The semantics and pragmatics of Indonesian locative prepositions
Djenar, Dwi Noverini
PL 583

This book is an in-depth study of three locative prepositions which are often interchangeable in Indonesian, namely, di , pada and dalam —roughly corresponding to the English ‘on, in, at'. Discussing a range of quite subtle meanings and uses of these prepositions in different types of discourse (or genre), it provides a complete descriptive account of prepositional meanings that reflects more closely the range of actual uses by speakers in spoken and written discourses. It addresses important semantic and pragmatic issues including polysemy, sense distinction, conceptual and non-conceptual aspects of preposition use, borrowing and semantic change, context and inferences. The issue of preposition alternation, which has received little attention in previous studies, is discussed in terms of the interplay between overlaps in the semantic range and pragmatic as well as discourse-related factors. This book will be an important book for students and researchers of Indonesian in particular, and those who are interested in semantics and pragmatics in general.

2007 ISBN 9780858835665, x + 231 pp
Prices: Australia AUD $59.95 (incl. GST); Overseas AUD $54.50

previous next Place an order

Last modified: 15 August 2004
Authorised by: The Managing Editors, Pacific Linguistics
Copyright © 1996-2004, The Australian National University
Maintained by: John Bowden, John.Bowden@anu.edu.au, and Malcolm Ross, Malcolm.Ross@anu.edu.au