Hero Patrianto

See details of research being done by Hero Patrianto, a PhD student in Linguistics.

Thesis title

Javanese complementation structure

Supervisors

Prof Miriam Meyerhoff and Dr Victoria Chen

Abstract

My doctoral research centers on the syntax of Javanese, an understudied Austronesian language spoken in central-eastern Java. Much recent work has demonstrated that Austronesian languages have important theoretical implications for our current understanding of the Universal Grammar. I aim to contribute to this line of research through an investigation of the complementation strategies and subordinate clause structures in Javanese.

Javanese is a close relative of Malay and Indonesian, and is well-known for its rich register system that distinguishes three (informal, intermediate, formal/polite) distinct levels of speech. However, most younger speakers cannot use the register system fluently, and this system has not been properly described and analysed. To better understand Javanese’s core syntax including its register system, I will focus on four specific questions in my thesis: (i) what are the functional projections involved in various complementation strategies attested in Javanese?, (ii) how much variation vs. uniformity lies between the core syntax of Javanese and that of typologically similar languages, such as Indonesian, Acehnese, Balinese, and Madurese?, (iii) how are speech levels encoded in Javanese syntax?, and finally, (iv) how can Javanese syntax contribute to the refinement of formal syntactic theories?

Building on (i)-(iv), I aim to provide a more comprehensive description and analysis of Javanese, and contribute further to the syntactic typology of various grammatical items attested in this language.