Breakdown of Pelayan memberi saya garpu dan sudu yang bersih.
Questions & Answers about Pelayan memberi saya garpu dan sudu yang bersih.
Malay typically follows Subject–Verb–IndirectObject–DirectObject with ditransitive verbs like memberi (“to give”):
• Subject = Pelayan (“the waiter”)
• Verb = memberi (“gives/gave”)
• Indirect object = saya (“me”)
• Direct object = garpu dan sudu yang bersih (“the clean fork and spoon”)
When the recipient is a pronoun, you drop kepada and place it right after the verb. If the recipient were a noun, you’d normally say memberi … kepada … (e.g. Pelayan memberi garpu kepada pelanggan).
Both come from the root beri (“to give”):
• beri is the bare root, common in colloquial speech (e.g. dia beri saya).
• memberi adds the prefix mem-, forming the standard active verb in formal or neutral contexts.
Use memberi in writing or polite speech; you’ll still understand beri in casual conversation.
yang functions like a relative pronoun (“that/which”), linking the noun phrase to its descriptor.
• garpu dan sudu yang bersih = “fork and spoon that are clean.”
In formal Malay you almost always use yang before adjectives or relative clauses. In very casual speech it can be dropped (e.g. garpu dan sudu bersih), but that’s less standard.
In Malay, adjectives follow the noun they modify. The pattern is:
Noun + Adjective
Examples:
• rumah besar = “big house”
• kereta merah = “red car”
So garpu dan sudu yang bersih naturally puts bersih at the end.
In garpu dan sudu yang bersih, the relative clause yang bersih applies to the entire noun phrase “fork and spoon,” so both are understood to be clean.
To modify only one, repeat yang or split the phrase:
• garpu yang kotor dan sudu yang bersih (“a dirty fork and a clean spoon”)
• Garpu kotor, tetapi sudu bersih.
Malay doesn’t inflect most nouns for number. Plurality is shown by context or by adding quantifiers or numerals:
• dua garpu = “two forks”
• beberapa sudu = “several spoons”
Simply saying garpu dan sudu could mean one of each or more, depending on context.
• saya is neutral and polite, suitable for almost any situation.
• aku is very informal or intimate, used among close friends and can sound rude in formal settings.
You can omit saya if the recipient is clear from context, e.g. Pelayan memberi garpu dan sudu yang bersih (“The waiter gave a clean fork and spoon”), but then you lose “me.”
Malay has no articles (“a,” “the”). Definiteness or indefiniteness comes from context or added words:
• Quantifiers (e.g. sebuah, dua, beberapa) for indefiniteness.
• Demonstratives (e.g. itu, ini) for definiteness: garpu itu = “the fork.”
In garpu dan sudu yang bersih, whether you mean “a clean fork and spoon” or “the clean fork and spoon” depends on what you’ve already discussed.