AN ANALYSIS OF THE MALAY SEMU PASSIVE FORMATION IN GENERATIVE FRAMEWORK

This paper explains the problem of the Malay semu passive formation, in the context of its analysis changes in the Generative framework. Based on Syntactic Structures, semu passive has been analysed as a structure that derived from the active sentences via Passive Transformation rules. However, the earliest passive formation has several issues that relate to the active-passive derivation at the D-Structure and L-Structure levels, the over generate passives rule, the existence of a passive feature +Pas on NP category, and the factor of object movement in semu pasive. Hence, with the latest developments of Generative Grammar (TG) theory through the Minimalist Program approach, this paper aims to elaborate the process of semu passive formation and resolve issues in the earlier analysis. Descriptive analysis was carried out on semu passive sentences, by applying the principles and concepts introduced by the Minimalist Program. The findings of the analysis show that the semu passive was derived base own its lexical array, rather than derived from active sentences at the D-Structure. The analysis also found that the semu passive structure contains a little verb phrase (vP), which functional head v is occupied by the Ø- PASSIVE morpheme. The functional head v also projects multiple specifiers, namely inner and outer specifier. Furthermore, the analysis found that the object movement in semu passive is triggered by the uninterpretable features checking. The implication of this analysis shows that through some of the innovations introduced in the Minimalist Program, issues relating to the earliest semu passive formation was resolved adequately.