Balinese language: Historical background and contemporary state.

Abstract

The thesis deals with the historical background and synchronic state of Modern Balinese, with special attention to differences of discourse-syntactic organization between the "Low" (biasa/kasar) and "High" (alus) speech levels. The morphological forms of the "High" levels are said to reflect an earlier era of linguistic form in Western Austronesia, exemplified in the "Focus" systems of Sanskritized languages like Old Javanese, Old Malay, and Old Balinese. This type of discourse organization is said to reveal a "participant-marking" orientation that has continued to be useful to contemporary Balinese in the domains of formal or ritual public discourse. The discourse organization of "Low" Balinese, on the other h and , is said to reveal an "event-salient" type of organization adapted to the pragmatics of informal discourse. Part I of the thesis examines participant-marking morphology found in Old Javanese, Old Malay, and Old Balinese. Part II is concerned with the synchronic state of Modern Balinese. After an examination of basic morphological and syntactic structures of Modern Balinese, Part II moves on to an examination of 'passive' phenomena, concluding that person-marking features retained in the morphological marking of certain passives of the "Low" speech levels makes them ineligible for use in formal contexts. Chapters Seven and Eight look at the role of the Balinese speech levels in formal and informal discourse, as exemplified in the "recitation- and -translation" genre known as mabasan, and in folk narratives of the satua type. Here the argument is made that the Balinese speech levels represent opposing but complementary discourse strategies. These respond on the one h and to the dynamic context of informal and intimate communication, and on the other to the need for linguistic devices that maintain "steady-state" aspects of Balinese social organization.