Syntactical Modifications

The syntactical modification in the requests issued by J participants involved inquiries, declarative questions, ellipsis, and conditional clauses. The following extracts illustrate how they were used in the interactions.

a. Inquiries Extract 20

129

145. Sp : … iki ana basa↑

146. J6 : wonten ning namung sekedhik Bu↓ 147. Sp : ya ra pa-pa↓

148.→ J6 : boten kedah dipun-[ilangaken] boten Bu↑ 149. Sp : [ilangi↑]

150. →J6 : menapa boten napa-napa Bu↑

151. Sp : boten napa-napa, rasah diilangi ra pa-pa↓

English Gloss

Sp : … is there any krama J6 : there is but not many mother Sp : yes that’s fine

J6 : (it) doesn’t have to be [omitted mother Sp : [omitted

J6 : would that be alright mother Sp : that is fine don’t omit it that is fine

In Line 148 and Line 150, J6 delivered a query by saying in krama level ‘boten kedah

dipunilangaken boten Bu↑ menapa boten napa-napa Bu↑’ which means ‘(it) doesn’t

have to be omitted mother would that be alright mother’. This utterance consists of two requests for information. The one in Line 150 is an inquiry as it employs the krama question word ‘menapa’ for ‘what’. The requested information was provided by the supervisor in Line 151. The use of krama level in the utterance showed deference and save the supervisor’s negative face.

b. Declarative Questions Extract 21

Situation: Sp and J2 talked about combining data which comes from the same books.

324. Sp : nganue tujuan boten langsung (xxxx) ngene ki, rak nganu Mas 325. njenengan kan rung ndadeke siji sing langsung-langsung= 326. →J2 : =o dados setunggal buku menika dados setunggal niku Pak↑ 327. secara langsung menika [dipun-]

130

328. Sp : [nek mak]sutku nek sek sing

329. kaya iki langsung iki karo iki ngono↓ hhh- iki isa langsung, 330. isa langsung kabeh, lha iki rak langsung sing ming neng 331. iki tok↑

332. J2 : nggih

English Gloss

Sp : the direct aim (xxxx) brother (Mas) you haven’t combined the direct (ones) into one (group)

J2 : oh so (those items from) one book are grouped into one father the direct ones

Sp : what I meant the one like this is direct and also this one this one and this one is also direct but only in this one

J2 : yes

In response to Sp’s comment about combining the direct data into one group, J2 responded by saying in krama level ‘o dados setunggal buku menika dados setunggal

niku Pak↑’ which means ‘oh so (those items from) one book are grouped into one

father’ (Line 326). J2 requested for information in a declarative question that is categorised as a direct strategy showing a positive-politeness strategy. However, this declarative question was delivered in krama level that made the utterance polite and maintained the supervisor’s negative face.

c. Ellipsis Extract 22

Situation: Sp and J3 talked about honorifics and address terms.

67. J3 : menika wonten ing sistem sapaan kaliyan penanda sayang↓ 68. Sp : endi↑=

69.→ J3 : =saged dipunlebetaken↑

70. Sp : lha angger teorimu bahwa honoritik itu termasuk dalam 71. sistem sapaan ya isa ta↓=

131

73. Sp : =isa↓ 74. J3 : nggih

English Gloss

J3 : they are in the address terms and endearment Sp : where (are they)

J3 : (they) could be included↑

Sp : if your theory says that honorifics are included in address terms yes (they) can can’t they

J3 : could (they be included)↑ Sp : (yes they) can

J3 : yes

In this extract, J3 responded to Sp’s query concerning the address terms by saying

‘saged dipunlebetaken’ meaning ‘(they) could be included’. J3’s utterance was a

request for information. In Line 70, Sp provided the requested information. In Line 72, J3 responded to Sp by saying ‘saged↑’ (could) to request for confirmation. Sp delivered the confirmation by saying ‘isa↓’ (can). Both the requests were in ellipsis. Saged and

isa are equivalent to the English ‘can (be done/possible)’, but saged is a lexicon in krama level while isa is in ngoko. The use of krama in this context made the utterance

polite in Javanese.

d. Conditional Clauses Extract 23

Situation: Sp and J4 were at the beginning of the thesis supervision session and talked about the title of the thesis.

4. → J4 : menawi / irah-irahanipun skripsi kula kaliyan isi menika, 5. menawi dipungantos↑ kadospundi↑

6. Sp : wis karo aku rung↑

7. J4 : kalih panjenengan sampun Pak↓

132 English Gloss

J4 : If / how about if I change the title and the content of the paper Sp : have (you) been with me before

J4 : yes (I) have father

In this extract, when J4 asked about the change of title and the content he said in krama:

‘menawi / irah-irahanipun skripsi kula kaliyan isi menika, menawi dipungantos↑

kadospundi↑’ that means ‘If / how about if I change the title and the content of the

paper’ (Line 4 – Line 5). In this utterance, J1 used a conditional clause shown in the use of ‘menawi’ (krama form for ‘if’) that mitigated the request and showed politeness as well as deference.

The examples of syntactical modifications in the previous extracts show that the J participants employed krama speech level in using conditional clauses, interrogatives, ellipsis, and declarative questions (see the percentage of the instances in Figure 9). The instances of ellipsis are combined with those of declarative questions. The most frequently used syntactical modification was declarative questions in which 2% of them was ellipsis.