Ketut Artawa‘Some topic’ in Balinese*
Lecture at ILCAA, 17 November 2011.
SUMMARY
1. Introduction
The topic on „Some topic‟ in Balinese is organized into two parts: (i) the socio-culturalaspect and (ii) the grammatical aspect of Balinese. Balinese is grouped under the sub-branch ofWestern Malayo-Polynesian of the Austronesian language family as shown below.

2. The socio-cultural aspect of Balinese

The socio-cultural aspects deal with the types of the speech styles (levels) that Balinese
has and how these styles are used. Some writers divide Balinese speech styles into: low, middle
and high levels, but based on my study, the speech styles in Balinese are best described into two:
low and high styles. This is due to the fact that different speech styles are not always shown insyntax. Balinese speech styles are mostly lexically coded. However, not every word has three
distinct forms in order to show the different speech styles. The largest number of Balinese words
can be categorized into „neutral‟ forms. This means that these words can be used in differentstyles. Being lexically determined speech styles, there are certain classes of words that play asignificant role. Those classes of words are from closed classes, which can be referred to as„function word classes‟, which include pronominal systems, deictic words, and modal adverbs asshown in the tables below. The use of the right choice of the functions words will help thespeakers to communicate appropriately even though they do not know or do not recall at the timeof speaking, the high style of the words, they can combine the „neutral‟ words with suitablefunction words. For instance in order to say the English expression in Balinese: „this place‟, there
are two possible ways, that is, either using the low style or high style of Balinese.
low stylehigh styletongos-eene

genah-enikiplace-DEF

thisplace-DEF

thisThe third option, which can be used in a high style, is tongos-e niki. In this particular example,
for instance, the word for place is a low style word, but the deictic word belongs to the high style.
The other possibility is that a given word does not have different forms for a particular meaning.
If there is only a single form a certain meaning, the styles will be shown by the function word
being used.

Table1 Balinese pronominal system
Category

Low

highFirst

kaitiang

oketitiang

icang iraga
SecondThirdIbaragannecaijeronenyai

I RatuIa

ipundane
ida

Table 2 Balinese deictic systems
Category

Close

Farlow
Deictic articles

ene/ne‘this’

ento‘that’

Deictic mannerkene ‘like this’

keto ‘ like that’

Locative „pronouns‟

dini ‘here’

ditu ‘there

Verbs of motion

mai ‘come here’

kemo ‘go there’

Deictic articles

punikipunikaDeictic manner

sapunikisapunika

Locative „pronouns‟derikiderika

Verbs of motion

merikimerikaNarrative deictic

iriki

irikahighTable 3 Balinese modal adverbs
StylesLowHigh

Accomplishedsuba/ba ‘already’sampun/apun ‘already’Not yet accomplishedtondendurung/dereng

Process of being

enu/nukari/kantun

Intention to accomplish

lakar

jagi/jaga

It is necessary to note here that culturally being indirect is being more polite in Balinese.
The third person pronoun is used to address the second person in a direct formal meeting as
shown in (a) and the example (b) is the equivalent of the high style in the low styles. In this casecai „you‟, as the second person pronoun is used.

HighInggih, ida dane (s/he) sane banget bantining titiang (I). Lugrayang titiang nyelanggalah ajebos, wenten jagi sane kauningang titiang (I)ring Ida dane sareng sami (all)LowNah, cai (you) ajak makejang, baang cang (I) ngangon galahe akejep. ada ane lakarorangang cang (I) teken cai (you) ajak onya (all)

3. Balinese Grammatical aspects
For the grammatical aspects, the focus is given on valency classes and the result of theanalysis on valency classes will be used as a basis for compiling dictionary of velency ofBalinese.

