A THESIS PROPOSAL

THE CONSTRUCTIONS OF APPLICATIVE AND CAUSATIVE IN BELITONG

LANGUAGE: A MORPHOSYNTACTIC STUDY

Presented as a partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Thesis Arrangement of the
Master Degree of English Education Program in Faculty of Teacher Training and
Education Mataram University

By
I NYOMAN PASEK DARMAWAN
I2J 018 010

POST-GRADUATE ENGLISH EDUCATION PROGRAM

FACULTY OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
MATARAM UNIVERSITY
2020

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank to Almighty God who has given His favor to the writer for completing a

thesis proposal entitled THE CONSTRUCTIONS OF APPLICATIVE AND CAUSATIVE

IN BELITONG LANGUAGE: A MORPHOSYNTACTIC STUDY. Precisely, I would like

to present my thanks for all parties who has helped me during my proposal arrangement.

This proposal contains some information that are going to be the basis for doing

research based on the preliminary observations towards the field data. In this proposal,

chapter one provides a brief discussion of Belitong language and several problems that

have not yet been uncovered by the previous researchers, especially regarding the

analysis of morphosyntactic phenomenon in Belitong language. Chapter two serves

some literature reviews or related theories that support the building process of this

research. The last chapter assigns the research methods which concern on the designs or

tools for conducting the whole activities of this current study.

Hopefully, this proposal can give benefits to anyone who possibly has the

passion in linguistic studies especially in morphosyntactic analysis. I believe that this

proposal is far from being perfect, therefore I need corrections, inputs and suggestions

to make it better.

Mataram, February 2020

I Nyoman Pasek Darmawan

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

A THESIS PROPOSAL...................................................................................................i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS...............................................................................................iii

LIST OF TABLES..........................................................................................................iv

LIST OF FIGURES.........................................................................................................v

CHAPTER I.....................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................1

1.1 Background of Study........................................................................................1

1.2 Research Questions...........................................................................................5

1.3 Purposes of Study..............................................................................................5

1.4 Significance of Study........................................................................................6

1.5 Scope of Study...................................................................................................6

CHAPTER II...................................................................................................................8

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE....................................................................8

2.1 Morphosyntax...................................................................................................8

2.1.1 The Concept of Morphology.....................................................................9

2.1.2 Basic Concepts of Syntax........................................................................12

2.1.3 Valency Changing Constructions...........................................................15

2.1.3.1 Causative...............................................................................................17

2.1.3.2 Applicative............................................................................................20

2.2 Relational Grammar (RG).................................................................................23

2.3 Belitong Language..............................................................................................28

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2.4 Previous Study....................................................................................................29

CHAPTER III................................................................................................................34

RESEARCH METHOD................................................................................................34

3.1 Research Design..............................................................................................34

3.2 Source of Data.................................................................................................34

3.3 Method of Data Collection.............................................................................35

3.4 Method of Data Analysis and Interpretation...............................................36

REFERENCES...............................................................................................................iv

iv
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Valency relationship between causative and non-causative verb...................19

Table 2.2 Principles of Revaluation in RG.....................................................................26

v
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1 The Process of Analysing Qualitative Data..................................................36

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of study, research questions, purposes of

study, the significance of study, and scope of the study.

1.1 Background of Study

Belitong language is a native language which has been widely used by most

population in Belitung Island; an archipelago which is located near the island of

Sumatra. According to the Belitung island inhabitants, Belitong Language is

categorized as a Malay language and they call it as Bahasa Belitong or Belitong

language after the name of Billiton island given by the Dutch during their

occupation periods. This language is used in daily communication settings

dominantly besides Balinese, Chinese, and Javanese. Belitong belongs to the group

of Malay language family under Austronesian big language family, alongside the

languages of Sumatran tribes along Sumatra island, Indonesian and Malaysian

national languages. Hence, this language, at first glance, is similar to the Indonesian

National language, for example, in terms of word orders, the forms of words, and

its pronunciation tends to be pronounced like the Malaysian. Unlike Balinese or

Javanese language, Belitong is not classified as one of stratified languages due to

the lack of stratification system in the social organization of Belitong people

civilizations.

As the first step in exploring and preserving Belitong language, an

understanding regarding the use of this language has been studied under several

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scientific researches that have been done by the teams of Indonesian And South

Sumatra Language and Literature Research Projects (Tim Peneliti Proyek

Penelitian Bahasa dan Sastra Indonesia dan Daerah Sumatra Selatan) for about

forty years mostly dealing with the structure of this language. For examples,

Struktur Bahasa Melayu Belitung (Belitung Malay Language Structure) in

1978/1979, Morfologi dan Sintaksis Bahasa Melayu Belitung (Morphology and

Syntax of Belitung Malay Language) in 1986, Sastra Lisan Bahasa Melayu

Belitung (Oral Literature of Belitung Malay Language) in 1992, and Sistem

Reduplikasi Bahasa Melayu Belitung (Reduplication System of Belitung Malay

Language) in 2002. The results of these scholar works are the revelations of the

general systems or structures of Belitong.

As is often case with many languages in this world, Belitong also carries its

innate language components which can be analysed by means of linguistic fields,

for example morphosyntactic study. Morphosyntax is one of the linguistic studies

which uncovers the relationship between morphology and syntax properties in a

particular language. In the other words, it deals with the linguistic formations or

structures of typical languages based on the entanglement of morphological aspects

(such as forms of words) in the structure of sentences (syntax), for example in

Belitong language.

The area of morphosyntax in Belitong language has been unfolded by

Syahrul Napsin, M. Yusuf Usman, R.M. Syarifuddin Zein, Tarmizi, Sudarmo, and

Sofyan Silahiddin (1986) by exposing the general morphological and syntactical

analysis which deals with the attested constructions of words and sentence in

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Belitong language. Another study related to the morphosyntactic category of

Belitong arises from Sistem Reduplikasi Bahasa Melayu Belitung (Reduplication

System of Belitung Malay Language) by Siti Salamah Arifin, Tarmizi Abubakar,

and Zahra Alwi (2002) with regard to characteristics, forms, functions, and

meanings of Belitong reduplication systems.

In the previous works, sundries evidences of morphology and syntax

relations have been proposed however most of them rely on the general descriptions

of morphosyntax phenomenon in Belitong language in the field of functional

requirements. Other areas of morphosyntax have been not expanded since these two

works revealed. For example, the writers did not explain much further the

implication of morphosyntax in the area of applicative as well some aspects which

arguably help the reasonable constructions of applicative in Belitong language.

