Analysis of Derivational Morphemes in Malay

Earlier borrowing from the three languages saw more of whole-word transfer, including the affixes which come with the lexical items.  However, in the course of time, education and knowledge of these languages had created an awareness of the meanings of specific morphemes. Therefore, later, morphemes of the languages are also transferred into Malay and used with other Malay lexical items.

In Malay, there are four types of derivational affixes: prefixes, suffixes, infixes and confixes. The following tables demonstrate affixes in Malay and their functions.

Prefixation is when a bound morpheme is added in front of the lexical item in the pre-positioning. In Malay, sometimes prefixes alter the word class of the lexical items.

	Prefix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	be	1.  to put on or wear	berseluar berbaju bertopi
		2.  to own or to show something	berumah berada
		3.  to change a word into a verb	bercukur berjalan belajar bekerja
2.	ke	1.  to change a word into a noun	ketua kehendak
		2.  to show collectiveness	kedua-dua kesemua
		3.  to show position (numeral)	ketiga keduapuluh
3.	se	1.  to show only one	sejenis sepadan sebaya seribu
		2.  to indicate entirety	sekampung senegara sedunia se-Malaysia
4.	ter	to change a word into an adjective	terendam tersayang teroboh tersenyum
5.	me	to change a word into a verb	meyakin melawat mendarat mencuba membawa membaling mengasah mengecap mengebom menyurat menyapu
6.	pe	to change a word into a noun	pewangi pemakai pembawa penjahit pendengar pengedar penulis pemanis pertapa pelajar
7.	memper	1.  to indicate extra effort	memperdalam memperkaya memperluas
		2.  to treat as something	memperhamba memperisteri
8.	di	to change a word into a verb	diumum diumpat diskru
9.	juru	to show a person who is an expert in an area/field	juruterbang jurukimia jururawat juruoptik juruprogram jurutaip juruwang juruukur jurugambar jurubahasa juruaudit jurulatih

Table 10: Prefixes in Malay.

As the table above demonstrates, there are nine derivational prefixes in Malay. These prefixes are have several functions, such as to change a lexeme into a verb (prefix be, me and di), change a lexeme into a noun (ke and pe) and change a lexeme into an adjective (ter). Other functions of prefixes are, prefix be is also used with other lexical items to show action of wearing (such as berseluar) and to own or to show something (such as berumah), prefix ke is also used to show collectiveness (such as kesemua) and numeral position (such as ketiga), prefix se is used to indicate singularity (such as sejenis) and entirety (such as sekampung), prefix memper is used to indicate extra effort (such as memperkaya) and to treat as something (such as memperhamba), and prefix juru is used to show a person who is an expert in a area (such as juruterbang).

Suffixation is a process where a bound morpheme is placed at the back of a lexical item, in post-positioning. In Malay, most of the times suffixes alter the word class of the lexical items involved.

	Suffix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	an	to change a word into a noun	masakan minuman hinaan jaminan
2.	kan	to change a word into a verb	tingkatkan timbunkan tetapkan
3.	i	1.  to show imperative	sayangi takuti kaburi
		2.  to change a word into a verb	lindungi naiki

Table 11: Suffixes in Malay.

There are only three derivational suffixes in Malay, which are an, kan and i. Suffix an is used to change a lexeme into a noun (such as masak becomes masakan), and suffix kan and i are used to change a lexeme into a verb (such as tingkat becomes tingkatkan, and saying becomes sayangi).

Infixation in Malay occurs when a bound morpheme is inserted within a lexical item, right after the initial consonant. Generally, infixes do not change the word-class of the lexical items.

	Infix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	en	to form a new lexical item of almost similar characteristics	tenusu (from tusu/susu)
2.	er		seruling (from suling) keruping (from kuping) rerambut (from rambut) gerigi (from gigi)
3.	el		kelemumur (from kemumur) telunjuk (from tunjuk) jelajah (from jajah)

Table 12: Infixes in Malay.

According to Heah, infixation is an obsolete morphological process which was revived recently to create lexical items. In Malay, there are only three infixes, which are en, er and el.

Confixation is a process where a bound morpheme occurs in front of and at the back of a lexical item, in pre-position and post-position. Most of the times, confixes change the word-class of the lexemes involved.

	Confix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	me…i	1.  having attributes of something	meragui membasahi
		2.  to indicate repeated action	memukuli
		3.  to change a word into a verb	membanjiri menasihati mengotori
2.	me…kan	1.  to cause something to happen	menaikkan mengakibatkan menakutkan
		2.  to change a word into a verb	membetulkan mencalonkan mengambilkan melarikan
3.	ke…an	1.  having attributes ofsomething	kejahatan ketaatan kehausan kebiruan
		2.  to change a word into a noun	kehadiran kedudukan
4.	memper…i	1.  to indicate becomingsomething	mempereloki memperteguhi
		2.  to change a word into a verb	mempersenjatai mempelajari
5.	memper…kan	to change a word into a verb	mempersuamikan memperdebatkan memperlagukan
6.	pe…an	to change a word into a noun	perbuatan pengambilan pembinaan

Table 13: Confixes in Malay.

As demonstrated in the table above, there are six derivational confixes in Malay, which are me_i, me_kan, ke_an, memper_i, memper_kan and ke_an. One of the main functions of confixes is to change a lexeme into a noun, as in confix ke_an and pe_an.

In the Tables 10 and 12, we can observe that in morphemes be, me and pe, each has a few allomorphs. The allomorphs for morpheme be are {be} as in bekerja, {ber} as in bermain and {bel} as in belajar. Allomorphs for morpheme me (in both prefix and confix categories) are {me} as in melawat, {men} as in mendarat, {mem} as in membaling, {meng} as in mengasah, {menge} as in mengebom and {meny} as in menyurat. Allomorphs for morpheme pe (in both prefix and confix categories) are {pe} as in pewangi, {pem} as in pemakai, {pen} as in penjahit, {peng} as in pengedar, {penge} as in pengecat, {per} as in pertapa and {pel} as in pelajar. This is perhaps due to the influence of the sounds after the morphemes in the lexical items, known as phonological conditioning. Thus, we can say that, for example, the morpheme pe is phonologically realized as seven different allomorphs based on the place of articulation.

References

Tatabahasa Bahasa Melayu (2004). Retrieved on 5^th Sept. 2004 from http://tatabahasabm.tripod.com/tata/index.htm.

Loga Baskaran (2003). General Linguistics: Phonetics and Phonology (Lecture notes). Faculty of Languages and Linguistics: University of Malaya.

Heah, L.H.C. (1989). The Influence of English on Lexical Expansion of Bahasa Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.