On the Cognitive Statuses of Sasak Demonstratives

Abstract

This study examines the cognitive statuses of the Givenness Hierarchy on Sasak demonstratives, particularly in Menu-Meni dialect of the Sasak language. This study is qualitative research in nature. The data were collected via the field-linguistic method by utilizing three techniques: elicitation, semi-structured interview and intuition. The results of the study revealed that Menu-Meni dialect implements the pronominal demonstrative for “activated” status and adnominal demonstratives are used for the status of “referential”, “uniquely identifiable”, and “familiar”. Beyond demonstratives, zero articles is applied in the status of “type identifiable” and the pronoun ie (it/she/he) is used in the status of “in focus”. Thus, demonstrative has a prominent role in most of the cognitive statuses in the Givenness Hierarchy theory.