Donnerstag, 11.30
In Steurtjestaal, a mixed language spoken within an orphanage on Java between 1895 and 1945, lexical categories are for the greater part drawn from Dutch, while functional categories in general are based on Malay (and some Javanese). The functional categories used in Steurtjestaal serve the same functions as they do in Malay, determining the structure of the clause and the noun phrase. In contrast, lexical categories appear in configurations that are not always in accordance with their Dutch lexical properties. This is explainable in view of the role of Malay syntactic structure in Steurtjestaal: in Malay lexical category membership varies according to how that element is used in discourse.
In this paper I investigate the use of the Malay-derived suffix -nya, which plays and important role in determining argument structure. Within the noun phrase it functions as either a definite marker denoting entailment, as a possessive, or as a (resumptive, anaphoric) third person pronoun. Furthermore, it serves as a topic marker, foregrounding the marked NP:
wan porsi-nya missien al di-kleiner maken
because portion-NYA maybe TMA PREF-smaller make
'because maybe the portion is already made smaller by then'
While -nya is regularly used as a pronoun, whether specific or resumptive, it also co-occurs frequently with Dutch pronouns, leading to double marking of the pronominal subject or object of the NP:
jij heet-nya wie
2s call-NYA who
'what is your name'
The marker -nya can be cliticized both to nominal, verbal, adverbial, adjectival and prepositional elements, which in general are drawn from Dutch. These Dutch-derived elements vary in their nominal and verbal properties according to their use in Malay syntactic structure. In this paper I will show how -nya contributes to the identification of lexical category membership of these elements.
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