Non-subject arguments in Indonesian

Abstract

The grammatical function subject can be identified reliably in Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian), but the same is not true of other clause-level nominal constituents in the language. The tests proposed in previous studies for identifying an object grammatical function turn out to be unreliable and inconsistent when the full range of data is considered. This thesis attempts to clarify the problem by examining non-subject arguments in Indonesian in the theoretical framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar. Both the properties associated with the various types of argument and the means by which they are licensed in clauses turn out to be problematic. Two argument verbs appear in a range of clause types which are related in interesting ways. I argue that it is possible to give a coherent analysis of the system as a whole, treating it as the basic transitive system of the language, when certain relationships are recognised as morphological rather than syntactic. This analysis also reveals similarities between Indonesian and more conservative Austronesian languages such as those of the Philippines. Another type of clause, sometimes referred to as the ‘adversative verb’ clause type shares an important property with one of the types of transitive clause, that of allowing an oblique argument to appear without a licensing preposition if it is adjoined to the verb which governs it.