Demonstrative nouns of ini and aini in muna language

Abstract

The article titled “Demonstrative Nouns of ini and aini in Muna Language.” The purpose of this article is to analyze the form, meaning, and function of ini and aini in Muna language. The method used is descriptive qualitative with distributional technique. This method is used to describe and analyze the form, meaning, and function of ini and aini. The results of the analysis found that the form of ini is a base or monomorpheme, while the form of aini is a derivative or polymorpheme which consists of morpheme a- and morpheme aini. In construction of phrase, clause, or sentence generally have the same meaning, namely ‘this’. For instance, O lambu ini damasoe and lambu aini damasoe the meaning is ‘The house will be sold.’ However, when it’s examined more closely, both forms of demonstrative ini and aini in distributional are not interchangeable. For instance, *O lambu aini damasoe dan *Lambu ini damasoe. Both of constructions are ungrammatical caused by form ini has a meaning ‘this’, while form aini means ‘which this’. The bound morpheme a- in aini has a function as a noun marker which pointed in article ini called relative noun marker. Thus, demonstrative aini can stand alone as a minor sentence in the answer sentence, e.g., Question: Hamai bokuku kabasa? ‘Where is my reading book?’ Answer: Aini! ‘This’ < (Here is it!). Demonstrative aini when substituted with ini, the construction became ungrammatical, e.g., Question: Hamai bokuku kabasa? ‘Where is my reading book?’ Answer: *ini. Hereafter, the form ini cannot be formed in more complexes, whereas the form aini can be formed again with another bound morpheme, such as: ainihakanau ‘This is me’, ainihako ‘This is you’, ainihakoomu ‘These are you’, ainihae ‘This is he’, ainihada ‘These are they’, and ainihakasami ‘These are we’.