THE THEME.
1. When we open the dictionary of an Indonesian language we are at once struck by the fact that a very large proportion of the key-words in it are disyllabic. Thus in the Mal.[1] vocabulary we find successively: ikal, “ curl ”, ikan, “ fish ”, ikat, “ tie”.
But it is not only in the dictionary that we find such disyllabic formations, they also occur in actual speech, as witnessed by the following passage from the Old Jav. Ādiparwa, edited by Juynboll, p. 49: hana sira wiku [2] kapaṅguh iṅ tĕgal, ri těpi niṅ āśrama = (It) happened (that) a hermit was met with in the field, at the edge of the hermitage ” = “ Then (the king) met in the field a hermit standing near his hermitage ”.
Now these disyllabic words, hana, tĕpi, etc., may also live in the language in more extended forms, hana for example having a derivative kahanan, “ existence ”; but they do not, in the actual spoken language, exist in any shorter forms; therefore it is appropriate to call formations like hana “ word-bases ”.[3]
2. Now in the Old Jav. dictionary we find the following word-bases: siṅgul, “ to push ”, aṅgul, “ to push away, to fend off ”, taṅgul, “ to defend against ", and finally agul, which is rendered by the Sanskrit pragalbha and accordingly signifies “ determined, bold ”. Here we have a monosyllabic combination of sounds, viz., gul, which, to use Wundt's words,
- ↑ For the abbreviations see note on § 10, for the transcription § 11.
- ↑ wiku, being a loan-word, has no bearing on the present question.
- ↑ [The original has “ Grundwörter,” a term for which there is no thoroughly satisfactory English equivalent. For explanations of the meaning of the term, and the author's reasons for selecting it, see § 110 and Essay II, §§ 143 seqq.)
