Morphophonemic Analysis on Prefix ‘Ma’ in Verbs of Toba Batak

Abstract

Language is hierarchically realized in sound, morph, words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and text. Toba Batak as one of the Austronesian languages has the same content, one of them is the realization of the prefix ma- in verbs. The realization of the prefix ma- in verbs of Toba Batak, in this study is analyzed in two parts (1) morphemic analysis and (2) phonemic analysis. This study is conducted by applying the observation as the instrument on an online dictionary of Toba Batak. After observing 146 verbs with the prefix ma-, the following findings are defined. Firstly, the prefix ma- is realized in 5 (five) morphemesin verbs of Toba Batak, they are ma-, man-, mam-, mang-, and manga- . Secondly, phonemically, the realization of the prefix ma- in verbs of Toba Batak defined three types of sound assimilation which are classified by the voicing characteristics. The finding defined that verbs begin with vowels, semi-vowels, and all voiced consonants have regressive and additional phonemes in their sounds of assimilation, the additional phonemes are before the lexemes by added the existence of phonemes [n, m, ?] or nasals, however, all the verbs begin by voiceless consonants have reciprocal/mutual and changing the phonemes in the sound assimilation, in this finding the bilabial sound of [p] is turned into [m] or homorganic, and sound [t, s] is turned into [n] or alveolar homorganic. This study also defined that all verbs that begin by nasal have no sound assimilation in their attachment