Too many nasal verbs: dialect variation in the voice system of Sasak

Like other western Indonesian languages, all varieties of Sasak have verbs that carry a nasal prefix (also called ‘nasal verbs’, Arka 1998, 2003, 2009) and verbs that lack such a prefix (also called ‘oral verbs ’ or ‘zero verbs’). Sasak shows four morphologically distinct kinds of nasal prefixes with varying functions. In some varieties the nasal-zero contrast has syntactic relevance relating to cross-clausal ‘pivot ’ choice. In others, the contrast is related to different semantic-pragmatic interpretations of the Agentlike NP and non-Agentlike NP in a two-argument clause, or to the way a state of affairs is being portrayed. Additionally, northern Sasak has nasal prefixes in constructions that in other varieties require different morphology, unconnected with the nasal-oral distinction. This paper explores the distribution of nasal-prefix verbs in a range of varieties of Sasak, using data from elicitation, narratives, conversations and experiments to determine how these different varieties employ nasal-prefix verbs and which functions such verbs carry out. 1. Introduction1 The Sasak language is spoken on the island of Lombok (immediately east of Bali, Indonesia) by around 2.7 million speakers, roughly 85 % of the population of Lombok