Dynamic ter- in Malay (Bahasa Melayu): A study in grammatical polysemy

Abstract

This paper undertakes a fine-grained semantic analysis of some of the multiple uses of the polyfunctional verbal prefix ter- in Malay (Bahasa Melayu), the national language of Malaysia. The analysis is conducted within the natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) framework originated by Anna Wierzbicka, supported by examples drawn from a large corpus of naturally occuring Malay texts. The main goals are to accurately describe the full range of meanings, and to decide to what extent apparent differences are contextually-induced as opposed to being semantically encoded. In the end, seven distinct but interrelated lexico-semantic schemas are identified, constituting a network of grammatical polysemy.