An Outline of Achehnese Phonology and morphology

Abstract

It is a remarkable fact that of the Achehnese language, one of the most important languages of Sumatra, no grammatical description has ever appeared in print that meets minimum requirements. The only grammar extant is K. H. van Langen's Handleiding voor de beoefening der Atjehsche taal (The Hague, 1889). But notwithstanding Van Langen's laudable effort under difficult conditions, his work does not do justice to the language. There are two main objections. First, it is based on the written language. This is (or was in Van Langen's time) exclusively written in Arabic script, which clearly represents an earlier stage of the Achehnese language when certain phonemes had a different value and certain finals existed which have now been dropped. But Van Langen based even his transliteration in Latin characters on these archaic and obsolete Arabic spellings. The second objection is that the author never realized that Achehnese is an inflecting language, and treated certain personal prefixes as indicating a passive voice and a gerund instead of flexional elements of the verb. One aspect of his work is, however, still useful: the chrestomathy which forms a part of it, written in Arabic script, with a transliteration and a translation of some of the texts.

Subjects in Acehnese and the nature of the passive

“…We can identify the lower bound by considering verb-phrase-internal morphemes. When there is a causative morpheme, the prefix appears outside the causative morpheme, not on the lexical root, as in 48 (on Acehnese causatives, see Cowan 1981:536-38, Durie 1985: 78-86, Asyik 1987:84-92, Ko 2008.…”

What’s in a grammar: A reply to Stokhof

“…I agree with Stokhof that no official decision has been reached about what should be standard Acehnese. However, I disagree that my statements on this topic are 'quite at variance' (Stokhof 1988:323) with those of Cowan (1981) or the Indonesian sources Stokhof quotes (Akbar et al 1985 andIsmail 1983). The crucial point, which I make in the grammar, is that the sociolinguistic situation described by Snouck Hurgronje just under one hundred years ago no longer exists today.…”

Nasal Spreading as Defective Gestural Deactivation

“…A number of languages spoken in and around Indonesia and Malaysia are reported to have two series of nasal consonants; one series triggers progressive nasal spreading, while the other does not. One such language is Acehnese (Malayo-Polynesian; Indonesia), in which some nasal consonants trigger nasal spreading among vowels, glides, and glottals, while others do not (data from Durie (1985) and Cowan (1981) Durie attributes this pattern to a distinction between plain nasals, which trigger the progressive nasal spreading that is common of Austronesian languages, and so-called 'funny' nasals, which do not trigger spreading. Similarly, McGinn (1982) and Coady & McGinn (1982) propose a contrast in Rejang (MalayoPolynesian; Indonesia) between plain and 'barred' nasals, which contrast in their ability or inability to trigger nasal spreading.…”