Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/169

This page has been validated.
ESSAY III
157

all the twenty-four languages call for special notice under this head.
I. Bontok. Common IN pĕpĕt, that is to say the rapidly pronounced, indifierent vowel ĕ, becomes e in Bont.; hence the Common IN formative -ĕn appears in Bont. as -en.
II. Tagalog. Common IN ĕ becomes i in Tag., hence the same formative becomes -in < -ĕn.—Some of the Common IN r’s appear in Tag. as g, by the RGH-law; hence the Tag. formative mag- < mar-. Thus beside Toba mar-somba there is a Tag. mag-simba, “to worship”.
III. Bugis. A Common IN consonant, other than a nasal, immediately preceding another consonant becomes q in Bug.; thus beside Toba martaru there is a Bug. form maqtaro < mar + taro, “to put”. By analogy this maq- can also be put before a vowel, as in maqeñeq, “to shine”, from the WB eñeq.—All Common IN final nasals are unified into in Bug., which therefore has -ĕṅ and -aṅ for Common IN -ĕn and -an.
IV. Makassar. Mak. shares the laws which under III. above have been ascribed to its near relative Bugis, and adds to them the following: Common IN ĕ is represented in Makassar by a, hence Bug. -ĕṅ and -aṅ both appear as -aṅ in Mak.
V. Toba. Common IN ĕ appears in Toba as o, hence the Toba -on < -ĕn. That is the reason why in I. above we found Toba marsomba corresponding with Tag. magsimba, both being from an original marsĕmbah.
VI. Hova. Common IN initial b becomes w in Hova, hence the formative wa- < ba-.—Unaccentuated Common IN ĕ is represented in Hova by i; a Common IN final nasal of every kind by -na; hence the repeatedly mentioned formative -ĕn appears in Hova as -ina. — Common IN k becomes a spirant in Hova, hence it has hu-, as compared with the Karo ku-.
29. The phonetic laws of the above-named languages have all been dealt with by me in previous monographs, so I need only state them here, without giving any evidence in support