The suffix -agi 311
theme-object pangaselan ‘income’. In (105b), buku forms the root of the actor
voice verb abukuwagi ‘to book’ (‘to enter in the books’). Here the subject Ali
and the object pangaselan remain the same as in (105a) and the sentence is syn-
onymous with the first. The sentences in (106) illustrate the same set of facts
with the noun penjara ‘jail’. It should be noted that English has a similar struc-
ture in which book and jail are zero-derived transitive verbs, where book has the
specialized meaning of charging a criminal act.
2.5 Intransitive predicates and causativization
As stated in section 2.1, generally speaking, affixation of -agi to an intransitive
predicate derives a causative in which the subject of the root in its basic form is
the causee and a causer argument is introduced, which is the subject in basic
usage. This is illustrated by the pairs in (107-109).
(107) a. Bambang senneng.
Bambang happy
‘Bambang is happy.’
b. Ita nyenneng-ngagi Bambang.
Ita AV.happy-AGI Bambang
‘Ita makes Bambang happy.’
(108) a. Na'-kana' rowa mole.
RED-child that go.home
‘That child went home.’
b. Ebu mole-yagi na'-kana' rowa.
mother AV.go.home-AGI RED-child that
‘Mother made that child go home.’
(109) a. Jawab-an-na terrang dha' red-mored.
answer-NOM-DEF clear to RED-student
‘The answer is clear to the students.’
b. Guru-na nerrang-ngagi jawab-an-na dha' red-mored.
teacher-DEF AV.clear-AGI answer-NOM-DEF to RED-student
‘The teacher explained the answer to the students.’
In (107a) the theme of the verb senneng ‘happy’ is the subject Bambang. In
(107b), when -agi is affixed to senneng, a causer argument, Ita, is added as sub-
ject, the theme Bambang is a bare postverbal NP, and the verb obligatorily takes