3.1 Clause structure and voice

Intransitive clauseAnak-ecenik entongelingChild-DEF small thatcry„The child cried‟

Transitive clauseAnak-ecenik ento

meli

bola

Child-DEF small thatbuyball„The child bought a ball‟

For types of voices are known in Balinese as shown below

a. Actor-voice (AV) Construction
Tiang meliumah anyar

Ihouse newAV-buy„I bought a new house.‟b. Undergoer Voice (UV) construction
Umah anyar entobeli tianghouseUV.buy

new thatI„I bought the new house.‟c. Passive construction
Umah

anyar

ento

kabelihousenewthat

PASS-buy I„The new house was bought by me‟d.

Resultative construction
Umah

anyar

ento

ma-belihousenewthat

RES-buy„The new house was bought‟

3.2 Verbal Morphology

tiangOne peculiar feature of the Balinese verbal lexicon is the existence of the bound root
called “precategorial”. While there are a fair number of verbs that are associated with one or twobasic valency patterns without derivation, there are also a large number of forms that cannot be
used without a derivational affix and as such whose valency value is not determined until aderivational affix is selected.
Affixes that are relevant here are verbal affixation. Verbal affixes in Balinese are ma-. N,-in and –ang. Two examples of verbal derivational process in Balinese with free and bound base(precategorial) are given in the following table.
Table 4 Free base
BaseEjoh ‘far’

N--in-ang(forming an(forming a(forming aintransitive)

transitive verb)

transitive verb)

ngejoh‘far from’ejoh-in‘to be farfrom’ejoh-ang‘to make far’ngejohinngejohang

The verbal morphological process in Balinese in the above table is used to show that thethe verb forms: ngejohin and ngejohang are not derived from the intransitive ngejoh, but theNasal prefix (N-) is attached to the transitive verb form ejohin and ejohang. These transitiveverbs are derived from the base form, ejoh.
Let us take the form embah „flow‟. In order for this form to function syntactically, it musttake the prefix m- or the transitive suffix -in or –ang as shown in table below.

Table 5 Precategorial baseBasema--in-ang(forming an(forming a(forming aintransitivetransitive verb)

transitive verb)verb)

Embahmembah‘precategorial’‘to flow’embah-in‘to flood withwater’embah-ang‘to make thewater flor’ngembahin(1)*Yeh-esedengWater-DEF ASP

embah

ke carik-e

flow

to rice filed-DEF

ngembahang„The water is flowing into the rice field‟
(2)

Yeh-e

sedengWater-DEF ASP

membahke carik-e

flow

to rice filed-DEF„The water is flowing into the rice field‟(3)

Iangembah-ang

yehkecarik-ne

3SG

flow-CAUSwatertorice filed-3SGPOSS„He caused the water to flow to his ricefield‟(4)

Iangembah-in

carik-neyeh

3SGflow-LOC

rice filed-3SGPOSS water„He flooded his rice field with the water‟
The precategorial form cannot be used in syntax before a verbal affix is added. Thus the example
in (1) is not grammatical because the predicate of this sentence is filled by a precategorial form.

3.3 Valency classes
The –in suffix in Balinese is used in deriving locative applicative forms with a variety oflocational meanings such as a locus of both static and dynamic events, a goal location (includinga recipient goal), and a source location. Contrary to the -in derivation that aligns a Groundexpression with the Object, the -ang derivation aligns a Figure expression with the Object.
When semantically bi-/trivalent verbs are precategorial, they typically allow both -in and -ang
derivations and their attendant alignment patterns. However, when verbs are non-precategorial,
the basic, non-derived forms typically represent the alignment pattern of either -in or -ang
derived forms; hence they typically have only one derivation either in -in or -ang. The Balinesetransitive/ditransitive alternation patterns can be classified into five groups of derivational
possibilities shown in the following table
Verb Classes and Alignment Patterns

Alignment:

GR=OBJ>FIG=OBL/OBJ(Locative pattern)

FIG=OBJ>GR=OBL(Causative pattern)

