Date: Thu, 23 Apr 1998 16:28:46 +0200 Sender: owner-bahasa@auckland.ac.nz Subject: Re: kata depan > Has anyone done some study on Indonesian prepositions in detail, either > syntactically or semantically? I'd like to have some information on that. > Are the prepositions categorized as adverbs? What determines the > categorization? Can someone recommend me some literature on the Indonesian > prepositions to read? Thanks a lot.I touched on this indirectly when classifying the locatives together with the nouns in the hyperclass of non-personal nominals. This latter was subdivided as follows:
,-a count noun (batu, mobil, manusia, kucing, etc)
|-b mass noun (air, pasir, beras, etc)
,-1. nouns -|-c abstract n. (kedatangan, kehormatan, etc)
| |-d collective n. (kakak-adik, sendok-garpu, etc)
| '-e anominal n. (jati, pari, gelatik, kayuputih,
| senin, Nil, Merapi, Perancis, etc)
|
--|-2. pro-noun (demonstrative & interrogative pronouns ini, itu, apa/mana)
|
|-3. locatives
|
'-4. pro-locative (interogative locative pronoun mana)
The locatives were subdivided into:
(a) common: dalam, luar, atas, bawah, depan, belakang,
samping, dekat, tengah
(b) orientational: kiri, kanan, selatan, timur, utara, barat, tenggara,
timur-laut, barat-laut, barat-daya
(c) riverine: hulu, hilir, udik
(d) collateral: sebelah
All the four classes of non-personal nominals shared the following feature: they could potentially be used as qualitative (non-possesive) attribute,
e.g. rumah batu, pintu air, tamu kehormatan, cinta kakak-adik,
minyak kayuputih, Pasar Senin, kuda Nil, etc
barang ini, rumah itu, macam apa
tembok dalam, pintu kiri, Asia Tenggara, daerah hulu, penduduk hilir
kamar sebelah
Of course, with the exception of the anominal nouns (1e), they can also
be used in the "conventional" nominal function:
dalamnya putih, luarnya merah, apa itu? (manggis);
mereka berlayar ke utara;
di sebelah saya duduk seorang kakek tua.
The personal nominals (proper names, personal pronouns, pronominalized kinship terms, pronominalized titulations), when serving as attribute, invariably do so as possessive attribute. they cannot serve as qualitative attribute.
What has this got to do with prepositions? (I mean apart from the fact that some of the common locatives can nowadays, particularly in colloquial speech, be used as prepositions).
Only three prepositions seem to combine with a following locative: di, ke, dari
Only one prepositon resembles the locatives in that it may be preceded by one of these three prepositions: pada (di pada, kepada, daripada). Interestingly, this seems also to be the only preposition which may be preceded by the locative dalam (dalam pada itu)
This seems to suggest classifying the prepositions into three groups: 1. di, ke, dari; 2. pada; 3. the rest.
Now, the locatives could be shown above to be nominals. How about the prepositions. I think we have a convenient instrument here, in that nominals and verbs are negated differently, the former with bukan, the latter with tidak.
Nominals: dia guru / dia bukan guru;
ini rumah / ini bukan rumah;
bukan atasnya, melainkan bawahnya yang berkarat;
bukan hulu sungai itu, melainkan hilirnya yang banyak buayanya.
Verbs dia makan / dia tidak makan;
makan terlalu banyak bisa bikin orang sakit perut /
/ tidak makan seharian menyebabkan kami merasa lapar;
makannya tak habis-habis
/ tidak makannya anak-anak menyebabkan ibu makin khawatir.
In this regard, some prepositions are like verbs:
dia tidak di Jakarta, dia tidak ke Surabaya
But most other ones are like nominals:
dia bukan dari Maluku
buku ini bukan untuk dia
pekerjaanya diselesaikan bukan oleh yang ditugaskan.
But pada seems again to be unusual in that it sometimes takes tidak:
Kunci gudang tidak pada saya, entah siapa yang membawanya.
but sometimes, it seems that it can take either of the two
Tanggung jawab itu letaknya tidak/bukan pada kalian.
I'm not quite sure, what the currently preferred usage is, or whether this reflects some dialectal contrast.