Grammatical Analysis of Balinese Adjectives

Abstract

This study aims at describing the types of Balinese adjectives, constructions of adjective phrases, and syntactic functions of adjectives. Data was obtained from Balinese speakers living in the island of Bali using Balinese in their daily life. The form of Balinese adjectives is divided into monomorphemic and polymorphemic adjectives, and polymorphemic adjectives can be classified into adjectives with affixes, compound adjectives, and reduplicated adjectives. Meanwhile, adjective phrases in Balines can be constructed by adjectives + adverbs and adjectives + unique morphemes. Adjectives can be also as the base of derived verbs of intransitive, transitive, passive, and resultative passive. Syntactic functions of Balinese adjectives are as modifier of NP, as predicates of intransitive constructions, and used in comparative constructions as well. Balinese adjectives can be also reduplicated with or without affixes. Reduplicated adjectives without affixes are used as the predicate of sentences and have cross reference meaning to subject nouns they modify, in this case the suject nouns have plural meaning. Meanwhile, reduplicated adjectives with affixes se-/-ne do not modify subject nouns but they modify the actions stated by verbs of the sentences. It means combinationn affix se-/-ne has changed adjectives into adverbs of manner. Other uniqueness found in Balinese adjectives is the use of unique morphemes to result in adjective phrases. Balinese has many unique morphemes and each is used for particular adjectives and their uses are not possibly exchanged one to others complementarily.