Constituent order and information structure in Indonesian discourse

This study draws on theories of information structure to examine the findings from Cum-
ming’s (1991) study showing changing preferences in constituent order in Indonesian. Cum-
ming found that predicate-initial clauses, an important grammatical resource for encoding
events in Classical Malay, are diminishing in Indonesian, and agentive clauses are now pre-
ferred. Based on data from fictional discourse and television reports, three clause structures
are examined: [meN -V], [di-V-nya] and [ia V]. I show that the use of [meN -V] to denote
successive events and to mark the climactic portion of a story episode illustrate most dramat-
ically the preference for agentive clauses in Indonesian. I also argue that [di-V-nya] remains
an important resource for encoding events but its pragmatic function seems to have weak-
ened. This clause type is now mainly used to mark a new focus, drawing the addressee’s
attention to a particular event or series of events. Meanwhile, objective voice [ia V] is also
used to encode events; however, unlike [di-V-nya] which is structurally different from [meN -
V], the use of [ia V] alongside agentive clause structure [ia meN -V] creates an impression of
structural symmetry and can serve two goals simultaneously: marking event and signalling
a new focus. It could be that, as the pragmatic force of [di-V-nya] is weakening, [ia V] is
increasingly preferred for marking focal events.