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Article published In:
Variation and change in the languages of Indonesia
Edited by Maya Ravindranath Abtahian and Abigail C. Cohn
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 7:2] 2021
► pp. 120–141

Variation in Ampenan Sasak pronominal forms

| University of Hawai’i at Manoa

This study investigates the variation of pronominal forms in Sasak, an Austronesian language spoken in eastern Indonesia. The study marks the first variationist sociolinguistic work on Sasak. Using data from eight conversations between 15 non-noble speakers, pronominal forms were coded for whether they were realized as a free pronoun or a clitic. Further, the discourse was examined to identify the referents and to observe the pragmatic effect of the forms used. The results show clitics dominate the distribution. Further, the results demonstrate that a higher percentage of clitics are preferred with the basic form for first person referents, but speakers apply a different strategy for second person referents; speakers use first person plural and third person singular forms to address their interlocutor when triggered by a Face Threatening Act (see Brown & Levinson, 1987).

Keywords: Sasak, free pronouns, clitics, language variation, politeness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Pronouns in Indonesian languages
  • 3.Sasak
    • 3.1Social caste and language
    • 3.2Pronominal forms in Sasak
      • 3.2.1Pronominal forms in Ampenan Sasak
  • 4.Methods
    • 4.1Speakers
    • 4.2Data collection
    • 4.3Coding
    • 4.4Data analysis
  • 5.Results
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 6 October 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.20006.kha
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