Ambonese Malay

Pronouns and Person Markers

In Ambonese Malay, personal pronouns typically have a full form, as well as another one or more shortened and/or variant forms. The pronouns vary in terms of number, that is singular and plural, as well as clusivity, such as exclusive forms, i.e. forms that exclude the addressee, and inclusive forms, i.e. forms that include the addressee. Such distinction is relatively typical of Austronesian languages. The following table provides a summary of all the pronouns found in Malay Ambon:

Personal Pronouns

Etymology

A number of observations can be made from the pronouns of Ambonese Malay, which demonstrate etymology of certain pronouns:

1) There is a number of pronouns that are historically compounded. They are:

Bat'ong

Derives from beta 'I (1SG) + orang 'people; man'

Kat'ong

Derives from *kita 'we (1PL) + orang 'people; man'

Dorang

Derives from dia 'he; she; it (3SG) + orang 'people; man'

2) The 2nd Person singular form ose is derived from Portuguese pronoun voce, meaning 'you; thou'.

3) The 2nd Person singular form ale is derived from a native language.

Politeness

Similarly to other Austronesian languages, such as Malay and Indonesian, the 2nd person singular and one of the 3rd person singular pronouns in Ambonese Malay vary in their degree of politeness. They are summarised in the following table:

It is also important to note that although in Malay Ambon the 1st person singular form Beta, is the standard form, in Classical Malay, it is used only by royal persons speaking to equals of rank.

Syntactic Positions

As previously mentioned, Malay Ambon pronouns consist of a full and one or more variant form. Full forms occur in every syntactic position, variant form have a more restricted distribution and may be functionally different. The following table summarises the set of full personal pronouns plus (in brackets) their variant forms according to context and syntactic function:

Personal Pronouns and their Syntactic Function

From this table it follows that two factors determine whether a personal pronoun can be shortened: syntactic construction and syntactic position:

Except for the first person singular beta, first person plural kat'ong and third person singular dia, all pronouns can be shortened in one-word sentences. Third person singular neuter akang cannot form a one-word sentence altogether.

In clauses all personal pronouns in Subject position may be shortened, except for third person singular neutral akang.

In clauses all personal pronouns in Object position may be shortened, except for first person singular beta, first person plural kat'ong, second person ale and third person singular dia.

Likewise, as preposition object all personal pronouns except for beta, ale, kat'ong and dia may be shortened.

These facts show that se, os 'you', dong 'you', ont'o, ant'o, ant'u 'he; she' and dong 'they' have developed into doublets which are functionally (but not semantically) on a par with their full forms, while other short forms (bet, al, kang, ang) are phonological variants with a more restricted distribution.

It is also important to note a number of syntactic variations within the functions of personal pronouns in Malay Ambon:

1) The 3rd person single dia 's/he; it' can be shortened to di or de when it is in Subject position, or when it is head of a Noun Phrase (NP) in object position.

2) The 3rd person single antua (and angtua, ontua, ongtua) is also a modifier of head nominals in a phrase, thereby adding an aspect of deference. It adds a feature respect.

Examples:

(1) Ant'o Onggo 3S O. Mr. Onggo (2) Antua parangpuan sana tu 3S woman yonder that the woman overthere

3) The third form, akang, is a neater pronoun 'it', which also functions as a determiner. This form links up with the demonstratives ini and itu for deictic reference: it occurs as a single attribute before nouns, and in combination with postnominal tu.

Examples:

(1) Akang barang tu 3Sn things that those goods (2) Akang gunting di mana? 3Sn scissors where Where are the scissors?

4) The short form of dorang, which is dong, also functions as a modifier in NPs to create collective plurals.

Examples:

(1) mama dong mother 3P mother and the others (i.e. the children, her family, friends, etc.) (2) Okto dong O. 3P Okto and people who are like him (3) Anis dong A. 3P Anis and his friends

Reduplication

Reduplication with personal pronouns is not frequent. The following examples denote a concept 'referent of pronoun plus persons who are alike':

Examples:

(1) De seng datang lia kat'ong-kat'ong 3S not come see Red#1P He doesn't come to visit people like us (2) Macang ose-ose bagini seng bisa dapa akang kind Red#2S like this not can get 3Sn People like you now can't get it