An applicative construction can be assigned as a syntactic construction

where the replenishment of the number of arguments is caused and marked by overt

morphological affixation on verbal. In short, it is known as valence raising or

valence ascension. In Relational Grammar (RG), the term applicative is also known

as ‘advancement’ or ‘promotion’ of 3 (indirect object) or oblique (OBL) relations

into 2 (direct object) by the application of revaluations. The principal of applicative

has been used widely across languages and it appears to have similar meaning in its

usage. Even though the notions of applicative are quite same basically, they may be

presented in different forms of morphosyntactic properties. This also occurs to

Belitong language which is mostly branded as nominative-accusative language

nevertheless in some cases we might find the case of ergative-absolutive in this

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language. This thing has not been exposed widely and specifically in the work of

morphosyntactic in Belitong language.

In addition, another area of morphosyntax can be found in the field of

valence raising is causative. Shortly, causative refers to something which typically

expresses the meaning ‘cause to do something’ or semantically it is called as causer

of the action. Like applicative, the amount of argument increases or raises by the

addition of external argument which is basically marked as the causer of an action.

Yet, by this far, this case has not been exposed further in the study of morphosyntax

in Belitong language among linguists since the presence of causative exhibits the

morphological and syntactic properties.

Based on the preliminary observation towards data, there are possibilities

that Belitong language possess the construction of applicative and causative in the

syntactic structure which involves morphological properties as well. At a glance,

the behaviour of morphosyntax in building up the structure of single argument into

double arguments in a sentence can be seen by adding affixes on the part of verbs.

So far, the constructions of applicative and causative in Belitong language are

possible to be found in this language in the forms of nominative-accusative cases in

its usage. Therefore, these two treatments will be dug up correspond to the

Relational Grammar theory in case of identifying the relations among dependents.

Departing from the issues stated above, this study is necessary in order to

look at another morphosyntactic phenomenon in Belitong language from the views

of the treatments of applicative and causative. In detail, this study will account for

the expansion of morphosyntactic study in Belitong language in terms of

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 construction of applicative and causative by following the theory of Relational

Grammar (RG) which concerns on the grammatical relations and deals with the

argument selection and relational change inter-components. Therefore, this study

will strictly be concerned with studying the relationship between morphology and

syntax in Belitong language while semantic and phonological aspects would not be

included in this analysis.

1.2 Research Questions

This study can also be said as a continuation of the previous

morphosyntactic study which has been done by Napsin et al. (1986) as well Arifin

et al. (2002). Since languages also exhibit different phenomenon of morphosyntax

as explained in the background of study described above, this study henceforth will

be conducted in order to answer the following questions:

1. How applicative and causative constructions in Belitong language are

constructed?

2. What strategy patterns that account for the analysis of applicative and

causative constructions in Belitong language?

These two research questions will be analysed and described based on

Relational Grammar (RG) approach (Blake, 1990) along with strategy patterns

proposed by Peterson (2007) and Comrie (1989).

1.3 Purposes of Study

This study aims to analyse and describe morphosyntactic properties in

Belitong language through the treatments of applicative and causative by applying

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 Relational Grammar approach. This will be preceded with the description of the

analysis of applicative and causative in Belitong language as well the attested

examples of each treatment respectively. Subsequently, this study will be followed

by the attempt to identify, analyse and describe the strategy patterns when the

constructions of applicative and causative occur in Belitong language based on

Relational Grammar (RG) approach (Blake, 1990) associated with strategy patterns

proposed by Peterson (2007) and Comrie (1989).

1.4 Significance of Study

This study hopefully can give some benefits and be a reference for the

readers or researchers who are engaged in the field of linguistic study especially in

the field of morphosyntax. This study will be completed with some explanations

and examples regarding the treatment of applicative and causative constructions by

following attested relational change and arguments revaluations as in Relational

Grammar (RG) approach. Thereof, hopefully the results of this study can be the

comprehensible one in case of giving other examples of morphosyntactic cases

especially in Belitong language in the linguistic area precisely.

1.5 Scope of Study

Analysing and describing all aspects of Belitong language is beyond the

scope of this current study. Thus, this study will be focused on the study of the

constructions of applicative and causative in Belitong language with all possible

grammatical implications and relations. In addition, this study will also explore

plausible strategy patterns which may occur in the buildings of applicative and

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causative in Belitong language. All these will be conducted by the use of the

Relational Grammar (RG) approach which attempts to analyse the grammatical

relations among elements of sentence traditionally by defining the change of

relational through the process of revaluations; promotions/advancements or

demotions.

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 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents some related theories which underlie the implementation

of this study. Specifically, this chapter contains brief descriptions regarding the related

theoretical frameworks that are going to support this study.

2.1 Morphosyntax

In short, the term morphosyntax broadly concerns on various aspects which

is used to do an analysis of language of linguistic sub-disciplines in the fields of

morphology and syntax. Discussing works of morphosyntax in analysing language

bring us down to the two subdomains called the interaction of word formation

constructions in morphology and how those constructions can bring along the word

forms into the grammatical structure of sentence in the syntactic analysis

(Kemenade, 1999: 997). Payne (1997: 7-8) likewise asserts that our attention to

morphosyntactic study falls into the operation or construction that accounts for the

relation between one linguistic form with other elements then known as aspects,

e.g. suffix, prefix, or combination of words, in order to construct grammatical and

acceptable complex words.

Additionally, Radford (1997: 29; 2002: 38-40) asserts that morphological

evidences of grammatical categories fall into two processes of word formation;

inflectional (i.e. same words in different forms without changing categories) and

derivational which refers to forming different kind or category of a word by the

addition of other morphemes. Meanwhile, syntactically, the evidences of

grammatical categories are determined by different distributions of different

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categories in the structures or constructions of phrases or sentences to accompany

grammatical relations terms such as subject, direct or indirect object, predicate, and

oblique as in Relational Grammar (RG) approach.

2.1.1 The Concept of Morphology

The most familiar concept in morphology is ‘word’ which is generally

defined as a single smallest meaningful element which is usually well-thought-out

to be core of sentences and it belongs to particular classes known as part of speech,

word classes, or syntactic categories like nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, and

so on for examples (Plag, 2003: 8). Morphology carries out the analysis of word

formations dealing with its internal structure and other aspects which influence the

way the words are formed. Morphology is an important insight dealing with how

language works in terms of forming different categories of words, constructing

words in accordance with its internal elements or constituents, and the existence of

rules of procedures in analysing how a word created and modified (O’Grady &

Archibald, 2016: 119).

