Introducing Logophoricity to the Indonesian Grammar

In this article I will talk about logophoricity in Indonesian. However, before we begin with the account of this inquiry. Pertaining to the title of this article; a question can be raised as to why logophoricity is introduced to the Indonesian grammar. Do not we have this notion at all in Indonesian? We come to the answer to the question shortly. First of all, when we talk about the Indonesian grammar, because this notion logophoricity has to do with the realm of pronouns, we need to start out with the concept of personal pronouns in Indonesian.

We are familiar with the universal classification of pronouns such as personal pronouns namely saya ‘first singular person pronoun I’, kamu second person pronoun ‘you’, dia ‘third singular personal pronoun she/ he’, kami ‘we’ which is first plural personal pronoun inclusive and the pronoun we can be equivalent with kita in Indonesian which is first plural personal pronoun exclusive, and lastly mereka third plural personal pronoun they’. In addition to this, we might be also familiar with what is called reflexive pronoun. A reflexive pronoun is a pronoun that operates in a sentential level of a grammar of any natural language in which the subject of a verbal predicate denoting an action or a psychological state is the same as the object of that action/state named by the predicate. In other words, the actor and the undergoer are realized by the same entity, one entity is the mirror image of the other. Indonesian itself does not have a dedicated reflexive pronoun but instead it is derived from the word meaning ‘body’, diri. The reflexive pronouns in Indonesian are divided into two categories, simple reflexive and complex reflexives. Simple reflexive is realized by diri itself while the complex reflexive is formed by the combination of the simple reflexive with possessive pronouns thus deriving reflexives such as diri saya ‘myself’’, dirimu ‘yourself’, dirinya ‘himself/herself/themselves’, diri kami/diri kita ‘ourselves’. In terms of the syntactic distribution, the simple reflexive pronoun occurs with action verbs while the complex reflexive pronouns with non-action verbs. Each of them is illustrated in the following examples.

(1) Action verbs:

       a.  John memukul diri

            John Act.hit    self

            ‘John hit himself’

b. Jane mencubit diri

     Jane Act.pinch self

     ‘Jane pinched himself’

(2) Non-action verbs

       a.  Saya melihat diri saya di kaca

            1SG Act.see self.1SGPOSS in mirror

            ‘I saw myself in the mirror’

       b. Kami mempercayai diri kami

            1PL  Act believe.   Self 1PLPOSS

            ‘We believe in ourselves’

       c.  Dia/mereka menyintai dirinya

            3SG/3PL Act.love self.3POSS

            ‘She/he loves herself/himself/ they love themselves’

What is worthy of a note here is that the complex reflexive in which the possessive morpheme attached to diri serves as a modifier which only strictly co-occurs with non action verbs. An attempt to make the reflexive anaphor realized by the complex reflexive in action verbs result in the fact that the modifier is optional. On the other hand, to make simple reflexive co-occur with the non-action verbs yields an  ungrammatical construction (marked by an asterisk *). Thus each of the sentences in (1) and (2) above can be rewritten as (3) and (4) respectively.

(3) Action verbs:

       a.  John    memukul    diri-(nya)

            John    AV.hit        self-3POSS

            ‘John hit himself’

b. Jane mencubit    diri-(nya)

     Jane  AV.pinch   self-3POSS

     ‘Jane pinched herself’

(4) Non-action verbs

       a.  Saya    melihat    diri saya/         *diri di  kaca

            1SG     AV.see     self 1SGPOSS   self in  mirror

            ‘I saw myself in the mirror’   

       b. Kami   mempercayai diri kami/         *diri

            1PL     AV.believe.    self 1PLPOSS    self

            ‘We believe in ourselves’

       c.  Dia/     mereka  menyintai   dirinya/         *diri

            3SG/    3PL        AV.love     self.3POSS      self

            ‘She/he loves herself/himself/ they love themselves’

Logophoricity and its domain

The concept of logophoricity is first introduced to the linguistic literature by the seminal work of Hagège (1974) when he accounted for the distribution of the pronoun in African languages. Logophoricity is a linguistic system in which logophoric pronouns are found in the clausal complement of a predicate (Hagège 1974). They refer to the persons whose words, thoughts or emotion are represented. The term logophoric pronouns are common in West African languages, such as Ewe and Gokana. The nature of how logophoricity is encoded may vary from language to language. In Ewe, logophoric pronoun and regular pronoun are encoded by different forms while, in Gokana, logophoricity is marked on the verb as shown in the following examples.

Ewe (Clements 1975: 142):

(5)    a.   Kofi   be        yè-dzo.

               Kofi   say       Log-leave

               ‘Kofi_i said that he_i left.’

         b.   Kofi   be     e-dzo.

               Kofi   say    Pro-leave

               ‘Kofi_i said that he_j left.’

Gokana (Hyman and Comrie 1981: 20):

(6)    a.   aè        kɔ       aè     dɔ̀.

               Pro       said    Pro    fell

               ‘He_i said he_j fell.’

         b.   aè       kɔ     aè       dɔ̀-ɛ̀.

               Pro     said   Pro     fell-Log

               ‘He_i said that he_i fell.’

