Gender Person Indonesian Grammatical Categories

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2.7.2 Gender

Catford in Baker 1992: 95 says that “the gender dimension is absent from in Bahasa Indonesia”. However, there are some deflations of nouns, which point to feminine and masculine as proposed by Alwi 2003: 235-237 as follows: 1 Deflation of noun is with –wan -wati. Suffix –wan has allomorph –man and –wati. Allomorph –wati used to point feminine. For example, a feminine worker is called karyawati, meanwhile a masculine worker called karyawan. In evolution of Bahasa Indonesia, people start to use form of –wan to point both masculine and feminine. If we want to point to feminine, we use –wati. In other words, wartawati is a feminine journalist, but wartawan can point both masculine and feminine. 2 Deflation of noun with –at -in and –a-i In Bahasa Indonesia, there is a small group of nouns which is deflated by adding suffix –at and –in which the meanings related to sex differences or number. Table 2.1 below gives the examples of deflation of –at and –in in Bahasa Indonesia that reflect masculine and feminine. Singularmasculine Singularfeminine Pluralmasculine - feminine muslim muslimat muslimin mukmin mukminat mukminin - hadirat hadirin Besides the examples above, we also found form which the difference is only between phoneme a for masculine and i for feminine in the end of word. They are in table 2.2 below: 31 Masculine Feminine dewa dewi putra putri pemuda pemudi mahasiswa mahasiswi As does with –wan and –wati, there is tendency to use form of i to point feminine, meanwhile form of a to point both masculine and feminine. For example: 28 Sebagai putra bangsa, Sri Mulyani mengabdikan dirinya demi kemajuan ekonomi Indonesia.

2.7.3 Person

Catford 1965 as quoted by Baker 1992: 95 explains that “Bahasa Indonesia has a nine-term pronoun system where English has only seven”. “Translating pronouns from Bahasa Indonesia into English will frequently involve loss of information along the dimensions in question” Baker 1992: 96. Bahasa Indonesia also has person category and the most common distinction is same as English that is first, second, and third person. According to Alwi 2003: 249, here is person category in Bahasa Indonesia: 32 Table 2.3 Person Category in Bahasa Indonesia Person Meaning Singular Plural Neutral Exclusive Inclusive First Saya, aku, ku-, -ku - Kami kita Second Engkau, kamu, Anda, dikau, kau-, - mu Kalian, kamu sekalian, Anda sekalian - - Third Ia, dia, beliau, -nya mereka - - Bahasa Indonesia has a formality politeness dimension in the person system term and modes of address which can be used to express familiarity or deference in a similar way. Alwi 2003: 250 defines three parameters used as measurement to use the category of person in Indonesia, as follows: 1 age, 2 social status, and 3 intimacy. The examples are: 29 Adik bertanya kepada paman, “Paman, bolehkah saya ikut ke rumah paman?” Saya: is used by anyone to anyone, in close conversation such as family; 30 Kata adik kepada teman sekelasnya,”Kemarin aku tidak masuk sekolah karena sakit.” Aku: is used to close friends, younger, lower social status and position. There is no agreement of verbs related to person category in Indonesia, for example: 31 Saya mengirim pesan itu, 32 Kalian mengirim pesan itu. 33

2.7.4 Tense and Aspect