<![CDATA[This study examines syntactic functions in police traffic advisories concerning road safety and order in Baubau City, focusing on the relationship between syntactic structure and communicative effectiveness. The study employed a qualitative descriptive approach within a syntactic linguistic framework. Data consisted of 10 advisory sentences collected from eight traffic-safety posters issued by the Baubau City Police Traffic Unit in printed and digital formats. Data were collected through documentation and textual observation and analyzed based on syntactic functions, including subject, predicate, object, complement, and adverbial, together with structural patterns. The findings show that the predicate was the most dominant syntactic function (32.3%), followed by the object (25.8%), adverbial (19.4%), complement (12.9%), and subject (9.7%). Predicate prominence was reflected mainly in imperative constructions occurring in affirmative and negative forms. Affirmative imperatives included gunakan (use), kurangi (reduce), and hindari (avoid), while jangan gunakan (do not use) represented a prohibitive construction marked by jangan. Predicates were predominantly combined with concrete objects referring to traffic behaviors and safety measures, such as sabuk pengaman (seat belts), handphone (mobile phones), and kecepatan kendaraan (vehicle speed). Subjects were generally omitted because they were contextually recoverable as road users, while adverbials specified situational constraints. The dominant syntactic patterns were P–O and P–O–Adv, indicating a preference for concise, directive, and action-oriented messages. These findings demonstrate that syntactic organization functions not only grammatically but also strategically to enhance clarity, accessibility, and directive force in traffic-safety communication.]]>