In accordance with, Haspelmath and Sims (2010: 3) assert that in order to

propose or establish the rules that govern word forms, breaking up them into small

parts must be done in terms of creating a morphological analysis. The broken-up

words or constituents here refer to the smallest meaningful units or constituents of

words which are known as morphemes involving other aspects or elements which

absolutely have important roles or contributions in designing the proper and

acceptable word forms in any languages like affixes (i.e. any kind of morphemes

which is attached to particular part of base or root like prefix, suffix, infix, and

9
circumfix, and the process is called as affixation), derivation or process of creating

a new form of a typical word-form which has different lexical category as the

origins, and inflection which deals with forming a different word-form without

changing its lexical category by involving affixes to create a different form of

lexemes in accordance with the different grammatical contexts. The well

combination among the properties may construct a well form of words which later

will posit every single position in a sentence or phrase. For instance, the paradigm

of word forms like the difference between plural and singular forms may be

constructed within the derivational and inflectional process.

As mentioned earlier that morphology accounts for the manners in which

words are formed across languages. In its relevance to the syntax, it defines the

analysis of words as well its relations in the structure of sentence in the form of

morphosyntax analysis as different levels of linguistic organization (Lieber, 2009:

144). In this light, however, the view of the involvement of morphology as a

property in morphosyntax is constrained on the employment of inflection which

affects the structure of sentence. Inflection itself is described as word formation

that does not change the word category (lexical category) but rather only changes

the form so that they are suitable to be placed or fit into different grammatical

relations in syntax.

The term inflection in the analysis of morphosyntax falls into the process of

creating new lexemes which bring about its meaning that is suitable for typical

grammatical contexts in sentence through morphological means. Types of

inflection are addressed into some realizations of morphosyntactic features like

10
exponence, the difference between inherent and assigned inflection, and the way

inflection is marked by means of government and concord or agreement ways.

The values of inflection, then, are sorted into different morphological features

based on those types (Aronoff & Fudeman, 2011: 160-167).

The values of inflection are realized through specific marker or exponence

that express different kinds of morphosyntactic features. There are three types of

exponence such as simple exponence (i.e. one marker expresses only one feature),

cumulative exponence (i.e. one marker represents more than one feature), and

extended exponence (i.e. one feature is realized simultaneously on more than one

form or marker).

Inflection values that can be pointed out through exponence are like

number (e.g. singular, plural, dual, and paucal), person like first-person (the

speaker), second-person (the hearer), or third-person (someone else), gender like

masculine, feminine, or neuter, case of nominal expressions like nominative,

accusative, dative, genitive, ablative, ergative, and/or absolutive, tense and aspect

(e.g. tense or point of time of an event like past, present, future, aspect like

perfective, imperfective, habitual), voice (active or passive), and modality, e.g.

may and must.

In addition, inflection is also distinguished as inherent and assigned

inflection. Inherent inflection means a particular marker embedded on a particular

category of words naturally brings along specific values that represent different

morphosyntactic features. For example, nouns and pronouns are marked as having

particular gender feature like woman and man both for feminine and masculine

11
respectively. Contrastively, an assigned inflection marks out morphosyntactic

features as artificial markers by virtue of their roles in the sentence. For example,

nominative or accusative cases of nominal.

Once we talk about the difference between inherent and assigned

inflections, we are supposed to address the way the inflection may occur;

government or concord (i.e. agreement). Concord or agreement happens when one

marker on a particular word deals with another word which represents the

morphosyntactic features. For example, noun-verb agreement in English which

embodies number features. Meanwhile, the government way reflects the way how a

word can acquire a category in a particular position. For example, the presence of

transitivity of verbs in determining case features is usually thought of in this way

whereby a nominal is required to appear in an objective or a subjective case (either

in nominative-accusative or ergative-absolutive languages) is governed by the

transitivity of verbs.

As mentioned earlier, morphology has a big contribution in the

construction of a word theoretically along with its aspects like affixes, bases, roots,

and derivational and inflectional processes which henceforth are associated with

syntax means in case of morphosyntax analysis. Different languages may have

different types of inflection that can modify a structure of a word either by adding

some external elements or by making an internal change.

2.1.2 Basic Concepts of Syntax

Thus far we have concentrated on the concept of morphology in its business

dealing with word formation as well inflectional values which are taken into

12
account the analysis of morphosyntax. Once the words are formed, it is not

sufficient to only use a single word in delivering our feeling, thoughts, ideas, or the

purpose of communication by using languages. Therefore, the formed words, then,

are combined and organized into acceptable and possible grammatical patterns of

sentences. Henceforward, the pattern of grammatical sentences here refers to one of

linguistic subdisciplines called syntax. It intertwines with morphology (i.e. the

study of word formation) in the field of creating an acceptable and grammatical

structure of sentences (Radford, 1997: 1). Thus, syntax and morphology are inter-

related each other in the study of grammar in order to provide any empirical

evidences that words belong to categories thus called as morphosyntactic study.

Words, as the results of morphological construction, are basically

categorized based on their own class which absolutely share a same set of

grammatical properties. Grammatical or lexical or precisely syntactical categories

are needed in the field of sentences construction. They fill each position in the

constructions properly in order to make the sentence become plausible and

acceptable. General categories found in English, e.g. Noun, Verb, Adjective,

Adverb, and Preposition, may be found in other languages since every language has

its own grammatical systems at least two major grammatical categories are

possessed (Payne, 1997: 32). Grammatical categories or sometimes called “lexical

categories” such above are in bound with formal relational categories like subject,

object (direct or indirect), and predicate.

The syntactical categories are needed in the field of sentences construction.

The term construction means the arrangement of several individual parts or

13
patterns of materials to become more complex in one organization or structure. For

examples, we need noun phrases to fill in the position of 1 or subject and direct

object or indirect object, verbs for predicate, and prepositional phrase which has to

do with the oblique cases. In terms of language use, structure refers to the

amalgamation of single words (i.e. syntactical categories) in their relationship each

other in making appropriate sentences.

Generally, sentence construction or structure is clustered into four types.

The first one is known as simple sentences (or independent clause) which at least

consist of a subject or a nominal and a main verb. Direct or Indirect objects may

also be involved as complements of verb. For instances, she walks, John wrote

these letters. Second, compound sentences are formed by conjoining two simple

sentences by using conjunctions like and, for, but, or, nor, so, yet (coordinating

conjunctions), and/or also, conversely, indeed, therefore, subsequently, and so on.