            Languages found outside West Africa such as Icelandic and Japanese use reflexive anaphor for encoding logophoricity. This is illustrated respectively in (7) and (8).

Icelandic (Sigurðson 1986, cited in Sells 1987: 450):

(7)    a.   Hann_i      sagði     [að       sig_i     vantaði       hæfileika].

               he_i           said       [that     self_i      lacked       ability]

               ‘He_i said that he_i lacked ability.’

         b.   *Honum_i     var       sagt      [að       sig_i     vantaði         hæfileika].

                 he_i              was      told      [that     self_i    lacked          ability]

               ‘He_i was told that he_i lacked ability.’

Japanese (Kameyama 1985, cited in Sells 1987: 453-454):

(8)    a.   Takasi_i        wa       Taroo ni      [Yosiko     ga        zibun_i     o

               Takasi_i        Top      Taroo  Dat   [Yosiko     Subj     self_i         Obj

               nikundeiru     koto]       o         hanasita.

               be-hating       Comp]    Obj     told

               ‘Takasi_i told Taroo that Yosiko hated him_i.’

As noted, Indonesian does not have logophoric pronouns per se. However like all languages outside West Africa such as Japanese and Icelandic as illustrated in (7) and 8) (see also Huang 2000), Indonesian also uses reflexive pronouns to function as logophoric pronouns. The reflexive pronouns used are limited to complex reflexive pronouns. Thus the same form is used logophorically. Unlike Icelandic and Japanese, Indonesian never uses simplex reflexive anaphors to express logophoricity. However, needless to say, the distribution of logophoric pronouns in all of these languages (Icelandic, Japanese, and Indonesian) is completely the same. As has been explained, the reflexive pronouns are used in a sentence/clause in which the antecedent and the reflexive pronoun are co-argument of a verbal predicate but logophoric use of the reflexive pronouns have a distribution which accords with the use of dedicated logophoric pronouns found in West African languages. In other words, the logophoric use of complex reflexives operates in a domain where the antecedent of a logophoric pronoun contains in the matrix clause while the logophor is found in the clausal argument of the matrix predicate. Thus I simply call the complex reflexives used in the logophoric environment logophoric pronouns in Indonesian. In Sneddon et al. (2010), Indonesian reflexivization is well discussed. However, the logophoric system is not touched on at all. Thus, although the two systems, reflexivization and logophoricity, depart from the same forms, given their distinct distribution and their respective importance in the linguistic operation, the logophoric  system needs to be introduced or accounted for in the Indonesian grammar.

Verbs that license logophoricity

       When we talk about reflexivization, the verbs used for constructing it can be said to be unrestricted provided that the verb in question allows the antecedent-(reflexive) anaphor relations and such a verb must be transitive verbs (verbs that require the occurrence/presence of an object). However, verbs that form a logophoric domain are limited to verbs of communication, verbs of perception, and verbs of mental state. The examples are in order.

Verbs of communication

(9)   a.  Dia_i   mengatakan    bahwa    dirinya_i         akan    datang

            3SG   AV.say            COMP   self.3POSS   AUX   come

            ‘(S)he said that (s)he would come’

       b. Tono_i   melaporkan  bahwa    John  telah    membohongi   dirinya_i

            Tono   AV.report     COMP   John  PERF  AV.deceive     self.3POSS

            ‘Tono reported that john had deceived him’

Verbs of perception

(10) a.  Tini_i    mendengar   bahwa      Ali  mencintai dirinya_i

            Tini     AV.hear        COMP      Ali  AV.love   self.3POSS

            ‘Tini heard that Ali loved her’

       b.  Tono_i merasa bahwa     John  telah    mengikuti   dirinya_i

            Tono AV.feel COMP   John PERF AV.follow  self.3POSS

            ‘Tono felt that John was following him’

Verbs of mental state

(11) a.  Amin_i percaya  bahwa Ali membenci dirinya_i

            Amin   believe  COMP Ali AV.hate  self.3POSS

            ‘Amin believes that Ali hates him’

       b.  Dia_i tahu    bahwa    John menunggu dirinya_i

            3SG know COMP   John AV.wait.for self.3POSS

            ‘(S)he knew that John was waiting for him/her

Conclusion 

Logophoricity  can be said to be a universal phenomenon. Although a language does not have dedicated logophoric pronouns, like those found in West African languages, the logophoric system that emerges in the language becomes manifest through the use of reflexive pronouns.

References

Clements, George N. 1975. The logophoric pronoun in Ewe: Its role in discourse. Journal of West African Languages 10.141-77

Hagège, Claude. 1974. Les pronoms logophoriques. Bulletin de la société de linguistique de Paris 69.287-310

Hyman, Larry M. and Bernard Comrie. 1981. Logophoric reference in Gokana. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 3.19-37.

Huang, Yan. 2000. Anaphora: A cross-linguistic study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sells, Peter. 1987. Aspects of logophoricity. Linguistic Inquiry 18.445-479.

Sneddon, James Neil, Alexander Adelaar, Dwi Noverni Djenar, and Michael C. Ewing. 2010. Indonesian: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge