Indonesian Syntax (Nahu Bahasa Indonesia): Informal Speech — Sentence Topics
If you've read my previous post, forget everything you've read. Nobody actually speaks Indonesian like that. Welcome to informal spoken Indonesian, particularly the one colloquially spoken in South Jakarta. The syntax in spoken Indonesian is way freer than written Indonesian, but it emphasizes a topic–comment syntax structure like Japanese and Korean. You Indonesian speakers probably never even noticed that we have this feature.
What is a Topic?
You're probably wondering what a topic and comment are. Unlike a subject, the topic of a sentence serves to change the… topic, or theme of a conversation. There are two components at play: the topic and the comment — the topic is the one being introduced into the conversation, and the comment is what's being said about the topic. In natural languages, the topic of a sentence tends to get placed in front. A lot of the time, topics and subjects serve the same purpose. However, sometimes, they're different. In the sentence "As for my job, I work as a book author", "my job" serves as the sentence's topic while "I" serves as the sentence's subject.
Here. If you hear the sentence "Erwin bapaknya pejabat lho", two meanings probably come to your mind: Erwin is the father of an official, or Erwin has a father who's an official. Both of these are acceptable — the former meaning is subject-prominent, and the latter meaning is topic-prominent. Nevertheless, I should point out that intonation plays a significant role here, so it's kinda hard to explain via text.
Roles of the Topic in a Sentence
In this post, I'll define the topic as the part of a sentence that appears front-most (excluding adjuncts, terms of address, exclamations, etc.) AND is separate from the subject. From what I've gathered, topics can represent many parts of a sentence, i.e. (1) themes/topics, (2) noun possessors, (3) subjects, (4) objects, (5) adjuncts, (6) subordinate clauses, and (7) main clauses.
TOP SUBJ ADJUNCT PRED OBJECT
(1a) Ini gue dari-tadi selesai eval.
this I since-earlier finished evaluation
"Speaking of this, I've (already) finished the evaluation since earlier."
SUBJ PREDICATE OBJ ADJ
(1b) Saya sudah selesai evaluasi dari tadi.
I already finished evaluation since earlier.
"I've already finished the evaluation since earlier."
TOP SUBJ PRED
(2a) Gue laptop-nya ga-bisa screenshare.
I laptop-the not-can screenshare
"My laptop can't screenshare."
SUBJ PRED
(2b) Laptop saya tidak bisa screenshare.
Laptop I not can screenshare
"My laptop can't screenshare."
ADD TOPIC SUBJECT PRED
(3a) Bro, Bebras itu soal~soal ter-tolol.
bro Bebras that question~PLU SUP-stupid
"Bro, (the) Bebras (questions) are the stupidest questions."
SUBJ PRED OBJ
(3b) Bebras adalah soal~soal ter-tolol.
Bebras is question~PLU SUP-stupid
"(The) Bebras (questions) are the stupidest questions."
TOP ADJ SUBJ PRED
(4a) Bryce Hall juga aku ga-suka banget.
Bryce Hall too I not-like very
"I really dislike Bryce Hall too."
SUBJ ADJ PRED OBJ
(4b) Aku juga sangat tidak suka Bryce Hall.
I also very not like Bryce Hall
"I really dislike Bryce Hall too."
ADDRESS TOP SUBJ PRED
(5a) Bro, itu gue bisa isi
bro that I can content
OBJECT ADJUNCT ADJ
bensin tiga minggu gak abis~abis.
gasoline three week not run.out~EMP
"Bro, with that, I can fill up (my vehicle) with gasoline for three weeks without running out."
ADJ SUBJ PRED
(5b) Dengan itu, saya bisa meng-isi
with that I can AV-content
OBJ ADJ ADJ
bensin untuk tiga minggu tanpa habis.
gasoline for three week without run.out
"With that, I can fill up (my vehicle) with gasoline for three weeks without running out."
TOP PRED
(6.1a) Mati mah mati aja.
die EMP die just
"If you die, you die."
ADJ SUBJ PRED
(6.1b) Jika Anda me-ninggal, Anda me-ninggal.
if you AV-stay you AV-stay
"If you die, you die."
TOP SUBJ PRED
(6.2a) Petir kenceng banget game gue sampe crash.
thunder loud very game I until crash
"There was a thunder so loud (that) my video game crashed."
PRED SUBJ CONJUNCTION
(6.2b) Ada petir sangat keras sehingga
exist thunder very loud so.that
SUBJ PRED
gim video-ku ter-henti.
game video-I PV-crash
"There was a thunder so loud that my video game crashed."
ADJ TOP
(7a) Deadass, gue ng-omong N-word
deadass I AV-speech N-word
ADJ SUBJ PRED
selama semester 1 kuliah itu gak lebih banyak
during semester 1 college that not more many
ADJ
dari jari tangan.
than finger hand
"Deadass, during the 1st semester of college, I've said the N-word no more than the (amount of) fingers on a hand."
ADJ ADJ
(7b) Sesungguhnya, selama semester 1 kuliah
frankly during semester 1 college
SUBJ PRED OBJ COMPLEMENT
saya meng-ucap-kan kata N tak lebih banyak
I AV-word-APPL word N not more many
ADJ
daripada jumlah jari tangan.
than amount finger hand
"Frankly, during the 1st semester of college, I've said the N-word no more than the amount of fingers on a hand."
Summary
To sum it up, the main distinguishing feature of a sentence topic in informal spoken Indonesian is its frontal location. Syntactically, a topic can represent the topic/theme of a sentence or other syntactical structures in a sentence, such as a noun possessor, a subject, an object, an adjunct, a subordinate clause, or a main clause. In Indonesian, a sentence topic doesn't have to be a noun, but it does have to appear before the subject and predicate.
References/Resources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malay_grammar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_and_comment
https://langsci.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1012/2019/01/13-Stack.pdf
https://translate.google.com/?sl=id&tl=en
https://kbbi.kemdikbud.go.id/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_glossing_abbreviations
