North Moluccan Malay (also known as Ternate Malay) is a Malay-based creole language spoken on Ternate, Tidore, Morotai, Halmahera, and Sula Islands in North Maluku for intergroup communications.
)', bifi 'ant', and fuma 'stupid', and its syntax and semantics have received heavy influence from the surrounding West Papuan languages.
In this case, possessions are often used as a tool to determine the borders of constituents for the sake of successful interpretation of word meanings and functions.
The examples below are extracted from Litamahuputty [5]: 92–98 to illustrate situations when Y pe X construction is used to express possessions.
Together, the construction gives the meaning of ‘our leg’, in which the leg is a part of ‘our’ body, demonstrating the relationship of ‘X is part of Y’ katosana,therede3SGpolososqueezetong1PLpePOSSkaki.legka sana, de poloso tong pe kaki.to there 3SG squeeze 1PL POSS legwhen we go there, she massages our legs [5]: 3 In example (2), ular pe bisa is a possessive construction where the possessor ular ‘snake’ is connected to the possessum bisa ‘venom’ using pe.
Together, the construction brings the meaning of ‘the bank employees’ wives’, which expresses the social relationship between the humane animates.
Together, the construction gives the meaning of ‘Fadin’s older brother’, which expresses the kinship relationship between the two humane animates.
FadinFadinpePOSSkakaolder.siblingni.thisFadin pe kaka ni.Fadin POSS older.sibling thishe’s Fadin’s older brother[5]: 93 Example (6) is about a story of how the speaker accidentally spilled hot oil on himself.
In the possessive construction de pe beso, the possessor de ‘third person singular’ refers to the day of incident, where the possessum beso ‘tomorrow’ refers to the day after the incident.
eh,EXCLde3SGpePOSSbesotomorrowkita1SGkagestartlednae.go.upeh, de pe beso kita kage nae.EXCL 3SG POSS tomorrow 1SG startled go.upgee, the next morning I woke up in a shock.
In the possessive construction de pe kalamareng malang, the possessor de ‘third person singular’ refers to the moment when the speaker was talking, where the possessum kalamareng malang ‘yesterday night’ refers to the night before that moment, demonstrating past time relationship between the time when the speaker heard strange voice and the time he talked.
The examples below demonstrate situations where Y pe X construction is used to express meanings other than possession, for example, to express evaluative meanings or additional information:[5]: 99–102 In example (9), the Y element in the Y pe X construction ‘ngana pe capat’ is ngana, which refers to ‘second person singular’; and the X element is capa’, which refers to ‘fast’.
The example provided extra information on what surprised the speaker rather than showing possession between the old man and his way of washing a wok.
ikangfishbawabringdong3PLparau.boatikang bawa dong parau.fish bring 3PL boata fish is pulling their boat[5]: 104 Example (12) has demonstrated the use of YX construction with element Y as a kinship term, where the possessor tete refers to grandfather and the possessum papa refers to father.
On the other hand, saya is used in more formal situations or when conversing with someone with a higher rank or status, to show respect to the other person.
[5]: 143 The second person singular and plural pronouns, ngana and ngoni also share a similar distinction.
[5]: 144 Alternatively, the plural second person pronoun ngoni can occasionally be used to refer to a single addressee respectfully, although it is typically reserved for addressing a group of people.
[5]: 147 These distinctions are demonstrated in example (1) where the speaker telling his friends of a situation where he explains to a woman that he does not want to accept money for helping to carry her shopping onto the bus.
However, following the conjunction deng or prepositions (such as di, ka, dari or pa) only the full form may be used.
[5]: 144–147 Hence in the following example tong cannot appear after the verb bunu "kill", only the full form torang is allowed: iblisdeviltaraNEGmungkinpossiblebunukilltorang1PLiblis tara mungkin bunu torangdevil NEG possible kill 1PL"it's impossible for a devil to kill us"[5]: 146 The full form of the first person plural pronoun torang is actually a shortening of kitorang which is sometimes used by older speakers however younger speakers rarely use this form.
[5]: 145 The only exceptions to the two restrictions mentioned above is when the pronoun is part of a Y pe X possessive construction in which case the shortened form may be used as the possessor Y.
[5]: 142 Example (4) shows a possessive Y pe X construction containing the first person plural short form pronoun dong occurring after a preposition pa: tong1PLbrentistoppasexactpatodong3PLpePOSSmuka.facetong brenti pas pa dong pe muka.1PL stop exact to 3PL POSS face"we stopped precisely in front of them.
"[5]: 148 Similarly, example (5) shows the third person singular short form pronoun de occurring after the verb iko "follow" also as part of a Y pe X possessive construction.
The subject kita pe mara ni 'my anger' expresses the entity that it has no (second) equivalent.
This predicate describes the state of subject kita 'first person singular' which make the meaning 'not possess' of tara relevant.
Generally, tara ada 'not be present' and tarada can be used interchangeably; however, some speaker might have clear distinction between the two.
In this example, the speaker gives two alternatives of the possible results of a soccer player kicking a ball.
[5]: 224 Example (9) shows the use of tar as the shortened form of tara in the predicate which is then followed by tau 'know'.
The alternative or the opposite is stated as di bawa barangka 'at the lower part, at the ditch'.
The alternative, which in this case is the real reason of the situation, is stated as ikang kase lari dong parao 'a fish takes away their boat'.