452 Chapter 14 Questions
With items that can be held, such as sorat ‘letter’ or geddhang ‘banana’, either
biggi' or bannya'na may be used. However, in the case of larger items, such as
humans, houses, or villages, only bannya'na is used, as in (56), which perhaps
further indiates its similarity to the Indonesian classifier.
(56) Barampa bannya'-na/*biggi' disa e-entar-a-na Bapa'?
how.many many-DEF seed village OV-go-LOC-IRR father
‘How many villages will Father go to?’
The structure with fronted barampa appears to be restricted to non-
prepositional objects, that is direct objects. The sentence in (57b), in which ba-
rampa should quantify the objects of the prepositions ka and bi', are ungram-
matical. Here barampa must occur in the same phrase as the element is quanti-
fies.
(57) a. Bapa' entar-a ka barampa (bannya'-na) disa?
father go-IRR to how.many many-DEF village
‘How many villages will Father go to?’
b. *Barampa bannya'-na Bapa' entar-a ka disa?
Therefore, in transitive clauses with PP objects, clause-initial barampa can
quantify only the object (58b), even when the object is a null NP, as in (59b).
(58) a. Sa'diyah ngerem sorat ka barampa guru?
Sa'diyah AV.send letter to how.many teacher
‘How many teachers did Sa'diyah send letters to?’
b. Barampa bannya'-na Sa'diyah ngerem sorat ka guru?
how.many many-DEF Sa'diyah AV.send letter to teacher
‘How many letters did Sa'diyah send to the teacher?’
(not: ‘How many teachers did Sa'diyah send letters?’)
(59) a. Bu Sinap a-massa' kaangguy barampa oreng?
Mrs Sinap AV-cook for how.many person
‘How many people did Bu Sinap cook for?’
b. Barampa bannya'-na Bu Sinap a-massa' kaangguy oreng?
how.many many-DEF Mrs Sinap AV-cook for person
‘How much did Bu Sinap cook for the people?’
(not: ‘How many people did Bu Sinap cook for?’)