Long-distance questions 457
(76) a. Apa se e-yaken-ne Hasan (ja') e-baca Siti?
what REL OV-sure-LOC Hasan COMP OV-read Siti
‘What is Hasan sure that Siti read?’
b. *Apa Hasan yaken (ja') e-baca Siti?^8
what Hasan sure COMP OV-read Siti
(What is Hasan sure that Siti read?)
The predicate yaken ‘be sure’ does not take actor voice morphology in its basic
usage, as shown in (72). Thus an analysis based simply on the absence of actor
voice is insufficient to account for the ‘long-distance’ questions. The facts are,
however, consistent with a prolepsis analysis in which apa is a matrix depen-
dent.
Additionally, the matrix predicate must have the appropriate applicative
suffix. In (76a), the matrix verb yaken occurs with the locative suffix -e, which
is unnecessary in the basic use of yaken but obligatory in the prolepsis construc-
tion. All matrix predicates that require an applicative suffix in the prolepsis
construction (that is all predicates other than kera ‘think/guess’) also require
this suffix in the long-distance question structure. A further example is:
(77) a. Sapa se e-bala'-agi Ali ja' ma-becce' sapedha motor?
who REL OV-say-AGI Ali COMP AV.CS-good motorcycle
‘Who did Ali say fixed the motorcycle?’
b. *Sapa se e-bala Ali ja' ma-becce' sapedha motor?
who REL OV-say Ali COMP AV.CS-good motorcycle
(Who did Ali say fixed the motorcycle?)
c. Ja' Wati ma-becce' sapedha motor e-bala Ali.
COMP Wati AV.CS-good motorcycle OV-say Ali
‘Ali said that Wati fixed the motorcycle.’
In the grammatical question in (77a), the matrix verb bala ‘say’ carries the suf-
fix -agi. This suffix only occurs when the subject matter argument occurs as a
core argument, that is when it is either direct object or subject.^9 The ungram-
maticality of (77b) indicates that the suffix is obligatory here. However, the
applicative suffix is not obligatory in the object voice if the complement clause
is the derived subject, as illustrated in (77c). However, the suffix does occur in
the prolepsis structure when the proleptic object is a core argument. The occur-
(^8) As elsewhere in this work, English translations of ill-formed Madurese sentences are
enclosed in parentheses rather than single quotation marks.
(^9) The function of -agi with respect to bala is detailed in Chapter 10 section 2.2.