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The Sixth

INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON MALAY/INDONESIAN LINGUISTICS

3 - 5 August 2002

Nirwana Resort Hotel, Bintan Island, Riau, Indonesia


Possessives in Afrikaans and Varieties of Malay: How Are They Connected?
Hans den Besten
University of Amsterdam/ACLC & HIL
h.den.besten@hum.uva.nl

In the literature on the diachrony of Afrikaans, it is often claimed that the change from the Dutch resumptive possessive construction (PC) [ DPi - pronouni - NP ], as in (1), into the Afrikaans particled PC [ DP se NP ], as in (2), may be partially due to Pasar (or Bazaar) Malay-speaking slaves, who were accustomed to the punya construction. (Similar substrate influences are being assumed for the [ DP di NP ] construction of Khoekhoe ('Hottentot') and the [ DP su NP ] construction of Asian Creole Portuguese.)

(1) { Jan z'n / Marie d'r } boek   [Dutch]
  { John his/ Mary her } book = '{ John's/ Mary's } book'
 
(2) { Jan se/ Marie se } boek   [Afrikaans]
  { John POSS/ Mary POSS } book = 'id.'

After having consulted colonial grammars of Malay (to find descriptions of Pasar Malay), I have came to the conclusion that that idea is wrong, or at least not precise enough - the main problem being that the semantics of the possessor phrase of the Malay punya construction and the Afrikaans se construction differ wildly: [+animate] in Pasar Malay, [±concrete] in Afrikaans. Nevertheless, Malay varieties have strongly influenced Afrikaans, so why not in this case? Possible answers to this question may run as follows:

(a)The real influence came from the Malay nya-construction ([ N-NYA DP]). However note that this presupposes a 'construct state' analysis for the nya construction (e.g. [[Ni+NYAj]k  DPj   tk  [NP ti … ]]) as well as quite some sophistication on the part of the Malay-speaking slaves.
 
(b)The real influences came from the Eastern Malay punya construction and from the constructions with agreeing particles as can be found in the languages of Eastern Indonesia. After all, the majority of the Indonesian slaves in South Africa hailed from the eastern parts of Indonesia.
 
(c)A combination of (a) and (b).

The above proposals and considerations will be evaluated against the background of a theory that analyzes prenominal possessive constructions as instances of a universal structure of DP-internal possessive predication (cf. work by Mirjam van Staden).


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