For example, I have invited him but he did not come.

Next, the third is complex sentences which are created by combining an

independent clause with a dependent clause or subordinating clause by means of

the use of subordinating conjunctions like after, because, as, before, since, and so

on; or relative pronouns such as who, that, which, whose, and etc. For instance,

students who plagiarised in their exams were failed. And the last is compound-

complex sentences which consist of at least one independent clause and two

dependent clauses (it can be more than two depending on the purpose of sentence

makers). For example, the report which Tom complied was presented to the board,

but it was rejected because it did not fulfil the requirements.

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 The role of syntax in the morphosyntactic analysis is not satisfied by

identifying the types of sentence such mentioned above. There is also a role of

inflectional morphology which can affect the numbers of valency or argument in

the sentence structure. The valency or argument here is regarded as entity

participating in the relation of grammar along with predicates. The arguments here

refer to the any phrases that are necessary for the verbs and they also bring along

semantic roles which are applicable to the grammatical relations. This concept is in

line with what Radford (2002: 94) claims that typically a sentence is containing an

NP ‘noun phrase’ that acts as subject and both direct and indirect object in

relational grammar terms along with VP ‘verb phrase’ as a predicate (containing a

main verb either transitive or intransitive, or ditransitive) and also oblique relations

which highlight different purposes like proposing declaration or statement, making

questions (interrogative), exclamation, and making command or imperative

sentences. The number of arguments is not always in all types of verb.

Traditionally, we deal with terms like transitive, intransitive, and ditransitive verbs

which account for different amount of arguments.

Verbs that have single valency or argument (i.e. they have a valency of 1)

are known as intransitive verbs, e.g. smile, arrive as in she smiles/arrives. The

valency commonly appears as a subject of a predicate, so the sentence is said to be

intransitive sentence. Predicates or verbs that obligatory take two arguments or

have a valency of 2 (subject and object) are known as transitive, e.g. hit, love, kiss,

since they have a single argument precedes a predicate then another argument

follows it as an object. Henceforth, the sentence is said to be a transitive sentence

15
like A man hits a dog. Moreover, there are some predicates that take three

arguments or have a valency of 3 which then called as ditransitive like give or put.

For the third type, a single argument posits position 1 or precedes a predicate that

have two arguments after it so that the sentence they produce will be regarded as

ditransitive sentence, for instance, I gave her my book.

Valency revaluations by advancement/raising or demotion/decreasing

mostly alter the number of arguments (i.e. nominals) that occur with a predicate or

verb. A transitive sentence can be an intransitive one by adding particular element

on the verb to subtract an argument or vice versa making an intransitive sentence

become a transitive by adding an argument which is absolutely by the addition of

morphology inflection on the verb/predicate. In the other words, the alteration of

the number of arguments is related to the inflectional values which are claimed as

the properties of analysing the construction of sentence in morphosyntactic

analysis.

2.1.3 Valency Changing Constructions

In this case, we deal with the inflection in morphology which is then

combined with some abstract syntactic categories of tense, aspect, number, and

case to generate the grammatical word orders. The inflected words as the result of

morphological inflection bring about different grammatical meanings that

correspond to syntactic processes. The term of inflectional has actual categories

that account for the syntactic functions of words. As discussed previously,

therefore, in the relevance with the syntax, then, the morphological inflection

16
comes up as the important aspects regarding the verification of morphosyntactic

phenomenon in language.

Recall that the term morphosyntax uncovers several types of the alteration

of sentences constructions in syntax by changing the valency of verbs through

morphological means. In the other words, the valency-changing affects the

construction of sentences in case of altering number of arguments that occur with

the main verb (i.e. in the other words this case is known as valence adjustments). A

number of valency-changing mechanisms occurs in the field of morphosyntactic

analysis. Payne (1997) categories the term valency-changing mechanism into two

big clusters; valence increasement or raising and valence decreasing or reduction.

Still, both mechanisms consist of varies constructions or treatments related

to the morphological aspects with syntactic structures. Valence-raising entails

causatives, applicatives, dative shift, dative of interest, and possessor raising or

external possession. Meanwhile valence-decreasing involves reflexives and

reciprocals, passives, inverses, middle constructions, antipassives, object demotion

and omission, and object incorporation (Payne, 1997: 175 – 222).

Besides, Aronoff & Fudeman (2011: 204) relate the notion of valency-

changing into the alternations in the grammatical encoding of referential

expressions named grammatical-function-changing phenomena. The concept of

grammatical-function-changing here corresponds to the theory of Relational

Grammar (RG) since the process of constructing the position of words or lexical

items in the sentence, for example, agent can be encoded as a subject or object, is

depending on the form of verb used as the involvement of inflectional employment.

17
Moreover, the relation between Relational Grammar (RG) with some valency

changing constructions can be seen from the basic notion of revaluation such as

demotion and promotion in RG that can help further in explaining the phenomenon

of valency alteration. For the sake of convenience as it is related with this study

which accounts for the treatment of applicative and causative in Belitong language,

in the subsequent section, basic ideas of both constructions will be described.

2.1.3.1 Causative

Causative semantically denotes the causer of the action. Elson and

Pickett (1987) as stated in Hanafi (2006: 51) assert that causative signals an

action that affects a person because of another person’s action. Comrie

(1989:165) opines that the construction of causative is indicated by

involving two component situations, the cause and its effect or result. These

two situations are regarded as micro-situations which of combined forming

a single complex macro-situation that is in the end known as causative

situation.

Regarding morphosyntax constructions, the relationship between micro

and macro situations bears causative constructions whereby two arguments

or valences are connected by causative verbs. Mostly morphological affixes

are added into the parts of verb in particular sentences as markers of

causative in languages. Comrie (1989: 167 – 169) distinguishes three

typological causative cases: analytic causative, morphological causative,

and lexical or suppletive causative.

18
 The prototypical case of the analytic causative involves micro-

situations which are separated as the notions of causation and effect

predicates which then connect each other to create a macro-situation. For

examples, I caused John to go, or I cannot swim because my mother forbids

it, where cause and forbid represent the predicates of cause and go and

cannot swim are predicates of effect. Besides predicates of causation and

effect, the construction of causative is marked by the appearances of the

causee and causer as its core valences (Payne, 1997: 176). In the examples

above, I and my mother are the causer while John and I (in the second

example) denotes the causee.

