As is to be expected, many declarative sentences have clauses in which the pre- dicate is a verbal element. What follows illustrates the various types. (Various aspects of verbal clauses, e.g. voice morphology and aspect, are treated in more detail in Chapter 9.)
4.1. Intransitive clauses
Clauses with stative intransitive (adjectival) verbs predicate some property of their sole argument. The standard word order for these clauses is subject - verb. (45) Kana' koros juwa penter.
child thin that smart ‘That skinny kid is smart.’ (46) Kopi reya manes.
coffee this sweet ‘This coffee is sweet.’ (47) Hadi lo' tenggi.
Hadi not tall ‘Hadi is not tall.’ (48) Kamar-ra berse. room-DEF clean
‘The room is clean.’
Adjectival predicates take no voice marking, but occur in their root form, as in (45-48). This large class of predicates includes the following, among many oth- ers: cellep ‘cold’, kene' ‘small’, kennyang ‘full’, koros ‘thin’, lapar ‘hungry’, nyaman ‘nice/delicious’, panas ‘hot’, raddin ‘beautiful’, raja ‘large’, and rosak ‘broken’.
Dynamic intransitive verbs consist of two classes, (1) verbs that describe actions that need not be under the control of the sole argument and (2) verbs that necessarily are under the volitional control of their argument. Both types denote a change of state or location of the subject. Examples of noncontrolled dynamic intransitives are given in (49-52).
(49) Prao-na Pa' Tono kerem. ship-DEF Mr Tono sank
(50) Ale' labu dhari korse. yngr.sibling fall from chair ‘Little Brother fell from the chair.’ (51) Bengko-na Bu Marhamah robbu. house-DEF Mrs Marhamah collapse
‘Bu Marhamah’s house collapsed.’ (52) Buku-na elang.
book-DEF disappear
‘The book is lost.’
Like adjectival predicates, noncontrolled dynamic intransitive verbs take no voice marking; thus kerem ‘sink’, labu ‘fall’, robbu ‘collapse’, and elang ‘dis- appear’ occur in clauses in their root form. Other verbs in this class include: ambu ‘stop’, dhapa' ‘arrive’, dhateng ‘come’, entar ‘go’, gaggar ‘fall’ (for inanimate objects), maso' ‘enter’, molae ‘begin’, mole ‘go home’, tedhung ‘sleep’, and toju' ‘sit (down)’. Stative intransitives share with these verbs lack of control by the subject over the state of affairs described by the predicate as well as lack of voice marking. In many languages, this lack of control is charac- teristic of unaccusative predicates (Perlmutter and Postal 1984; Levin and Rap- paport Hovav 1995). One might, therefore, take the lack of voice morphology as a diagnostic of unaccusativity in Madurese.
Dynamic intranstive verbs which imply that the subject controls the ac- tion are exemplified in (53-56).
(53) Na'-kana' rowa a-berka' ka toko.
RED-child that AV-run to store ‘Those kids ran to the store.’ (54) Guru-na ng-oca'.
teacher-DEFAV-speak
‘The teacher spoke.’ (55) Sengko' a-langngoy e tase'.
I AV-swim at sea
‘I swim in the sea.’ (56) Malem-ma Bapa' a-lako. night-DEF father AV-work
‘Last night Father worked.’
Other verbs in this class include: abber ‘fly’, bala ‘say’, jalan ‘walk’, kejung ‘sing’, lonca' ‘jump’ maen ‘play’, rangka' ‘creep’, tanya ‘ask’, and tangdang ‘dance’. These verbs can be classified as unergative, which cross-linguistically is consistent with intransitive predicates under the control of their sole argu- ment. The unaccusative/unergative classification is explored in more detail in Chapter 9 section 1.1.3.
In the neutral word order for intransitive clauses, the subject precedes the verb, as in the previous examples. However, the verb often precedes the subject for discourse-related reasons, as in the sentences in (57-60), which are taken from texts.2
(57) Ampon duka se a-nyama Ki Pratanu. already angry REL AV-name Ki Pratanu
‘Ki Pratanu was angry.’
(58) Lebat potpot Tandha Serrat, e baba-na gunong nojju dha' pass walk Tandha Serrat at under-DEF mountain AV.point to Klampes.
Klampes
‘Tandha Serrat went right around the mountain toward Klampes.’ (59) Mon la dhateng oreng Resbaja...
if alreadycome people Arosbaya ‘If the people from Arosbaya came,...’
(60) Tape maske bu' emban otaba bu' mongmong, lo' kobater rato. but though mother nanny or mother nursemaid not worry king ‘But because of the servants, the king was not worried.’
In (57), the adjectival predicate duka ‘angry’ precedes its subject se anyama Ki Pratanu ‘the one named Ki Pratanu’. In (58), the verb lebat ‘pass’ precedes its subject Tandha Serrat. The dynamic intransitive verb dhateng ‘come’ precedes its subject oreng Resbaja ‘Arobaya people’ in (59). And in (60), in the main clause lo' kobater rato ‘the king was not worried’, the verb kobater ‘worried’ precedes rato ‘king’, the subject.
4.2. Semantically-transitive statives
There is a class of verbs which are semantically transitive but syntactically in-
2Moehnilabib et al. (1979) describe the process of subject-predicate inversion with intransitive verbs and PP predicates.
transitive.3 These predicates describe the state of the subject that results from some external stimulus, that is, they characterize the experience of the subject. Thus, these verbs have an experiencer argument and a stimulus argument, which occurs as the object of a preposition. The basic word order is experiencer subject - verb - stimulus PP.
