keceṅ tumayaw nan ina ca ad caya, the word ad is a preposition; in the sentence from the Battle of Kaloqokan: “ They will appear ” = Will a. they = ad-umali ca, it is the sign of the future. In Mak. la is no longer a preposition, but only the sign of the future, while in the languages of the islands that lie over against New Guinea it is still a preposition. That is shown by the following Kamberese sentence from the Dirge of the Crocodile for his Dead Friend: “ Let us go to the deep water ” = We go to w. d. = ta laku la wai mamanjoluṅ. In Sawunese we meet with a use of this la which represents a striking transition from the preposition to the sign of the future: la is only used when the idea of direction “ thither ” is combined with the idea of futurity. Thus in the text Bale ri ane there is a sentence: “ It was an order that one should buy rice” = Order, that “ la ” buy rice = li ta la wĕli lailudu. That means: “ The order was given to go and buy rice ”. Had the meaning been “ The order was given to come here and buy rice ”, la would not have been used.
II. Other formatives were originally articles. Thus the Nias active participle consists of the indicative verb and the agglutinated article si. In the Story of Buruti: “ Didn't you see any man passing just now ? ” = Not was + seen by + you just + now man passing ? = lo niila u mege niha sanoro, the form sanoro consists of the verb anoro and the article s < si.
Similarly the formative ṅ, discussed above, was originally none other than the widely distributed article ṅ. Originally, therefore, the Modern Jav. ula ṅuntal, “ the snake swallows ”, was ula ṅ untal, “ the snake (is) the swallowing (creature) ”. It is true that the fundamental meaning has generally faded away, but there are plenty of cases in which it can still be perceived. The sentence out of the Bol. dialogues in Beech: “ He abused me ” = saq ṅam'puki da-aku, can also, without doing violence to the meaning, be taken as He (is the one) that abused me ” = saq ṅ ampuki da-aku. — This phenomenon, of the formative ṅ being really an article, has another IN parallel, which will occupy us in Section VII.