Turning now to prototypical case of morphological causative which

involves a productive change in the verb forms. This type has two

characteristics: (1) the entanglement of morphological techniques, for

instance by affixation, marks out the connection between the causative and

non-causative verbs in the transitive or intransitive forms, and (2)

commonly, the markers of causative verb by morphological means are

productive meaning that any predicates can form a causative constructions

by the addition of suitable or proper morphological properties, for example

by affixation. In short, we can generalize that most prototypical case of

morphological causative is formed by productive markers in the predicates.

In morphological causative, the subject of causative clause occupies

the former subject slot in non-causative clause meanwhile the non-causative

subject is then demoted to direct object position grammatically. It means

19
that in the final causative construction, the causer will occupy the highest

position in the grammatical relations hierarchy. Morphological causative is

not restrictive to use with intransitive stems only, but it also occurs on

monotransitive and ditransitive stems as well. Furthermore, Comrie as

stated in Hanafi (2006: 52-53) suggests the valency-relations between the

non-causative and causative verbs as in the table below.

Stems Non-causative Causative

Intransitive Subject Direct Object
Transitive/Monotransitive Subject Indirect Object
Direct Object Direct Object
Ditransitive Subject Oblique
Direct Object Direct Object
Indirect Object Indirect Object

Table 2.1 Valency relationship between causative and non-causative verb

Finally we turn into the third type, namely the lexical or suppletive

causative which is denoted as the relationship between causative and effect

expressions in macro-situation is wrapped up in the lexical meaning of the

predicate of cause itself rather than by any productive process such as it

occurs on the second type by the addition of morphological means. Payne

(1997: 177) appends three types of lexical causative: (1) no change in verb,

e.g. the vase broke become Maria broke the vase, (2) some idiosyncratic

change in verb, e.g. the tree fell become John felled the tree, and (3)

different verb, e.g. Lucia died become Maria killed Lucia. The last type is

then regarded as suppletive pairs in lexical causative since the verb die and

kill show a strong relationship between the two members of the pair.

20
 Most languages possess the three types of causative or several only

have two of them. In addition to the involvement of morphological means

in causative construction, the presence of revaluation principles like

advancement or demotion in Relational Grammar facilitates the process of

grammatical relations identification among dependents. The view of

Relational Grammar (RG) is seen from the process of demotion of an

intransitive subject to the direct object position. The final causative

construction for transitive or intransitive verbs might be attested in term of

plausibility through the possible validity of the passive analysis (i.e.

passivization) strategy (Comrie, 1989: 179). The passive analysis may be

appropriate in order to examine whether the valency-relations as illustrated

by Comrie in the table above is attested or not for certain languages.

2.1.3.2 Applicative

The term applicative refers to the addition of an argument to the

valency of a verb in which the added argument is behaving as direct object.

In short, applicative is a treatment for double arguments construction.

Peterson (2004: 353) claims that applicative constructions involve an

oblique and treat it like a direct object, rather than a subject. Applicative

can be insightfully described as valence-increasing construction in which a

new valence or argument will be treated as direct object by involving

particular markers on verbs therefore the advancement or promotion of a

new direct object from an oblique can be applied.

21
 The term applicative co-occurrence with the basic notion of

advancement or promotion in Relational Grammar approach which requires

also morphological inflection to define the final strata or final sentence

structure after being constructed by applicative treatment. For verbs that

already have direct objects as its arguments besides subject, the result of

applicative can be revealed either in a three-argument (ditransitive) verb or

the original direct object can be unused. Payne (1997: 186) claims that the

second case would not be regarded as applicative but a new semantic role to

the direct object.

In line with this concept, Hanafi (2006: 5) also accounts that the

increase of the number of arguments is marked by the attachment of an

affix to the main verb. The case of applicative mostly can be found in most

nominative-accusative language. We do not rule out the possibility that

applicative occurs in ergative-absolutive language. Referring to the basic

notion of applicative which in short defines a new applicable direct object

from non-direct object, we come up with the idea of oblique cases such as

BENEFACTIVE, LOCATIVE, and INSTRUMENTAL whereby in

particular case, each of them is advanced to the direct object position in

order to show up a new grammatical relations among dependents to exhibit

object properties. This concept, then, is connected with Relational Grammar

approach.

In Indonesian for example, prefix meng- marks out the active voice

while suffix -i for applicative mark:

22
[1] (a) Adik kencing di celana-nya
My brother pee-PAST on pants-3SG.POSS
‘My brother peed on his pants’

(b) Adik meng-(k)encing-i celana-nya

My brother ACT-pee-APL pants-3SG.POSS
‘My brother is peeing on his pants’

According to example above, clearly the involvement of morphological

operator like suffix determines the final syntactic structure. Peterson (2007:

39) also augments that any piece of verbal morphological properties which

mark out an applicative construction refers to an applicative marker, e.g.

suffix -i in the example above.

Peterson (2007: 8-10) likewise proposes three strategy patterns of

treating noun phrase or nominal relations with the markers of applicative on

the predicate/verb in terms of pronominalization (object marking),

passivization, and relativization. These patterns are used in order to

identify whether the treatment of the original direct object and the post-

applicative direct object which is derived from oblique relations have a

symmetrical treatment of their objects. In the other words, those three

patterns are typically used in order to recognize whether the arguments

exhibit object properties or not.

Languages are evaluated on the basis of whether they have applicative

markers or not in its applicative constructions. Some languages might

pertains only to benefactive, locative, and instrumental objects nevertheless

in some cases some languages may relate to other or additional oblique

relations like malefactive, additional benefactive, comitative, prioritive, and

23
 relinquitive, although they are uncommon and perhaps even unique

applicative constructions that might not be possessed in all languages in this

world. The use of Relational Grammar’s revaluation like promotion or

advancement of oblique case into direct object may facilitate and strengthen

plausible descriptions of applicative construction in languages.

2.2 Relational Grammar (RG)

Relational Grammar (RG) is a theory of morphosyntactic study of languages

which takes into account the relationship among dependents in a sentence structure

and this is primarily developed by the more prominent architects of the theory,

Perlmutter and Postal, in the early 1970s (Blake, 2004: 75; Peterson, 2007: 68).

