The morpho-syntax of agent incorporation in Bahasa Indonesia

Abstract

This thesis attempts to show that what has been called a Passive prefix, an agreement marker, or a clitic in Bahasa Indonesia Passives, is in fact an Agent that incorporates to the Verb. This type of incorporation is possible in passive constructions in which the Agent can be expressed without the use of an overt Preposition that means 'by'. Some main features of the theory of incorporation are outlined, which make up the basis of Baker's (1988) theory. Since previous discussions suggest that Agent Incorporation takes place only in Passives, the literature on Passives and unaccusativity is reviewed, with particular attention paid to the Unaccusativity Hypothesis, Argument Structure, the concept of external θ-role suppression and argument demotion. After a brief discussion of some important differences between agreement markers and incorporated Agents, and also between special or syntactic clitics and simple clitics, this thesis argues that the Agent Incorporation approach is superior to those that treat the element as an agreement marker or as a clitic. Another aspect of the incorporation constructions under consideration is that the phenomenon of zero Preposition occurs also in Bahasa Indonesia PP by-phrase. The behaviour of the zero alternant of the Preposition oleh 'by' is similar to the zero alternants of the Prepositions kepada 'to' and untuk 'for'. In Bahasa Indonesia, when the Prepositional Phrase immediately follows the Verb the Preposition may be overt or covert. This thesis argues that Agent Incorporation in Bahasa Indonesia is possible because the Preposition oleh may be covertly present. Because the covert Preposition is an affix, it must incorporate to the Verb at PF. The Empty Category Principle provides constraints for the X° movement of Agent Incorporation. However, in order to provide an adequate explanation for the mechanism of Agent Incorporation the analysis needs to consider the effects of the Head Movement Constraint, as has been proposed by Pesetsky (1995). It is concluded that Agent Incorporation in Bahasa Indonesia is strictly a result of an X° movement.