Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/122

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110
INDONESIAN LINGUISTICS

"staff", tali, "cord", suliṅ, "fife" ; but not "hammer" — putih, "white"; but not "red" — tĕṅah, "half"; but not "whole".

120. The following Karo sentence from Si Laga Man: "Then they saw the half of the stone dug out, and now they apphed the lifting pole to it" = ĕṅgo me si tĕnah batu idah ikuruk, e maka ioṅkil na: contains five words of substance, of which two, tĕṅah, "half", and batu, "stone", are Common IN, and precisely in that identical form; but the other three, idah, "to see", kuruk, "to dig ", oṅkil, "to apply a lifting pole", are not.

Pronouns.*

121. The pronomis are very often disyllabic; they are mostly combinations of a specifically pronominal nucleus with formatives, which are mostly articles. Thus, as Seiden-adel has shown, the Bont. pronoun sika, "thou", consists of the article si and the nucleus ka.

122. The monosyllabic nuclei also have an independent existence, in one language or another, but as a rule they aie not very widely distributed. The disyllabic anu (§ 135) is Common IN, while the monosyllabic nu is found in a few languages only, e.g. in Sund. The monosyllabic forms of the personal pronouns have recently been discussed in ex-emplary fashion by Jonker.

123. Specimen sentences with long and short forms. Bug. letter Nomoroq 13, in Matthes: "I have nothing of the kind at home" = But not anything thus I have = nae deqsa anu maqkuwa u taro. — Sund., Nyai Sumur Bandung, p. 66: "We will tell now of her who dwells in Bitung Wulung" = It is told, who dwells in place Bitung Wulung = kacarios nu calik di nagara Bituṅ Wuluṅ.

124. The personal pronouns. The following forms can be shown to be Common IN: aku, "I", kaw, "thou", ia, "he", kami, "we", kamu, "you"; in the pronoun of the third

* As to the use of the personal pronouns, see Essay III, §§ 118 seqq]