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Part of
Austronesian Undressed: How and why languages become isolating
Edited by David Gil and Antoinette Schapper
[Typological Studies in Language 129] 2020
► pp. 253–286

Chapter 5
Javanese undressed

‘Peripheral’ dialects in typological perspective

| University of Maryland

This chapter makes two claims about Javanese, one concerning its internal dialect variation, and one concerning its place in mainland Southeast Asian (MSEA) typology. First, Javanese exhibits extreme dialect variation, with many features of these variants not appearing in descriptions of Javanese, which mostly concern the Central variety. Second, the existence of these features changes the position of Javanese in the continuum of isolating-to-synthetic languages. Relevant features from six dialects of Javanese show that the Central variety – that of Yogyakarta and Solo – inadequately characterises Javanese as a whole; rather, the geographically and socially ‘peripheral’ dialects more strongly tend toward isolating morphology. Consequently, Javanese is less of an outlier in the MSEA Sprachbund than is generally acknowledged. Historical evidence shows that the Central variety is innovative with respect to Javanese overall.

Keywords: Javanese, internal dialect variation, typology, peripheral dialects, isolating morphology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Javanese variation
    • 1.2Javanese dialects in typological perspective in the MSEA Sprachbund
  • 2.Fieldwork, data collection, method
  • 3.Selected features in MSEA and Javanese dialects
    • 3.1Central Javanese
      • 3.1.1Lexical, phonological, and pragmatic features of Central Javanese
      • 3.1.2Morphological and morphosyntactic features in Central Javanese
    • 3.2Banten
      • 3.2.1Lexical, phonological, and pragmatic features in Banten
      • 3.2.2Morphological and morphosyntactic features in Banten
    • 3.3Banyumasan
      • 3.3.1Lexical, phonological, and pragmatic features of Banyumasan
      • 3.3.2Morphological and morphosyntactic features of Banyumasan
    • 3.4Pesisir Lor
      • 3.4.1Lexical, phonological, and pragmatic features of Pesisir Lor (PL)
      • 3.4.2Morphological and morphosyntactic features of Pesisir Lor
    • 3.5Tengger
      • 3.5.1Lexical, phonological, and pragmatic features of Tengger
      • 3.5.2Morphological and morphosyntactic features of Tengger
    • 3.6Osing
      • 3.6.1Lexical, phonological and pragmatic features of Osing
      • 3.6.2Morphological and morphosyntactic features of Osing
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Central vs. peripheral varieties of Javanese
    • 4.2Javanese in typological perspective
    • 4.3Javanese in diachronic perspective
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.129.05con
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