Use of the vocabularies 479
(21) Ali menta Siti meyos dha' compo'-epon.
Ali AV.request Siti go to house-DEF
‘Ali asked Siti to go to his house.’
(22) Ali ng-ator-e guru-epon meyos dha' compo'-epon.
Ali AV-say-E teacher-DEF go to house-DEF
‘Ali invited his teacher to go to his (Ali’s house) house.’
(23) Ali menta Siti nyabis dha' dalem-epon Pa' Hasan.
Ali AV.request Siti AV.go to house-DEF Mr Hasan
‘Ali asked Siti to go to Pak Hasan’s house.’
There are two points to note in this set of sentences. First, the alos word compo'
'house' is used rather than the kasar roma in keeping with the alos speech situa-
tion. Second, the word meyos ‘go’ used as alos tenggi in (19) is used here as an
alos word, as Siti is not a person for whom alos tenggi vocabulary is appropri-
ate. This demonstrates the occasional overlap between the alos and alos tenggi
vocabularies, or viewed differently the use of one or the other in the absence of
an appropriate lexical item within one or the other vocabularies.
2.3 Identifying distinct speech levels
The data described in sections 2.1 and 2.2 represent an account of ‘pure’ kasar
and ‘pure’ alos speech. The use of kasar vocabulary in an alos sentence or alos
vocabulary in a kasar sentence constitute inappropriate lexical choice and result
in ill-formed utterances. Identification of other levels is somewhat more deli-
cate.
As described in section 2.1, pure tengnga'an speech requires the use of
only tengnga'an and biyasa vocabulary. However, certain concepts require the
choice of kasar or alos vocabulary. For example, as demonstrated in sentences
(18-23), there are no level-neutral (biyasa) lexical items for the concept ‘house’;
one must select either the kasar roma (or bengko) or the alos compo' (assuming
the situation does not dictate the use of the alos tenggi dalem). This was also
demonstrated for ‘go’ (entar vs. meyos) and is true for a significant number of
other concepts. Thus, pure tengnga'an speech would restrict a speaker from
discussing certain concepts or would require extensive circumlocution. It is
clearly not impossible to do so; the sentence in (24) (from Maukmam (2007:2))
is made up entirely of tengnga'an and level-neutral lexical items.
(24) Dika mon mangkad-a pon duli-yan, pongpong gi' laggu.
you if leave-IRR already soon-AN while still morning
‘You should go soon, while it is still morning.’