280 Chapter 9 Verb phrases and verbal marking
(132) Pa' Hasan ka-pate-yan ebu'-eng.
Mr Hasan AD-die mother-DEF
‘Pak Hasan’s mother died on him.’
lit. ‘Pak Hasan suffered his mother dying.’
The implication in (130) is that Dayat’s car was damaged by the falling coco-
nut, and in (131) that Deni was hurt or at least inconvenienced by being sprayed
with the hot water.
Adversatives can be formed with adjectival predicates as well. In this
case, the structure expresses an overabundance of the property denoted by the
predicate. Recall from Chapter 4 section 1.3 that adjectival predicates generally
take the suffix -en rather than –an, although the latter can occur as well.
(133) Sapu'-eng kana' juwa ka-sekken-en.
belt-DEF child that AD-tight
‘The child’s belt is too tight.’
(134) Ali berka' ka-tandhes-sen.
Ali run AD-fast
‘Ali ran too fast.’ (he’s early)
(135) Kopi jiya ka-manes-an.
coffee this AD-sweet
‘This coffee is too sweet.’
Akin to the adversative, is a structure which makes use of an auxiliary
verb or alternatively is a serial verbs type of construction. This structure makes
use of the verb kenneng ‘get, hit’ which immediately precedes the stem form of
the verb denoting the state of affairs. The structure has an adversative connota-
tion.
(136) Motor-ra Dayat kenneng gaggar-i ennyor.
car-DEF Dayat get fall-LOC coconut
‘Dayat’s car got fallen on by a coconut.’
(137) Wati kenneng pokol bi' Bambang.
Wati get hit by Bambang
‘Wati got hit by Bambang.’
The subject in this construction is the theme of the ‘main’ verb of the structure.
In (136), Bambang’s car is the theme of the locative form of gaggar ‘fall’ and
in (137) Wati is the theme of hit. All in all, this structure is similar to ‘get’-
passives in other languages.