MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF ADJECTIVAL AFFIXATIONS IN TOBA BATAK LANGUAGE

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to explore adjectival affixations in Toba Batak language. The theory applied in this study is structural morphology proposed by Nida (1949). Structuralists state that morphologically words can be analyzed and described based on structural phenomena of a language. The method of this study is qualitative descriptive; it is a method of study which describes language phenomena naturally without any exception. Morphologically, there are two types of adjectives in Toba Batak language, namely, adjectival bases and adjectival derivations. Affixes, such as prefixes, infixes, suffixes, and confixes can be attached only to adjectival bases to generate adjectives. In other words, such affixes cannot be attached to other types of parts of speech to form adjectives. The results show that there are seven adjectival affixations in Toba Batak language, they are: (1) prefix [um-], (2) infix [-um-], (3) suffix [-an], (4) confix [marsi- ... -i], (5) confix [ha- ... -assa], (6) confix [ma- ... -hu], and (7) confix sa- + full reduplication of base adjectives + -na. The attachments of prefix [um-], infix [–um-], suffix [–an], and confix [um- ... -an] to base adjectives form comparative degree. Superlative degree is formed by attaching premodifier na to comparative form that consist of prefix [um-]. The results of the adjectival affixations are inflectional because the attachment of the affixes does not change the syntactic category.