THE MORPHOLOGY OF ADJECTIVES IN KARONESE

1.2 Background
Karonese belongs to an ethnic group or tribe on highlands of North Sumatra, Indonesia. They live in Berastagi, Kabanjahe, Simpang Empat, Pancur Batu, and villages around them. The area is in North West region of Toba Lake which covers about 5.000 km wide. Astronomically the area is located between 30 and 30300 in north latitude and 980 in north longitude.
The area consists of two main parts:
The high land of Karo or Karo Gugung, covers all locations of Karo district with Kabanjahe as central administration of the district.
The low land of Karo or Karo Jahe, which covers some locations in other district such as Langkat and Deli Serdang.

The highland of Karo is the cultural centre of the Karonese. Therefore, the original language in this area is not much affected by other languages. The people use the language in all activities, especially cultural and daily occasions, the language is mostly used. In this area, the people live on agriculture, like planting vegetables, fruits, and rice for their consumption and their commercial commodity. Vegetables, fruits and rice are produced for domestic and export consumption.

The lowland people grow plants like rubber and oil palm. In this area the culture is very much influenced by Malay and also other cultures such as those of, Indian, Acehnese and Javanese. Lowland of Karo is close to Medan, North Sumatra. Their language is very much influenced by neighboring people. In fact, most young people use Indonesian in their daily communication.
Describing about general culture of Karonese, the clans are very important to the people. There are five clans in Karo, those are: Tarigan, Karo-Karo, Sembiring, Ginting, and Perangin-angin. Each of the clan is claimed to have been born from the king in tradition. However, there come again names to which a clan call the other clan. These names called Tutur Siwaluh: senina, turang, bapa, nande, bengkila, bibi and mama. Karo also has marital or family names to other family. It is known as Rakut Sitelu which contents of three names: Sembuyak, Kalimbubu and Anak Beru.

There is expectation slogan influenced daily activities in Karo. The slogan is Sura-sura pusuh peraten. This slogan is assumptions to their live, Tuah which means by requesting mercy and blessing from god, to have good generation. Sangap, balance in economy and livelihood. Mejuah-juah, which mean to have wealth, live in peace, spirit to work and balance between human to human, human to nature and human to god. All these three expectations is related one to another.

Although the Karonese are divided into clans, they speak one language, Karonese. Karonese consists of three main dialects: Karo Gunung-gunung dialect (west high land), Kabanjahe dialect (east high land) and Jahe-jahe dialect (low land of Karo)

There are more sub-dialects in Karonese according to certain aspects lexical or phonologycally. Sub-dialects commonly define from area of community or village such as Singalur Lau dialect, which spoken by people in Tiga Binanga, and Tiga Lingga; Cingkes dialect which spoken in Cingkes district and dialect Bintang Meriah which spoken by people around Kuta Buluh district. According to analysis of variations among main dialects and sub-dialects, geographically those dialects can be mapped by dividing it into two area, West Karo and East Karo. West Karo here includes Singalur Lau dialect, Tongkoh dialect, Jahe-Jahe dialect, and Tiga Panah dialect. East Karo includes Kabanjahe dialect, Bintang Meriah dialect, Payung dialect, and Simpang Empat dialect.

The features that differentiate the dialects are mostly found in phonology and lexical items. West Karo dialect, phonologically, has distinctive feature in derivation of vowel of the east Karo. Some of the differences are shown below.
East Karo : word with /u/ in final syllable
West Karo : word with /o/ in final syllable.
Examples:
/waluh/ ‘eight’ /wal h/
/kerahung/ ‘throat’ /kerahong/
/mbur/ ‘fat’ /mbor/

East Karo : word with /i/ in final syllable
West Karo : word with /o/ in final syllable.
Examples:

/siti ? / ‘little’ /sit? /
/kentisi? / ‘a moment’ /kenti?/
/malir/ ‘flow’ /maler/

There are words in East Karo content of /u/ or /e/ but found in West Karo with /i/.
Examples:
/meluhε/ ‘hungry’ /melihε/
/bentuha/ ‘rainbow’ /bentiha/
/ndeher/ ‘close’ /ndiher/

Diphthong in the final word in East Karo dialect found in monopthong in West Karo dialect.
Examples:
/ndiganai/ ‘when’ /ndiganε/
/jaun/ ‘corn’ /jon/
/ndauh/ ‘far’ /ndoh/

Some lexical features come with phonologic variation are:
/mberti? / ‘papaya’ /perti? /
/kiam/ ‘run’ /gian/
/tualah/ ‘coconut’ /talah/

Reduplication, morphologically, in East Karo dialect replaced in partial repetition in West dialect.
Example:
/gawahgawah/ ‘traveling’ /gagawah/

Base on this concept, there are still many current distinctive features found in other sub-dialect in Karo lexically or phonologically. For example, terminology of Karonese for grandfather and grandmother is ‘nini bulan’ and ‘nini tuduŋ’ according to East Karo. But West Karo dialect used in low land the terminology came into ‘bolaŋ’ and ‘nondoŋ’. East Karo tend to diphthongize final /e/ and / /. For example, [bage] ‘seems like’ [bagai] and [rim ] ‘orange’ [rim u]. Sub-dialect Singalur Lau which is used in Tiga Binanga and Tiga Lingga, has current characteristic, such as derivation of final /a/ into /e/ in [juma] ‘land’ [jume].

Generally, dissimilar dialect in Karo does not indicate misunderstanding between the utterances in their communication. The typical dialects give more appreciation to the speakers about area or region of Karo indeed. However, East Karo dialect seems to be more acceptable when searching for the standard of Karonese. This notion according to the reality that Kabanjahe is located in the middle of Karo area while in the other hand it also stands as a central commercial activities and the district of government activities. Regarding to the fact, the writer intents to have data of this study found based on the East Karo location dialect.

The published study of Karonese language writes about grammatical rules and linguistic patterns at general issues. This condition still remains complicated understanding about Karonese. Owing to the fact, the writer then start to give a detail view to adjective form in Karonese since adjective form becomes one of the important link in understanding a language. The writer admits that scientific discussion is crucially needed to keep this language exists in linguistic literature.

1.2 Problem

The adjective is the focus of this study. Therefore the problem can be formulated as follow:
How is the morphology of adjectives in Karonese?

1.3 Scope
The scope of study is limited to adjectives form in Karonese. This limitation aims to prevent bias or complicated understanding through other morphologic rules.

1.4 Aim
The aim of this study is obviously to find out how the morphology of adjective in Karonese is.

1.5 Significance
This study has contribution in supporting information about Karonese language especially adjective forms. On the other hand, it is also hoped to give literature references for those who concern their study in morphology. And simply, of course, give bibliography to enrich student in field of linguistics.

1.6 Organization
This thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter one deals with background (literature review to Karo include culture and language history), problem, scope, significance, and the organization of the study. Chapter two deals with the review of literature relevant to morphology of adjective in Karonese include short note of the sound system in Karonese. This chapter also describes the theories related to which this study concern about. Chapter three content of the research methodology which includes population and sample, location and procedure of collecting data. Chapter four presents result and discussion of adjective in Karonese. The last, chapter five deal with the conclusion and suggestion.