henrietta; and Travis, Lisa. 1992. Spec of IP and Spec of VP: Two subjects in Austronesian languages. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 10. 375–414. DOI: 10.1007/BF00133368.10.1007/BF00133368CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeoung, Helen. 2017. On the number of voices in Madurese. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 10(1). 16–35. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/10524/52395.Google Scholar
Kamus besar Bahasa Indonesia, edisi kelima [Comprehensive Indonesian dictionary, 5th edn.]. 2016. Jakarta: Badan Pengembangan dan Pembinaan Bahasa, Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia. Online: https://kbbi.kemdikbud.go.id/.Google Scholar
Kaswanti Purwo, Bambang. 1984. Deiksis dalam Bahasa Indonesia. Jakarta: Balai Pustaka.Google Scholar
Kroeger, Paul, and Frazier, Kristin. 2019. Crossed-control in Malay/Indonesian as long distance passivization. Paper presented at the 26th meeting of the Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association, University of Western Ontario.Google Scholar
Kurniawan, Eri. 2013. Sundanese complementation. Iowa City: University of Iowa dissertation. DOI: 10.17077/etd.09n28b9j.10.17077/etd.09n28b9jCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legate, Julie Anne. 2014. Voice and v: Lessons from Acehnese. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9780262028141.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinnon, Timothy, Cole, Peter; and Hermon, Gabriella. 2011. Object agreement and ‘pro-drop’ in Kerinci Malay. Language 87. 715–50. DOI: 10.1353/lan.2011.0092.10.1353/lan.2011.0092CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Musgrave, Simon. 2001. Non-subject arguments in Indonesian. Melbourne: University of Melbourne dissertation.Google Scholar
Natarina, Ari. 2018. Complementation in Balinese: Typological, syntactic, and cognitive perspectives. Iowa City: University of Iowa dissertation. DOI: 10.17077/etd.1h90npxe.Google Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick. 1975. English aspectual verbs. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nomoto, Hiroki. 2008. A unified analysis of funny control. Paper presented at the 12th International Symposium on Malay/Indonesian Linguistics, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Nomoto, Hiroki. 2011. Analisis seragam bagi kawalan lucu. Isamu shoho: Tinta kenangan ‘Kumpulan esei bahasa dan linguistik‘, ed. by Nomoto, Hiroki, Ahmad, Zaharani, and Ridhwan, Anwar, 44–91. Jakarta: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.Google Scholar
Polinsky, Maria, and Potsdam, Eric. 2008. The syntax and semantics of wanting in Indonesian. Lingua 118. 1617–73. DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2007.08.005.10.1016/j.lingua.2007.08.005CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sato, Yosuke. 2010. The crossed-control construction and the syntactic role of passive morphology in Standard Indonesian. Online: https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/001177.Google Scholar
Sato, Yosuke, and Kitada, Shin-Ichi. 2012. Successive feature inheritance, θ-features and the crossed-control construction in Standard Indonesian. Online: https://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/001523.Google Scholar
Sneddon, James Neil. 1996. Indonesian: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sneddon, James Neil. 2006. Colloquial Jakartan Indonesian. (Pacific linguistics 581.) Canberra: The Australian National University.Google Scholar
Sneddon, James Neil, Adelaar, Alexander, Djenar, Dwi N.; and Ewing, Michael. 2012. Indonesian: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203720882CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vamarasi, Marit Kana. 1999. Grammatical relations in Bahasa Indonesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Wurmbrand, Susi. 2004. Two types of restructuring—Lexical vs. functional. Lingua 114. 991–1014. DOI: 10.1016/S0024-3841(03)00102-5.10.1016/S0024-3841(03)00102-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yanti. 2010. A reference grammar of Jambi Malay. Newark: University of Delaware dissertation.Google Scholar