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Questions & Answers about Saya selesai makan nasi.
What is the function of selesai in the sentence “Saya selesai makan nasi.”
In this sentence, selesai expresses that the action is complete. It shows that the act of eating (makan nasi) has been finished. Depending on context, it can be viewed as a resultative verb or a predicate adjective, indicating a state of completion.
Is selesai acting as a main verb here, or is it working alongside another verb?
Selesai serves as the main element that indicates the completion of the action. Unlike English, where you might require an additional helping verb or change in form, Malay uses selesai directly to connect with the subsequent verb phrase (makan nasi) to convey that the action has been fully carried out.
How does the sentence structure compare to English? Why does selesai come before makan nasi?
Malay sentence structure often places the word that indicates completion (selesai) immediately after the subject, followed by the action. In English, you might say “I finished eating rice,” where finished comes as a past tense verb after the subject. In Malay, the pattern is typically: subject + descriptor of completion + activity. This ordering is a natural syntactic pattern in Malay.
Given that Malay doesn’t mark tense explicitly, how is the completed action conveyed in this sentence?
Malay relies heavily on context rather than tense inflections. In “Saya selesai makan nasi,” the use of selesai itself implies that the action is completed. There is no need for additional tense indicators because the word inherently communicates that the eating has been finished.
Can this construction with selesai be applied to other activities?
Yes, it can. This construction is common in Malay for expressing that an action has been completed. For example, you could say “Dia selesai bekerja” to mean “He/She finished working.” It’s a versatile pattern used with various verbs to denote completion.
Why isn’t there an article or a plural form for nasi in this sentence?
Malay does not use articles like “the” or change noun forms to indicate singular or plural as English does. The word nasi refers generally to rice as a staple food, and context provides any additional meaning. This simplification is a typical feature of Malay grammar, where definiteness and number are often understood from context rather than marked grammatically.