480 Chapter 15 Speech levels
In (24), dika ‘you’ and pon ‘already’ are tengnga'an words and the rest are biya-
sa.
The examples in (6) and (9), discussed above and repeated here, are not
strictly speaking pure tengnga'an speech.
(6) Bula sanonto ta' kengeng neddha durin.
I now not get AV.eat durian
‘Now I am not allowed to eat durian.’
(9) Dika nape mare ngakan?
you what finish AV.eat
‘Have you eaten?’
In (6), the alos words kengeng and neddha occur; and in (9), the kasar form
mare is used. The sentence in (6) is used if a speaker using tengnga'an wishes to
show a degree of respect to the addressee, shown through the use of the alos
items. If the speaker does not believe such a degree of respect is warranted, the
sentence in (9) would be appropriate. So, (6) includes tengnga'an + alos and (9)
includes tengnga'an + kasar. Four speech levels can thus be posited: kasar, alos,
tengnga'an + alos, and tengnga'an + kasar. Strictly speaking, a completely ‘le-
velless’ sentence made up only of biyasa words is possible, and one might posit
a biyasa level as well (as Stevens (1966) does). However, in practical terms
such sentences will be embedded in a situation in which the speaker will also
use kasar, tengnga'an, or alos vocabulary. Thus, it is not clear that a distinct
level of this kind needs to be recognized, just as a pure tengnga'an level would
be difficult to maintain.
This does not exhaust the possibilities, however. The fact is that it is poss-
ible to mix the vocabulary somewhat more. For instance, (25) can be used as a
variant of (9).
(25) Dika nape mare neddha?
you what finish AV.eat
‘Have you eaten?’
In (25), the alos word neddha ‘eat’ is substituted for the kasar word ngakan in
(9). This sentence thus combines tengnga'an, kasar, and alos vocabulary in a
single utterance. (This variant is actually preferred by some speakers over (9).)
The sentence in (25) is considered a bit more respectful than that in (9) due to
the use of the alos neddha rather than the kasar ngakan.
The examples in (26) and (27) show an additional example of a speaker’s
use of kasar and alos vocabulary in a tengnga'an speech situation to show more
or less respect to the addressee.