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Questions & Answers about Semalam, ribut kilat besar hampir mencetuskan bencana di kilang sebelah.
What’s the difference between kilat, petir, and guruh, and why is ribut kilat used here instead of ribut petir or ribut guruh?
- kilat refers specifically to the flash of lightning.
- petir can mean either lightning or thunder in everyday speech.
- guruh means thunder (the sound).
Using ribut kilat emphasizes the flashes of lightning in the storm. ribut petir (thunderstorm) is also common; ribut guruh is less idiomatic.
Why is the adjective besar placed after the noun phrase ribut kilat instead of before it, as in English “big lightning storm”?
In Malay, adjectives follow the nouns they describe. The pattern is:
noun + adjective
So you get ribut kilat besar (storm lightning big) to mean “big lightning storm.”
What role does Semalam play, and could it appear somewhere else in the sentence?
Semalam means “yesterday” and is a time adverbial. Placing it at the beginning highlights when the event happened. You could also say:
– Ribut kilat besar semalam hampir mencetuskan bencana…
or
– Ribut kilat besar hampir semalam mencetuskan bencana…
but fronting it is the most natural way to mark time.
What does hampir do in this sentence, and why is it placed before the verb mencetuskan?
hampir is an adverb meaning “almost.” In Malay, adverbs that modify verbs generally come immediately before the verb phrase. Hence hampir mencetuskan = “almost triggered.”
How is the verb mencetuskan formed, and what does each affix do?
- Root: cetus (to erupt or burst out)
- Prefix: meN- marks an active verb (actor focus)
- Suffix: -kan makes the verb causative (to cause something to happen)
So mencetuskan literally means “to cause to erupt” or “to trigger.”
Why isn’t there a word for “the” before bencana, and do we need to mark it as singular or plural?
Malay does not use definite or indefinite articles like “the” or “a.” Nouns are unmarked for number unless you specify a quantity (e.g., dua bencana for “two disasters”). Here bencana can mean “a disaster” or “disaster” in general.
Explain di kilang sebelah. Why is di required, and what exactly does sebelah mean?
- di is the preposition for location (in/at/on).
- kilang means “factory.”
- sebelah means “next to” or “adjacent.”
Together di kilang sebelah means “at the neighboring (next-door) factory.”
Where is the subject in this sentence? It seems like there’s no “it” or “the storm” doing the action.
The subject is the noun phrase ribut kilat besar at the start. Malay often omits pronouns when the noun itself serves as the subject. So the sentence structure is:
Time adverbial (Semalam) + subject (ribut kilat besar) + verb phrase (hampir mencetuskan bencana di kilang sebelah).