Grammatical relations in Javanese : a short description

Abstract

This sub-thesis presents a description of grammatical relations in Javanese. The description is presented within the framework of relational based view in which the notions of grammatical relations such as subjects, objects are treated as labels of relations in a network. Some syntactic tests are used to identify grammatical relations in Javanese, and the result is that grammatical relations in Javanese can be classified into four classes: subjects, objects, second objects, and obliques. Using the notions of grammatical relations, three syntactic processes: passives, applicatives, and causatives are described. In terms of relation-changing processes, there is only a single rule of passive in Javanese; what is generally called canonical passives and object preposing constructions are variants of a single construction. This supports Kana's (1986) analysis of passives in Bahasa Indonesia, a language genetically related to Javanese. In the syntactic processes of applicative and causative, two suffixes -ake and -i play a crucial role.