This theory is considerable for a theory of grammar which recognizes the relations

among dependents grammatically. This theory has been widely attested to account

for the relation-affecting phenomena like valence-increasing or valence-decreasing

across languages. Relational Grammar concerns on a set of basic grammatical

relations such as subject, direct object, indirect object along with oblique relations

include locative, benefactive, and instrumental (Blake, 1990: 3). The first three

relations are named as terms in conjunction with oblique relations as non-terms

form a hierarchy in the structure of sentence. As illustrated below, the use of

numbers shows the level of hierarchy of each component whereabouts the most-left

two (subject and direct object) are known as nuclear relations and direct object –

indirect object is called object relations:

SUBJECT DIRECT OBJECT INDIRECT OBJECT OBLIQUE

1 2 3

24
 Recall that traditionally this theory accounts for the analysis of grammatical

relations across languages by the way in which arguments of a verb (subject or

objects) are integrated to a clause syntactically in relation with morphological

properties which affects the position or presence of arguments in a sentence. In the

other words, this approach underlies the analysis in the terms of valency-changing

(i.e. altering the number of arguments that occur with the main verb). The

discussion regarding valency-changing has been regarded as valence changing

mechanism as mentioned in the former sections.

The grammatical relations (i.e. the relational structure of words in a clause or

sentence) are represented in terms of stratum or level. One sentence may have only

one stratum or level in the grammatical relation structure as the sole stratum of the

active sentence. Further, Blake (1990) claims that one sentence may have two strata

or levels as the results of valency-changing by means of revaluations. Both terms

and non-terms relations can undergo revaluation through the advancement or

promotion from the lower to the upper hierarchy, e.g. direct object to the subject

position, or demotion from the upper to the lower position like subject demoted to

the chômeur (CHO) position. The notion of chômeur here comes from the French

word which means unemployed or idle person. Therefore, since the subject is

demoted to the chômeur position, it can be assumed that the nominal argument has

been ousted from the term’s relation (i.e. out of 1, 2, or 3) since it is affected by the

morphological derivation or inflection means. The terms’ relation along with

oblique and chômeur, therefore, subsequently are clustered as central relations.

25
 Relational Grammar seeks to formulate universal rules that concern with the

characterization of grammatical relations to be found in the structure of human

languages. Additionally, Perlmutter and Postal (1983) as cited in Blake (1990)

offer some laws or well-formedness conditions that might appear on possible

revaluations. For the sake of convenience, the following terms are more precisely

called as Relational Grammar technicalities.

The following technicalities are extended in supporting the existence of

grammatical relations in languages. The first is Stratal Uniqueness Law (SUL)

which requires one dependent or category bearing one particular relation in a

particular stratum. Example, a noun Apple can be posited as subject or object, but

each of them have to be chosen. Secondly, there is a requirement that a subject

exists in every final stratum (i.e. final sentence structure) which is traditionally

called as the final 1 law. However, apparently, it is not an overt subject but it is

claimed as a dummy nominal that behaves as a subject. The nominal or argument

that is displaced by the dummy is called as the brother-in-law of the dummy based

on the principle of brother-in-law argument saying “the brother-in-law relation

holds between a dummy and a nominal if the dummy puts the nominal in the

lowest clause and earliest stratum in which the dummy heads an arc”.

Furthermore, Relational Grammar also possesses a law which requires that

any dependent or category that bears an oblique relation bear that relation in the

initial stratum. In short, it is arguably that any oblique relation that is built by any

dependent must be built in the initial stratum. There is no revaluation from one

26
oblique to another, e.g. from instrumental to locative. Thus, we can infer that there

is no revaluation cross-obliques. This then is known as the oblique law.

The fourth technicality is regarding the presence of chômeur which is not

spontaneously done. It is in relation with the principles of revaluation. A nominal is

demoted to the chômeur position by only that another nominal is advanced or

promoted to the dominated nominal position by advancement, ascension, or raising

or dummy birth. This is known as Motivated Chomage Law (Perlmutter and

Postal, 1983 cited in Blake, 1990: 28). A chômeur can never be advanced by the

existence of chômeur advancement ban. Here is a table of revaluation principles:

Advancement or Demotion
Promotion
 2 – 1 (DO to Subject)  1 – 2 (Subject to DO)
 3 – 1 (IO to Subject)  1 – 3 (Subject to IO)
 Oblique – 1  1 – CHO
 3 – 2 (IO to DO)  2 – 3 (DO to IO)
 Oblique – 2  2 – CHO
 Oblique – 3  3 – CHO

Table 2.2 Principles of Revaluation in RG

Perlmutter and Postal (1984) propose two hypotheses regarding the

Relational Grammar analysis cross languages. Firstly, the Universal Alignment

Hypothesis (abbreviated as UAH) which views initial stratum relations seem to be

connected to semantic roles in universal way (Blake, 1990: 2). It means taking an

agent behaves as 1 or initial subject, a patient act as 2 or initial direct object, and a

recipient is assigned to be 3 or indirect object meanwhile instruments, locations,

and the like are considered as parts of oblique. Grammatical relations actually in

most cases are related to semantic aspects since it has universal function in

27
communication while at the same time the relational among properties are defined

by means of Relational Grammar. Payne (1997: 129 – 133) mentions that the

justification of grammatical relations also involves the pragmatic aspect as well

which is known as topic that is clustered along with overweight, relative, and

questions as overlays relations.

This hypothesis is in relation with what have been proposed by Payne (1997)

that the use of arguments in the Relational Grammar analysis here relates to the

conventional three basic semantic-syntactic roles, termed Subject (S), Agent (A),

and Patient (P). The S refers to Subject in RG which shows the nominal argument

of a single-argument clause (i.e. intransitive clause). Meanwhile the term A also

acts as the Subject as in RG but it refers to the nominal argument of multi-

argument clause, i.e. transitive clause, along with the P here means the nominal

argument that behaves as an object in RG. Thus, in sentence the man hit the dog,

there are two types of prototype; a prototypical agent and a prototypical patient that

are always be taken as 1 and 2 respectively in grammatical relations.

The second hypothesis is called as the Unaccusative Hypothesis. This

hypothesis unveils two different types of intransitive verbs; unergative and

unaccusative. In unergative, the predicates are said an initial 1 in their stratum (a

stratum with 1 not 2) or an unergative predicate only has 1 stratum whereby the

nominal or argument is occupying position 1 not 2 in the initial and final stratum.

Simply it can be inferred that the first one has the initial stratum with a 1 but no 2,

while the initial stratum in the second type is started with a 2 but no 1. On the other

hand, clauses with unergative predicates do not have any direct or indirect objects

28
 since the nominal or argument only permitted to be placed in the subject position.

Be at cross purpose with unergative, clauses with unaccusative predicates will

involve two strata where the first strata consist of a nominal or argument that holds

the direct object relation, whereas the second strata contains an object that has been

advanced to the 1 position to fulfil the Final 1 Law. The predicates are analysed as

having an initial 2 (a stratum with 2 not 1) or an unaccusative predicate possesses

two strata whereby the nominal or argument posits position 2 in the initial stratum

whereas in the final stratum the argument occupies position 1.