Basic verb class (A):basic form

basic forms

Basic verb class (B):basic form

-ang forms

Basic verb class (C):-in forms

basic forms

Basic verb class (C‟):*-in forms

basic forms

Basic verb class (D):Precategorial verbs:

basic forms-ang forms-in forms

basic forms-in form-ang forms

In Balinese basic monovalent verbs allow an intransitive expression without undergoing aderivation and they are divided into two classes; (i) those taking the nasal or ma- marking for
intransitive verbs and (ii) those taking a zero marking. The intransitive-transitive patterns in
Balinese can be distinguished into three derivational processes.
Intransitive-transitive pattern A : basic intransitive-ang causative transitive

Intransitive-transitive pattern B : basic: Intransitive-in locative transitive-ang causative transitive

Precategorial-intransitive/ transitive C :ma- derived: Intransitive-in derived transitive-ang derived transitive

3.4 Valency-change
Valency increasing and decreasing (reduction) process in Balinese can be summarized asfollows. The productivity of the process of a valency reduction mechanism is examined bycomparing a resultative derivation to that of the passivization process of the language. The
resultative voice type appears to be less productive in reducing valency compared to the passivevoice. The valency increasing property of the -in locative applicative and the -ang causative isalso limited to a varying degree. Especially noteworthy is the impossibility of combining thesewith another derivational process. First, the -in locative applicative cannot increase valency of
ma-derived forms. The alignment pattern of -ang derived causatives is the same as the basic verb

pattern of Class B verbs which show the -ang derived alternate pattern in which a Figure
expression is aligned with the Object. However, -ang derived causatives like „kill‟ (mati-ang)and „break‟ (belah-ang) do not undergo further -ang derivation (e.g. *mati-ang-ang „kill‟ ) withthe alternate alignment pattern where a Figure expression is aligned with the OBJ.
Another derivation that one would expect to increase valence is the benefactive derivation.
Like many other languages, the Balinese benefactive construction shares the morphology withthe morphological causative and involves the -ang suffix. As in many other languages, thebenefactive applicative is largely limited to situations involving transfer of an object to thebeneficiary, and as such the benefactive derivation involves basic transitive verbs of procurement
and production. The -ang benefactive construction is, thus, different from the Ground Object
construction effected via -in derivation in its alignment pattern; in the former what is alignedwith the Object is a beneficiary, construed differently from the Ground Object of the latter. It is
most likely that the -ang benefactive construction in Balinese is an extension of the -ang
causative construction.
4. Conclusion
The -in/-ang derivations are tightly integrated into the alternation paradigm of bi/trivalent verbs as set out in in this study. And the limitation in the valency increasing/reducing
property of ma-/-in/-ang derivations are perhaps due to their lexical derivational nature, while
the syntactic passive conversion reduces valency productively.

References
Artawa, Ketut. 1994. Ergativity and Balinese Syntax. Ph.D. thesis. La Trobe University.
Arka, I Wayan. 2003. Balinese Morphosyntax: A Lexica-Functional Approach. (PacificLinguistics 547), Canberra: Australian National University.
Croft, William. 1991. Syntactic Categories and Grammatical relations: The Cognitive
Organization of Information. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
DeLancey, Scott. 2001. Lectures on Functional Syntax. 2001 LSA Summer Institute, UC
Santa Barbara.

Shibatani, Masayoshi and Prashant Pardeshi. 200. The causative continuum. In M. Shibatani(ed.) The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation. Amsterdam:John Benjamins. 85-126.
Shibatani, Masayoshi and Ketut Artawa. 2007. The middle voice in Balinese In S.
Iwasaki, A. Simpson, K. Adams and P. Sidwell (eds.) SEALS XIII: Papers from the 13th
Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. Pacific Linguistics, Canberra:
Australian National University. 241-263.
Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

*Note: the research on Valency classes in Balinese is a joint research with Prof. M. Shibatani
form the Linguistics Department, the Rice University, USA.