(61) Rudi parcaja dha' anom-ma. Rudi believe to uncle-DEF
‘Rudi believes his uncle.’
(62) Wati enga' dha' jawab-ba guru. Wati remember to answer-DEF teacher
‘Wati remembered the teacher’s answer.’ (63) Hasan baji' ka taretan-na.
Hasan hate to brother-DEF
‘Hasan hates his brother.’ (64) Atin tresna ka Deni.
Atin love to Deni ‘Atin loves Deni.’
The prepositions ka and dha' ‘to’ are those that mark the stimulus. For some speakers, this preposition can be omitted, but for others the structure is unac- ceptable. Examples (65-67) correspond to (61-63), respectively.
(65) %Rudi parcaja anom-ma. Rudi believe uncle-DEF
‘Rudi believes his uncle.’
(66) %Wati enga' jawab-ba guru. Wati remember answer-DEF teacher
‘Wati remembered the teacher’s answer.’ (67) %Hasan baji' taretan-na.
Hasan hate brother-DEF
‘Hasan hates his brother.’
However, not all verbs that appear to belong in this class permit preposition omission. The stimulus for peggel ‘angry’ (68), tako' ‘afraid’ (69), and busen
3 These predicates correspond to what are frequently identified as psychological predi- cates or ‘psych verbs’ in the theoretical literature (Belletti and Rizzi 1988, Levin 1993).
‘bored’ (70) can occur only with an overt preposition. (68) a. Ebu' peggel bi' Toni.
mother angry with Toni ‘Mother is angry with Toni.’ b. *Ebu' peggel Toni.
(69) a. Hosen tako' ka lar-olar. Hosen afraid to RED-snake
‘Hosen is afraid of snakes.’ b. *Hosen tako' lar-olar. (70) a. Ina busen bi' buku-na.
Ina bored with book-DEF
‘Ina is bored with her book.’ b. *Ina busen bukuna.
The difference appears to be that those verbs for which an overt stimulus is obligatory (65-67) allow preposition omission (for those speakers who accept the structure). The verbs that do not allow preposition omission (68-70) are those that can quite naturally occur without an overt stimulus.
(71) Ebu' peggel. mother angry ‘Mother is angry.’ (72) Ika tako'. Ika afraid ‘Ika is afraid.’ (73) Ina busen. Ina bored ‘Ina is bored.’
The obligatorily transitive verbs can also occur without an overt stimulus. How- ever, in these cases it is assumed that there is a null pronominal object that in- duces the state of affairs in the experiencer, as is reflected in the translations in (74-76).
(74) Rudi parcaja. Rudi believe
‘Rudi believes him.’ (75) Wati enga'.
Wati remember ‘Wati remembered it.’ (76) Hasan baji'.
Hasan hate ‘Hasan hates him.’
The sentences in (74-76) are common cases of null pronouns. (See Chapter 13 for more on null pronouns.) It is thus possible to identify subcategories of sta- tive predicates of experience. Those that are obligatorily transitive include: baji' ‘hate’, enga' ‘remember’, esto ‘love’, kasta ‘regret’, lebur ‘like’, loppa ‘forget’, ngarte ‘understand’, parcaja ‘believe’, tao ‘know’, tresna ‘love’, yaken ‘be sure’, and others.
4.3. Transitive clauses
Dynamic transitive verbs are both semantically and syntactically transitive in their active form. Semantically they can largely be characterized as those predi- cates which take an actor argument (that which initiates or carries out the action, prototypically an agent) and a theme (that which is affected by the action, proto- typically a patient). Syntactically, the basic order in a transitive clause is subject - verb - object, the object taking neither prepositional nor case marking. Mor- phologically, the verb obligatorily takes actor voice marking in the active, which in other works is taken to be the neutral form and which is what is of- fered by speakers in direct elicitation situations. The sentences in (77-80) illu- strate.
(77) Ebu' melle berras. mother AV.buy rice
‘Mother buys rice.’ (78) Embi' rowa ngekke' Ale'.
goat that AV.bite yngr.sibling
(79) Ita maca tang buku. Ita AV.read my book
‘Ita read my book.’ (80) Bu Yus noles sorat. Mrs Yus AV.write letter
‘Bu Yus wrote a letter.’
In each sentence the subject precedes the verb and initiates the action. The mor- phologically unmarked object follows the verb and is affected in some sense by the action. As can be expected, there is a large number of verbs that belong to this category. Voice marking on transitive verbs is discussed more thoroughly in Chapter 9 section 1.
4.4. Ditransitive clauses
Finally, there are a number of three-place verbs that occur as predicates of ac- tive clauses. Semantically, these verbs take an actor argument, a theme argu- ment, and a location or goal as a third argument. Syntactically they are identical to transitive verbs with the addition of a prepositional phrase (the location or goal argument). These sentences have a basic subject - verb - object - PP word order, and the verb obligatorily takes voice morphology. These properties are evident in the sentences in (81-83).
(81) Hadi ngerem paket ka Bambang. Hadi AV.send package to Bambang ‘Hadi sent a package to Bambang.’ (82) Sengko' nyaba' buku neng meja.
I AV.put book on table
‘I put the book on the table.’
(83) Bapa' a-berri' pesse dha' oreng se lapar. father AV-give money to man REL hungry
‘Father gave money to the hungry man.’
There is a small number of root verbs that fall into this category including bagi ‘give’, tambu ‘throw’, and a number of verbs of communication and others, e.g. nempak ‘kick’, that are optionally ditransitive. However, there are many derived verbs that act as predicates in ditransitive clauses. These are detailed in Chapter 10.