These two hypotheses account for the analysis of language structure in the

view of morphosyntax by means of Relational Grammar (RG) approach. The

concept of revaluation concerns on the way how the valency-changing in typical

language happens. By following the basic concepts of Relational Grammar along

with its components such as three rules and two hypotheses as mentioned above,

some phenomenon in accordance with the valency-changing mechanism can be

analysed further in proper manners.

2.3 Belitong Language

Belitong language is a native language which has been widely used by most

population in Belitung Island; an archipelago which is located near the island of

Sumatra. According to the inhabitants of Belitung Island, Belitong Malay

Language is called as Bahasa Belitong or Belitong language due to the island was

named as Billiton during the Dutch occupation periods. This archipelago island

consists of two regencies; Belitung Barat (or Tanjung Pandan) and Belitung Timur

(Manggar).

29
 Belitong belongs to the group Malay language family under Austronesian

big family language alongside the languages of Sumatran tribes along Sumatra

island, Indonesian and Malaysian national languages. The historical story of

Belitong language development started by the transmigration of the ancient Malay

speakers around 100AD to the west by crossing the South China Sea through

Tambala and Riau islands towards the peninsula of Malaysia and spread out to the

south through Karimata strait reached Bangka and Belitung Islands (Agustin, 2013:

72 – 74). Still, she puts forward that the application of Belitong language is

influenced by the absorption of foreign languages like the Dutch, Chinese, English,

and Arabic (p. 75 – 76).

Generally, Belitong people speak in Malay dialect. Hence, this language, at

first glance, is similar as the Indonesian National language, for example in terms of

word orders and the form of words, also it is pronounced as the Malaysian

pronunciation. However, indeed Belitong language has eight different dialects;

Badau, Dendang, Gantong, Sijuk, Manggar, Kelapa Kampit, Membalong, and Seliu

island dialects (Putra, 2014). Unlike Balinese or Javanese language, Belitong is not

classified as one of stratified languages due to the lack of stratification system in

the social organization of Belitong people civilizations. This language is used in

daily communication settings dominantly besides Balinese, Chinese, and Javanese.

2.4 Previous Study

Belitong language has not yet given adequate attention from the linguistic

researchers. Belitong is under few researches works which have been done since

30
decades ago in 1979 to 2002. Especially in the field of morphosyntactic analysis,

recently, only few works are found but they need more development as well.

Firstly, Syahrul Napsin et al. (1986) pertaining to morphology in which

some basics of Morphological process are introduced in respect to the process of

derivation and inflection in order to find out word categories of each morpheme

(basic or derived/inflected morpheme) and also reduplication construction then

attached to particular positions in the structure of the sentence. Descriptive and

structural linguistic was used in order to obtain the descriptions of Belitong

language in the field of morphosyntax.

As the results suggested, morphologically, morphemes in Belitong language

are primarily clustered based on the types of morpheme; free and bound

morpheme. Mostly, free morphemes in Belitong language are formed within one or

two or three-syllable. Bound morphemes in Belitong commonly formed by adding

affixes such as 8 prefixes ngeN-, peN-, be-, te-, de-, ke-, se-, and ku-; then 4

suffixes such -an, -éq, -kan, and -e; 3 infixes: -el-, -em-, and -er-; and 8 circumfixes

like be-…-an, peN…-an, ke-…-an, se-…-e, ngeN-…-kan, ngeN-…-éq, de-…-kan,

and de-…-éq.

In terms of syntactic analysis, primarily, words in Belitong are classified into

syntactic categories such as in English generally like Noun ruma (house), Verb

pegi (go), Adjective mura (cheap), Preposition de (at), Adverb bulanan (monthly),

Determiner semue (all), Degree word amat (too/very), and so on. Generally, as

found in the Napsin et al. study, most phrases in Belitong are containing a head-

specifier-complement, or only head-complement or a specifier and a head.

31
 Napsin et al. also provide the sentence constructions in Belitong such as

transforming positive into negative declarative sentences, declarative into

interrogative, declarative into imperative, and active become passive. The structure

of clause or sentence as found in this work mostly formed in the sequences such as

Subject-Predicate-Direct/Indirect Object-Oblique or SVO-Complement, or Subject-

Oblique-Predicate.

The second previous study is regarding the system of reduplication in

Belitong language by Arifin et al. (2002). The aim of this work was concerning the

deep analysis of reduplication system in Belitong based on the results in the study

of morphology and syntax done by Napsin et al. (1986). This work accounted for

the characteristic, forms, function as well the meaning of each reduplication phrase

in Belitong.

Morphologically, the system of reduplication is detailed into full

reduplication and full reduplication with phoneme varieties. The first full

reduplication is affected by the addition of affixes and without affixes. Full

reduplications without affixes are characterised by the repetition of base form of

particular lexical categories. For instances, word dudoq ‘sit’ become dudoq-dudoq

‘sit around’. In this case, there is no involvement of affixes in the process of

reduplicating words in Belitong. On the contrary, the addition of affixes changes

the base form of words when they are transformed into reduplicated forms.

Example, prefix meng- + base form tabo ‘bang’ become nabo-nabo ‘banged on’.

The second is full reduplication within phoneme varieties. The phoneme

varieties are signalled by the change of vowel sounds in the second form of

32
reduplicated words. For instance, ulak-alik ‘back and forth’. Syntactically, the

reduplicated words in Belitong, either as the results by the addition of affixes or

not, usually put precede the main verb and categorized as adverbial. For example:

[2] Kesal-kesal kundai juak gawe itu

In annoyance I-finish-PAST too job Det
‘I finished that job in annoyance’

The last previous related study is carried out from the study of Relativization

Strategies of Sasak Ngeno Ngene Dialect in Lombok by Nurachman Hanafi, Udin,

Eni Djuhaeni, and Edy Syahrial (2020). In this work, Hanafi et al. discover the

relations of noun phrases and oblique terms in Sasak Ngeno Ngene dialect (a

dialect used by indigenous people in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia) in the field

of relativization. Still, they state that this work is generated by the terms of Noun

Phrase (NP) Accessibility Hierarchy as proposed by Keenan & Comrie’s (1977) (p.

12).

