Entry 3: Unique Free and Bound Morphemes in the Indonesian-Makassarese Hybrid Dialect

Makassarese is one of the ethnic languages in the southern part of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. As an ethnic language, it is widely used in daily conversations in South Sulawesi. However, Indonesian, the official language also plays a big role as the ‘unifying’ language of roughly 350 ethnic groups in Indonesia (Winter, 2009). 

In Makassar, the capital city of South Sulawesi, and its surrounding areas, besides the ‘pure’ Makassarese and Indonesian languages an Indonesian-Makassarese hybrid dialect is also commonly used. I termed it hybrid as it is not fully Indonesian nor it is fully Makassarese. A unique phenomena within this dialect is the use of free and bound morphemes taken from Makassarese and attached to Indonesian words. This is also the type of dialect that I would use in my hometown which is an hour away from Makassar. I decided to analyze this topic as part of my language journal because of a recent Facebook post that my friend had posted. The post highlighted the free and bound morphemes that are most common in the Indonesian-Makassarese dialect. I remember when I was still an undergraduate student studying at a state university in Makassar, I had a classmate who was originally from Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital city. She had a hard time understanding the dialect that we used. Knowing Indonesian is not sufficient to understand this dialect.

Below is a table showing my analysis of the morphemes. In the analysis, I identified whether it is a bound or free morpheme and its function along with an example on how to use the morpheme when paired with in an Indonesian word. For this analysis, I chose the word ‘makan’ which means eat in English.

Morpheme	Free/Bound	Function	Example of Use
mi	Bound	to invite another person to participate in an action (strong)	Makanmi (Just eat it)
		to make a positive statement	-
pi	Bound	to indicate a specified time	Makanpi (When I eat)
ji	Bound	to question whether an action has been done	Makanji? (Did you eat?)
		to indicate that only a single action is conducted	Makanji (Only eating)
ki’	Bound	to invite another person to participate in an action	Makanki’ (Please eat)
		the polite form to address a person (pronoun)	-
ka’	Bound	to address oneself	Makanka’ (I am eating)
ma’	Bound	to indicate that an action is currently being conducted, assuming that the person uttering it was previously suggested to do the action by another person	Makanma’ (I’m eating now)
pa’	Bound	to indicate a specified time, similar to ‘pi’. However, ‘pa’’ is pronounced with a glottal stop at the end	Makanpa’ (When I eat)
ja’	Bound	to convince someone that an action is being or will be conducted	Makanja’ (I am eating)
ka’	Bound	to indicate that an action is currently being conducted (less marked compared to ‘ma’’)	Makanka’ (I’m eating now)
tong	Bound	to indicate that the person uttering it is participating in an action with another person(s)	Makantong (I’m eating too)
rong	Bound	to indicate that an activity needs to be done first	Makanrong (Let’s eat first)
mo	Bound	to indicate that an activity is preferred to be done over another activity (or activities)	Makanmo (Let’s just eat)
pade’	Free	when standing on its own, it means “OK”	-
		if it is attached to a word it has the same function as ‘mo’	Makanpade’ (Let’s just eat)
di’	Bound	to question whether the action is the one to be conducted	Makandi’? (We’re going to eat?)
ko	Bound	to suggest (very strongly) for someone to do something. Can be an order	Makanko (Just eat already/You have to eat)
na	Free	when standing on its own, it is used in question form to ‘nag’ someone to do something. Sometimes used repeatedly, e.g. na na na na	-
		if it is attached to a word, it functions to suggest for an action to be conducted (weak)	Makanna (Please eat)
gang	Free	when standing on its own, it means ‘stop it’ or ‘don’t do (something)’	-
		if it is attached to a word, it is used to indicate that an activity is currently conducted or had already been conducted, assuming that the person uttering it was accused of doing another activity instead	Makan gang (I am/was eating!)
sede’	Bound	to point out that an activity was conducted again	Makansede’ (You’re/I’m eating again)
lalo	Bound	to indicate that an activity should be conducted immediately or as soon as possible	Makanlalo (Eat right away)

As I did this analysis, I did not realize how complex the morphemes were. Each had their own situations in which they can only be used, even if there are some morphemes that could be used interchangeably in certain situations. I also realized that there are certain instances where two morphemes are attached to a single word. For example makanka’di’, which roughly means ‘I’m going to eat okay?’. The combination of the two bound morphemes resulted in quite a different meaning compared to when they are used separately.

References

Winter, G. (2009). Towards sustainable fisheries law: A comparative analysis. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.