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Javanese subjects and topics and psych verbs

Javanese subjects and topics and psych verbs The role and relevance of subjects and topics have long been debated for Western Austronesian languages. Both are necessary in Javanese. Data from psychological predicates and possessor constructions motivate a grammaticized sentence topic function, distinct from and in addition to subject. The data demonstrate that this topic does not coincide perfectly with the "focus" characteristic of Austronesian languages and that it plays a crucial role in accounting for asymmetries in relativization. The sentence topic proposed here is most closely aligned with Bresnan and Mchombo's (1987) TOPIC function, and thus Javanese potentially provides additional empirical support for such a notion. Javanese presents the following paradigm of "long-distance" relativization facts, which at first appear quite puzzling: (1) critaj sing Amir ero lek j bener story REL A know COMP true 'the story that Amir knows is true' (2) critaj sing Amir percaya lek { bener story REL A believe COMP true 'the story that Amir believes is true' (3) *crita! sing Amir ngira lek { bener story REL A AF.think COMP true (the story that Amir thinks is true) (4) *critai sing Amir m-bedhek lek j bener story REL A AF-guess COMP true (the story that Amir guesses is true) http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Linguistics - An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences de Gruyter

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References (42)

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Walter de Gruyter
ISSN
0024-3949
eISSN
1613-396X
DOI
10.1515/ling.1993.31.2.239
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The role and relevance of subjects and topics have long been debated for Western Austronesian languages. Both are necessary in Javanese. Data from psychological predicates and possessor constructions motivate a grammaticized sentence topic function, distinct from and in addition to subject. The data demonstrate that this topic does not coincide perfectly with the "focus" characteristic of Austronesian languages and that it plays a crucial role in accounting for asymmetries in relativization. The sentence topic proposed here is most closely aligned with Bresnan and Mchombo's (1987) TOPIC function, and thus Javanese potentially provides additional empirical support for such a notion. Javanese presents the following paradigm of "long-distance" relativization facts, which at first appear quite puzzling: (1) critaj sing Amir ero lek j bener story REL A know COMP true 'the story that Amir knows is true' (2) critaj sing Amir percaya lek { bener story REL A believe COMP true 'the story that Amir believes is true' (3) *crita! sing Amir ngira lek { bener story REL A AF.think COMP true (the story that Amir thinks is true) (4) *critai sing Amir m-bedhek lek j bener story REL A AF-guess COMP true (the story that Amir guesses is true)

Journal

Linguistics - An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciencesde Gruyter

Published: Jan 1, 1993

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