Words used to point out specific entities.
Harimurti Kridalaksana's "Kelas Kata dalam Bahasa Indonesia" (1986) classifies Indonesian words into 13 distinct categories based on syntactic behavior, featuring a unique "Kategori Fatis"
identifies . This classification is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive and detailed frameworks in Indonesian linguistics, as it includes specific categories like "phatics" ( kategori fatis ) that other linguists often overlook. The 13 Word Classes (Kategori Kata)
Before dissecting the book, it is crucial to understand the author's authority. Prof. Dr. Harimurti Kridalaksana (1939–2022) was a legendary linguist from the University of Indonesia (UI). Unlike many linguists who applied Western grammatical models (Latin or Dutch) directly to Indonesian, Kridalaksana argued that Indonesian has a unique structure.
: Kata yang merujuk pada nama orang, tempat, benda, atau segala yang dibendakan.
Kridalaksana argued that word classes should not be defined by universal logic (e.g., “a noun is a person, place, or thing”), but by distributional criteria —where a word can appear in a sentence, what affixes it can take, and how it behaves syntactically.
His approach is (describing language as it is used) rather than prescriptive (how it should be used), heavily influenced by structural linguistics.