Friday, July 3, 2009

Comparison between English and Indonesian Inflections

There are five signals of syntactic structures; word order, prosodic patterns, function words, inflections, and derivational contrast. In this case, the topic that is going to be presented is inflections particularly about comparison between English and Indonesian inflections. Inflection is a change of word by adding inflectional morphemes (atomic meaning units) to indicate grammatical function (i.e., case, number, person, grammatical gender, word class, mood, mode, and tense). The word inflection itself comes from traditional Latin grammar that is from the root “flect”. The meaning of “flect” is related with the meaning of “flex” in English that means “bend”. The meaning reflects the image of bending or changing a shape of a word so that it will fit in certain position within sentences.

There are some languages add inflectional morphemes to words. These languages is called inflectional languages. In addition, the inflectional morphemes can be added into words through several different ways, they are:

1. Affixing

First, inflectional morphemes can be added by affixing that is by simply adding the morphemes onto the words without any changes of the root.

Examples : dog → dogs

watch → watched

2. Reduplication

Second, inflection can be created by doubling all part of a word or a part of a word.

Examples : rumah → rumah-rumah

kuda → kuda-kuda

3. Alternation

Third, inflectional morphemes also can be added into words by alternation. It means that one sound in the root is exchanged for another sound.

Examples : sing → sang → sung

foot → feet

4. Stress, pitch, and tone

Fourth, in this case, there are no sounds or morphemes added or changed, but the stress, pitch, and tone is changed.

Examples : a record (noun, stressed on the first syllable) vs. to record (verb, stressed on the last)

This explanation below is an explanation of English inflections. The inflections presented here is just the common or regular form of inflections in English.

a. Inflection of Verbs

The inflection of English verbs are briefly presented in the table below.

Form

Affixes

Examples

Third person singular

-s

- She writes a letter

- Andy talks to Jemmy

Past tense

-ed

- I walked to him and said “Good Morning”.

- Suddenly, she approached her mother.

Past participle

-ed

- I had talked to him this morning.

- She has walked for three hours.

Present participle

-ing

- She was sitting on the floor.

- I am not smoking.

*the inflection of verbs presented here is just the common or regular form of inflection of English verbs.

b. Inflection of Plurals

The inflections of plural forms are usually ends in –s. For example, dog → dogs, cat → cats, lion → lions, and book → books. For some words, such as miss, mash, and match, they are ended with –es. Then for some words ending with consonant+y, the plural form ended with –ies because the –y changed into -i. In addition, there are some irregular forms of plurals, such as goose → geese, man → men, and mouse → mice.

c. Inflection of Possessive

The possessive is often indicated by attaching an apostrophe followed by an “s. In American English, a singular noun that already ends in "s", just added by apostrophe. Possessive also can be expressed through possessive adjective (my, your, our, his, her, its, their) and possessive pronoun (mine, yours, ours, his, hers, its, theirs).

For example: This bag is Andy’s bag.

That book is Susie’s book.

d. Infection of Adjectives

The inflections of adjectives can be seen from comparative and superlative forms.

- Comparative form

a. Ending with –er.

For example: - Sita runs slower than Rini.

- Toni is taller than Budi.

b. Using more.

For example: - Komang is more beautiful than Atut.

- Going to Lovina is more interesting than going to City Park.

- Superlative form

a. Ending with –est.

For example: - Mount Himalaya is the highest mountain in the world.

- Doni is the tallest boy in class B.

b. Using most.

For example: - Ubud is the most attractive view in Bali.

- Sahayana is the most beautiful woman is that village.

All of the inflections presented above are the inflections of English. Now, the explanation below is about inflections of Indonesian.

a. Inflections of Verbs

In English, the inflections of verbs occur when the verbs follow the third person singular and to show tenses. In Indonesian, there is no inflections of verbs occur. In Indonesian, there is no rule to change the words by adding inflectional morphemes in order to indicate grammatical function. The comparison between English and Indonesian inflections of verbs are presented below.

- Third person singular, for example:

English : Budi writes a letter

Indonesian : Budi menulis surat (no inflection)

- Past tense, for example:

English : Budi wrote a letter yesterday

Indonesian : Budi menulis surat kemarin (There is no inflection. However, to indicate past tense, it is added by adverb of time).

- Past participles, for example:

English : Budi have walked for three hours

Indonesian : Budi telah berjalan selama tiga jam (There is no inflection in the verb “berjalan”. However, to indicate the tense, it uses “telah” and “selama”).

- Present participles, for example:

English : Budi was walking on the sidewalk

Indonesian : Budi sedang berjalan di trotoar (There is no inflection in the verb “berjalan”. However, to indicate the tense, it uses “sedang”).

b. Inflections of Plurals

Inflections of plural forms in Indonesian often occur through reduplication. For example:

- Rumah-rumah di Jalan Ahmad Yani itu terlihat begitu mewah dan tertata rapi.

- Kuda-kuda itu segera dilepaskan dari kandangnya.

The reduplication in ”rumah-rumah” and “kuda-kuda” indicate that the objects are more than one.

c. Inflections of Possessive

The inflections of possessive can be indicated by indicated by –ku, -mu, and –nya although sometime these form cannot be used.

Example:

- Tas di meja itu adalah tasku (aku → ku)

- Pencil yang tergeletak di lantai itu bukan pencilmu (kamu → mu)

- Bola itu adalah bolanya (dia→ nya)

- Bola itu adalah punya Tommy (In this case, -nya cannot be used because it mentions the name of the owner. However, in English, it is possible to say “The ball is Tommy’s).

d. Inflections of Adjectives

Indonesian has inflections of adjectives although it seems that it is rarely used in formal situation. For example:

English : smaller, bigger, taller, older.

Indonesian : kecilan, gedean, tinggian, tuaan.

e. Inflections to Show Gender

Like in English, Indonesian also has inflections that used to show gender. Commonly, the inflectional morphemes for male is –a, and for female is –i.

English : steward and stewardess

Indonesian : pramugara dan pramugari, pemuda dan pemudi

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