Grammatical Expression of Bugis Politeness

Abstract

This paper discusses the use of grammar as a strategy to express politeness in Bugis society. This is based on the research I conducted in 2005 in two different Bugis communities: the first was in Awangpone, a rural area and the second was in Parepare. There are three main aspects of Bugis grammar used by Bugis people to encode their politeness. The first one is the pronoun system, in which Bugis speakers use idi', ta-, or -ki, (the 1 st plural inclusive pronoun) to address people politely rather than using iko, mu-, and -nu (the 2 nd person pronoun). The second one is the use of participant avoiders such as passive voice di-or terms such as tauwé 'people' or anu 'something or someone' to avoid mentioning the subject or object directly. Another device is the phonological alternations between final -o and final -i/-é, in which final -o is less polite than final -i/-é such as the pairs iyé'/iyo 'yes' or -mi/-mo 'just'.

The Roles of Social Status, Age, Gender, Familiarity, and Situation in Being Polite for Bugis Society

“…This discussion also shows that different types of polite expressions have been used by speakers above with different interlocutors. The most important polite markers are pronouns, address terms, and discourse markers such as mi and ji as softeners (Mahmud, 2008a(Mahmud, , 2010(Mahmud, , 2011. It is usually more polite to use the first person plural inclusive forms (idi',-ki', ta-/i-) rather than the plain second person forms (iko,-ko, nu-/mu-).…”

Bahasa Bugis: Inflectional Morphology in the Verb

“…While tosi is used to indicate repeated and similar action which the author translated as too again. Pragmatic meaning on second person Mahmud (2008) examined the politeness of BB's use of pronouns and affixes to demonstrate a well-mannered and respectful demeanor. In this essay, the author uses the morphological process to explain it.…”