456 Chapter 14 Questions
(73) Sapa se e-kera Hasan ___ melle motor anyar?
who REL OV-think Hasan AV.buy car new
‘Who does Hasan think bought a new car?’
(74) Apa se e-janji-yagi Ali dha' Siti ___ e-pa-becce'-a are Sennen?
what REL OV-promise-AGI Ali to Siti OV-CS-good-IRR day Monday
‘What did Ali promise Siti would be fixed by Monday.’
(75) Sapa se e-kabar-ragi Ina ja' para dhokter namba-i
who REL OV-new-AGI Ina COMP all doctor AV.medicine-LOC
ana'-na ___?
child-DEF
‘Whose child did Ina spread the news that the doctors cured?’
Although it may appear that the bolded interrogative words have moved from
the position in the complement clause marked by the underscore, there is evi-
dence that this conclusion is unwarranted and that the interrogative phrase is a
dependent of only the matrix clause.^6 The matrix structure in all of these sen-
tences has all of the features of the prolepsis construction detailed in Chapter 11
section 6, in which a proleptic object occurs in the matrix clause and is corefe-
rential with a pronoun (overt or nonovert) in the complement clause. So, the
interrogative phrase is in fact never a dependent of the complement clause and
is only a dependent of the matrix clause. This evidence is briefly reviewed in
what follows.
5.4 Evidence against long-distance movement
First, the object voice form of the matrix verb is obligatory. In (60c) and (73-
75) the matrix predicates are marked for object voice. The object voice is used
when a non-actor is the subject of the sentence. This indicates that the interroga-
tive phrase is the subject of the sentence, something that would be unnecessary
in a movement analysis of the type found in English. The object voice cannot be
attributed to a constraint against an element moving past a verb in the actor
voice, as the sentences in (76) illustrate.^7
(^6) Complete arguments are given in Davies 2003.
(^7) Saddy (1991) and Cole and Hermon (1998) propose that in Indonesian/Malay no ele-
ment may move over a verb in the actor voice. A constraint of this kind appears to be
unable to explain the Madurese facts (see Davies 2003). Sundanese presents a fact pat-
tern very similar to Madurese in which a condition constraining movement across actor
voice verb forms in unable to account for all relevant characteristics (see Davies and
Kurniawan 2009).