Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/166

conglomerate palaq tuluṅ. — Illustration, from the Jayalangkara: "None other can we ask to help save only the serpent" = Not other can we ask + for + help except serpent the only = taena maraeṅ maka kiq papalaqtuluṅi pasaṅalinna naga ya ji.
25. Concluding observation of Section II: Delimitation of the verb as against the substantive and the adjective.
I. Verb and substantive. There are verbal WB's and there are substantival ones. The Mal. WB duduq means "to sit", and not "seat", the Bug. WB api signifies "fire", and not "to burn"; in Mal. "seat" is expressed by kadudukan, in Bug. "to burn" by tunu. It is true that the vocabularies speak of certain WB's as being both verbs and substantives; but in very many cases the texts tell us that that is merely apparently the case. In all Mal. dictionaries we find the statement that tidor means "sleep" and "to sleep"; but tidor, "sleep", when used in a context, requires different pronouns from tidor, "to sleep". "He sleeps" is tidor iya, "his sleep" on the other hand is tidor ña. So verb and substantive are at least distinguished by the construction. Again another case: Toba pintu means both "door" and "shut"; but pintu, "door", has the accent in the usual Common IN fashion on the i, while pintu, "shut", has it on the u. — It often happens that the same formatives are used to form both verbs and substantives; Bug. -ěṅ serves both purposes. But here too the language knows how to guard itself from confusion. Bug. WB's often have two or three forms, differing from one another in the final, a subject discussed by me in a former monograph.* Thus gauq, the WB for the idea "to make", also occurs in the variants gauk and gaur. And the variant gauk is used by the language to form the substantive: gaukěṅ, "thing", while from the variant gaur it creates the verb: gaurěṅ, "to make".
II. Verb and adjective. In the department of the adjective we also find the phenomenon that formatives are used
* ["Sprachvergleichendes Charakterbild eines indonesischen Idiomes", especially §§ 46 seqq.]