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Word Order, Possession & Grammatical Relations

How Indonesian expresses subject, object and possession without any case system
milik/punya
belongs to/owned by (explicit possession marker)
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Used when possession needs to be stated more formally/emphatically
buku milik saya
the book that belongs to me
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A more explicit alternative to simple juxtaposition
memberikan kamu buku
double object construction: verb + recipient + thing
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The recipient can appear directly after the verb with -kan
Struktur topik-komentar
Topic-comment structure: fronting what's being discussed
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Buku itu, saya sudah baca. = That book, I already read [it].
Suara pasif (di-) sebagai alternatif penekanan
Passive voice (di-) as an alternative to reordering for emphasis
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Passive voice lets the object become the sentence's starting point
kepada / untuk
recipient/beneficiary marking
kuh-PAH-da / OON-took
kepada = to (recipient); untuk = for (beneficiary)
di vs ke
static location vs motion toward
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di = being at a place; ke = moving toward it
Tidak ada kesesuaian berdasarkan peran gramatikal
No agreement regardless of the subject's grammatical role
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The verb form stays identical no matter who or what the subject is
Urutan kata tetap mengganti peran kasus
Fixed word order compensates for the lack of case marking
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Word order becomes the single most important grammatical signal
Nomina tidak berubah bentuk menurut fungsi
Nouns don't change form based on grammatical function
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The same noun form serves as subject, object, or possessor