Malay grammar

Malay grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions in the Malay language (known as Indonesian in Indonesia and Malaysian/Malay in Malaysia). This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses and sentences.A: Saya ma(h)u beli yang iniA: I would like this oneA: Yang itu!A: That one! Malay grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions in the Malay language (known as Indonesian in Indonesia and Malaysian/Malay in Malaysia). This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses and sentences. In Malay, there are four basic parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and grammatical function words (particles). Nouns and verbs may be basic roots, but frequently they are derived from other words by means of prefixes and suffixes. Malay is an agglutinative language, and new words are formed by three methods. New words can be created by attaching affixes onto a root word (affixation), formation of a compound word (composition), or repetition of words or portions of words (reduplication). Root words are either nouns or verbs, which can be affixed to derive new words, e.g. masak (to cook) yields memasak (cooks), memasakkan (cooks for), dimasak (cooked) as well as pemasak (a cook), masakan (a meal, cookery). Many initial consonants undergo mutation when prefixes are added: e.g. sapu (sweep) becomes penyapu (broom); panggil (to call) becomes memanggil (calls/calling), tapis (to sieve) becomes menapis (sieves). Other examples of the use of affixes to change the meaning of a word can be seen with the word ajar (teach): There are four types of affixes, namely prefixes (awalan), suffixes (akhiran), circumfixes (apitan) and infixes (sisipan). These affixes are categorised into noun affixes, verb affixes, and adjective affixes. Noun affixes are affixes that form nouns upon addition to root words. The following are examples of noun affixes: The prefix per- drops its r before r, l and frequently before p, t, k. In some words it is peng-; though formally distinct, these are treated as variants of the same prefix in Malay grammar books. Similarly, verb affixes are attached to root words to form verbs. In Malay, there are: