Searching for Structure: The Problem of Complementation in Colloquial Indonesian Conversation (review)

While speakers of colloquial Indonesian can freely express the semantic-pragmatic idea of one clause providing conceptual framing for another, this variety of Indonesian does not actually possess morphosyntactic features to support the existence of complementation as a grammatical category. Using empirical data taken from conversations among native speakers, the author examines four different constructions that are often associated with the idea of complementation: juxtaposed clauses, the special use of bahwa, serial verbs, and epistemic expressions with enclitic -nya. None of these, Englebretson argues, can be characterized as grammaticalized complementation.

Thus in Ch. 2, while showing that juxtaposition is capable of handling what in other languages would be expressed as complementation, E demonstrates that colloquial Indonesian does not indicate grammatical subordination between the two clauses. In Ch. 3 he establishes that bahwa, which is often thought to be an equivalent of the complementizer that in a language like English, is actually a lexical device to introduce projections after either framing verbs, NPs, or neither. Hence bahwa is better understood as a local discourse marker rather than a complementizer. Ch. 4 demonstrates that there is no definable grammatical function in the use of serial verbs, which are traditionally analyzed as reduced complements, with the first verb treating the second as its argument. It is true that the first verb frequently expresses some kind of modality or manipulation, but this does not provide evidence for complementation. Judging from the prosodic and grammatical indications, verb serialization like that is better described as a single clause with a complex predicate. Ch. 5 deals with the epistemic constructions with -nya (sebetulnya ‘truly’, kayaknya ‘it seems that’) which have never been considered as grammatical complementation, but which, pragmatically and semantically speaking, fulfill this function. This construction is here explained as a framing device, whose function is to frame a clause in terms of epistemic modality, expressing the speaker’s source of knowledge (thus a kind of evidentiality) or a mental or emotional attitude, or characterizing the speaker’s attitude toward the relevance of the utterance for the conversational exchange. As such, this construction is very different from the traditional means of complementation even though its function is very similar. At best this construction can be characterized as a complementation strategy that links primary concepts like ‘say’, ‘think’, and ‘feel’ with the predicate.

E’s treatment of the lack of evidence for complementation in colloquial Indonesian has also contributed to the understanding of the nature of linguistic categories in general. He has shown that these categories are best considered as language particular and are to be studied on the basis of their manifestations in natural discourse.