The Dichotomy of Auxiliaries in Javanese: Evidence from Two Dialects

Abstract

Cole et al. find that auxiliary fronting in yes–no questions divides auxiliaries in the dialect of Peranakan Javanese as spoken in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia into two types: low auxiliaries that can front and high auxiliaries that cannot. In my research on two geographically distinct dialects of Javanese (Paciran Javanese, spoken in Paciran, East Java; and Standard Javanese, spoken in Yogyakarta and Solo, Central Java), I broach the question of whether this division is a feature of only Peranakan Javanese, given the uniqueness of this dialect. I present results from two different methods (elicitation and a Likert-type rating task via a questionnaire), showing that this division holds for auxiliary fronting in both Paciran Javanese and Standard Javanese. These results suggest that the division of auxiliaries is a property that holds across all dialects of Javanese. In further exploration of the structural properties of the two types of auxiliaries in Javanese, I show that two other syntactic constructions—VP-topicalization and Subject–auxiliary answers to yes–no questions—also exhibit the same dichotomy of auxiliaries in both dialects, where only low auxiliaries are grammatical. I offer significant amendments to Cole et al.'s analysis of auxiliary fronting in Javanese to account for these additional constructions.