In their work, they investigate on how noun phrases and oblique terms (like

locative, destination, benefactive, recipient, and instrumental) are used in

constructing relative clause of Sasak Ngeno Ngene dialect. The analysis of

relativization is done by employing several strategies which are linguistically

proven in identifying noun phrase behaviour to exhibit relativizations such as a gap

strategy, case coding strategy for direct relativization, and the passivization strategy

for indirect relativization. In addition, they also designate the hierarchy or word-

ordering relation levels of Sasak Ngeno Ngene dialect post relativization analysis.

By applying these strategies, the results of analysis are revealed in the

following terms such as direct relativization accommodates the relations of two

33
core argument alongside locative and destination oblique objects in Sasak Ngeno

Ngene dialect. The results are found out by applying gap and case-coding

strategies. Meanwhile, indirect relativization of Sasak Ngeno Ngene dialect is

triggered by the behaviour of single argument combined with benefactive,

recipient, and instrumental oblique objects. Interestingly, this dialect also exhibits

quasi-applicative constructions which are labelled under benefactive and recipient

clauses during relativization treatment. Regarding the analysis on hierarchy or

word ordering construction of noun phrases in Sasak Ngeno Ngene dialect, it was

found that this dialect possesses two different levels or stratum of relative clause

such as S (SVO)>O (OVS)>OBL: DES>LOC for direct relativization, whereas the

indirect one formulates the level of hierarchy such O

(OVS)>OBL:BEN>RECIP>INST.

As concerned above, three previous studies above discussed the area of

morphological and syntactic (morphosyntactic) analyses. Indeed, this research is

going to do a morphosyntactic analysis in Belitong language. However, comparing

to three related studies formerly, this research accounts for different phenomenon

attested in Belitong language in terms of grammatical relations that are

unfortunately had been not explored in two related research of Belitong

morphosyntax properties. On a side note, this research is going to dive deeper into

the Belitong language by employing Relational Grammar (RG) approach with

some strategies dealing with applicative and causative constructions. Therefore, it

is absolutely clear that this research is different from the third study in terms of

language-concerning and the phenomenon as well.

34
 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

This chapter provides several methodologies regarding research process such as

research design, source of data, data collection method, and technique of data analysis.

3.1 Research Design

This is an ethnographic study based on the field of linguistic data. An

ethnographic study accounts for the qualitative research in describing, analysing,

interpreting and documenting several patterns of behaviour, beliefs, and language

in particular social-cultural communities (Creswell, 2012: 462). This study will be

conducted under the qualitative descriptive approach in determining attested

morphosyntactic phenomenon alongside Relational Grammar theory in Belitong

Language. Descriptively, the goal of this study here is to describe typical

phenomenon of applicative and causative constructions in Belitong as well some

strategy patterns in the ordering of these two relations by governing RG approach.

3.2 Source of Data

There are two types of data sources that will be used to cover this study.

Primarily, the native speakers of Belitong will be involved as the source of the data.

The participants and sites to study will be determined by means of purposeful

snowball sampling. Secondarily, the data that are provided by the previous literary

works of Belitong language will be taken as the source. The data will be collected

in the forms of Belitong language expressions comprising clauses or sentences that

35
 carry out applicative and causative constructions. For the sake of the convenience,

the data will be displayed in a tabulation format in readiness for analysis.

3.3 Method of Data Collection

Recall that this study is a qualitative descriptive study which concerns with

the morphosyntactic phenomenon in Belitong language, so that the method of

collecting data will be done as documentary forms. Therefore, the nature of

qualitative data will be collecting through the following techniques:

1. Observation

This is a common first level of data collection in which the observer

participates in gaining information by observing people at the research site

(Creswell, 2009: 181). In this case, fieldnotes will be organized when

observing the structure of Bahasa Belitong used by the speakers in daily

communication.

2. Interview

This technique may also be involved in the observation practice

whereby the interviewer conducts face-to-face interactions with the target or

the interviewee or via phone in order to gain as much as possible responses

and information regarding Belitong language structures by doing

unstructured open-ended questions.

3. Documents

During the process of research, unanimated source of data will be

taken such as reports of previous studies based on the qualitative researches

that have been done by Napsin et al. (1986) and Arifin et al. (2002)

36
 concerning the analysis of Belitong language structures. The data will be

taken as supporting (i.e. secondary) data in which if the primary data are

insufficient to be obtained and/or analysed.

3.4 Method of Data Analysis and Interpretation

The data analysis and interpretation of this study will be conducted with

explanatory method, hence, the data will be proceeded and scrutinized by following

the several steps of technique of analysing qualitative data that are visualized in a

linear-hierarchical approach building from the bottom to the top as shown in the

Figure 3.1 below (adopted from Creswell, 2009: 185):

Figure 3.1 The Process of Analysing Qualitative Data

37
 The raw data as the results of three process of collecting data, then, will be

emphasized by following steps in details such as:

1. Step 1. Organising and preparing the data for analysis. At this early stage in

qualitative analysis, the obtained data will be organized by its own type

according the way they are collected such as observations, interviews, and

documents. This step involves transcribing interviewed data, scanning the

material based on the documents used, typing up the field notes, then

arranging or sorting them into the respective categories or types of data.

2. Step 2. Reading through all the data in order to obtain general senses or

thoughts regarding the data and to reflect on the overall meaning. This is

also known as general analysis because the general responses given by the

participants will be marginalized in this step.

3. Step 3. Coding the data means the process of analysing and organizing the

data by segmenting it into different categories and labelling them with

typical constructions, e.g. applicative and causative. In order to facilitate the

process of analysing and organizing the data, a coding will be conducted by

computer analyses in addition to manual coding by hand. In the other words,

this is the process of narrowing data by dividing them into several typical

themes (also called as categories), i.e. similar codes combined to determine a

major idea in the database and descriptions or more details of themes which

consist of people, places, or events in the research, for examples.

4. Step 4. Coding is used to determine theme and description for analysis.

Creswell (2009: 189) defines description involves a detailed rendering of

38
 information about people, places, or events in a setting of qualitative

research. While theme refers to the categories of the data in the analysis

process. Themes are regarded as major findings in qualitative studies that are

analysed to provide a detail qualitative report.

5. Step 5. The description and themes will be described in the qualitative

narrative. In the previous section, it has been mentioned that the data will be

presented in term of explanatory method. Some figures and table will be

used in order to visualize the data or information briefly during the process

of conveying the findings of the analysis.

6. Step 6. This is the final step in analysing the data by making interpretation of

the data provided. The interpretation here will be derived and supported by

the information gleaned from the related literatures or theories.

39
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