Morphosyntax of Balinese Reciprocal Constructions

Abstract

This study aims at analyzing the types and morphological forms of verbs used in Balinese reciprocal constructions. Data was obtained from Balinese speaking informants living in the island of Bali through observation method. The collected data was analyzed by deductive and inductive approaches so that clear description about reciprocal phenomenon of Balinese could be achieved. The result shows that reciprocal construction in Balinese can be divided into lexical, morphological, and syntactic reciprocal. Balinese has some verbs that lexically mean reciprocal so that constructions using such the verbs are called lexical reciprocal. Morphological reciprocal is a construction that means reciprocal when the verbs have particular morphological process (affixation and or reduplication). Affixes usually attached to the base to result reciprocal meaning are affix (ma-) and (ma-/-an). Meanwhile, syntactic reciprocal is a construction that may mean reciprocal if it has a syntactic element saling. Verb used in syntactic reciprocal may be base and derived verbs and the constructions will not mean reciprocal if the element saling is omitted from the constructions. Seen from the argument, Balinese reciprocal may be distinguished between reciprocal that has core and noncore arguments and reciprocal that has only core arguments.