Clauses 95 and 96 above are dependent serial verb constructions in which only one of the verbs has the inflection. In clause 95, the serial verbs carry the
inflection are the second verb bebat ‘go to the west’ and the nasal verb mbait ‘take’,
while the first verb lampaq ‘walk’ is bare form. In clause 96, the verb carries the
inflection is the nasal verb mboyaq ‘find’, while the first verb lalo ‘go’ and second verb
lampaq ‘walk’ cannot be inflected and no conjuction can be inserted.
Clauses 97 and 98 above are co-dependent serial verb constructions in which they share argument and the parts of the construction depend on each other. In clause
97, the OBJ of the matrix clause side ‘you’ is the SUBJ of the subordinate clause. In
clause 98, the OBJ of the matrix clause Ariq ‘Brother’ is the SUBJ of the subordinate
clause.
4.4. The Syntactic Structures of Sasak Serial Verb Constructions 4.4.1. Subject of Sasak Serial Verb Constructions
SUBJ is a core argument in a clause or a sentence. Linguists use some properties to prove SUBJ. Keenan and Comrie 1977 used three properties to prove SUB: canonical
order, relativization and control construction, as seen in the following examples:
99
Ijah lalo meli teri.
name go N.buy teri ‘Ijah is buying fishes’
100
a. Papuq tedem te-lungkup.
grandfather sleep prone ‘Grandfather is sleeping on her stomach’
b. Papuq saq tedem te-lungkup.
grandfather REL sleep prone ‘Grandfather who slept on her stomach’
101 a. Nie
i
dateng [__
i
nyinggaq kepeng.
3-S come borrow money
‘SHe lends some money’ b. Nie
i
dateng [kepeng __
i
nyinggaq 3-S come money borrow
‘SHe comes money to lend some’
The example of clause 99 above shows that SUBJ in Sasak always precedes the verb in a clause. Ijah
‘Ijah’ is the SUBJ of serial verbs lalo ‘go’ and meli ‘buy’. The example 100 is a relativization clause. The outcome of relativization shows in clause
100-b. SUBJ has relativization in clause 100-a is Papuq ‘Grandfather’. The clause
100-b shows that relativized in Sasak is marked by saq ‘who’ before the serial verb
tedem telungkup. Clause 101 shows that SUBJ Nie
‘SHe’ can be controlled. This explains that SUBJ Nie
‘SHe’ of subordinate verb can be controlled. However, any other argument except SUBJ cannot be controlled and unacceptable in Sasak as seen in clause 101-b.
The results of data analysis above show that SUBJ in Sasak has three properties which are 1 SUBJ of Sasak appears precede the verb or preverb in canonical order,
2 SUBJ can be tested by relativization, and 3 SUBJ can be controlled in control constructions.
4.4.2. Object of Sasak Serial Verb Constructions
Linguists use some properties to prove SUBJ cross-linguistically. Cole 1977 used two properties to prove OBJ: based on the position in constituent stucture, and based on the
ability to become SUBJ in a passive constructions. The second property is also used to differenciate OBJ from OBJ
in a clause, that the predicate needs three core arguments.
