The Prefix peN- In Malay: A Bridging Cross Reference Analysis

Many Malay grammarians describe the semantic of peN- based on its structure andfunctions. Za’ba (1965), Asmah (1993), Nik Safiah et al. (1993), Abdullah and Liaw(1994) and few others agreed that the prefix peN- semantically refers to as an agent andinstrument. Some grammarians noted that the prefix peN- as a patient, habitual mannerand abstract marker. For instance, petani (farmer) is an agent, perokok (smoker) ishabitual, pemarah (bad tempered) is an abstract, penimbang (scale) is a measurement andso on. It is apparent that the description on peN- seems to be quite broad and overlappingand this can lead to ambiguity in meaning. Based on 5 million DBP-UKM data bank,peN and its concordance are extracted for analysis. Relevance theory that focuses oncommunication and cognition with reference assignment as one of its traits can offer abetter description on peN-. In reference assignment, bridging cross reference (BCR)which allows the dependent on context in utterances facilitate the hearer to determine theintended meaning. ‘Pemakan sayur’ (vegetarian) and ‘perosak bahasa’ (languagecorrupter) need no modifier to determine that they are referring to human, as opposed to‘burung pemakan bangkai’ - (carnivorous bird) and serangga perosak (destructiveinsects). The latter needs a modifier such as ‘burung’ (bird) and ‘serangga’ (insect) toshow that it is non-human. In sum, with BCR we are able to differenciate the prefix peNeitherreferring to human and non human based on context and attributes.