ently, we have a variation me : mi. If however we look into the matter more closely, it becomes plain to us that the interjections with the vowel i take the formative mi-, as we
also find mi-tip, mi-sir. Here, therefore, the variation is a
product of assimilation.
II. Alongside of the Common IN, or at any rate widely distributed, formatives ma-, maṅ- < ma + ṅ, bar-, tar-, Mal. has mě-, měn-, běr-, těr-. Now Mal. has the tendency to weaken into e the vowel (whatever it may be in Common IN) that precedes the accentuated syllable; examples: Common IN banuwa, “country” > Mal. běnuwa, Common IN kuliliṅ, “around” > kěliliṅ; and the two loan-words pěriksa, “enquiry”, and sěrdadu, “soldier”, also illustrate the same process. Now the above-mentioned formatives also invariably precede the accentuated syllable, and therefore they too have undergone this weakening, and so mě-, etc., are secondary forms of the more original ma-, etc.
An exception to this principle is the formative lĕ- which fashions verbs out of onomatopœic interjections, e.g., lětak, “to tap” < lě + tak. Here the equivalent of the ě in other languages is not a, but e.g. in Day. e, as in legop < le + gop, “to tap”, and in Toba o, as in loṅiṅ < lo + ṅiṅ, “to make a shrill sound”. But where the vowels correspond to one another in that way, the ě, as Mal. has it, represents the original condition, in conformity with the pěpět-law.
33. To conclude our considerations on the phonetic characteristics of the formatives, we will make some remarks on infixes. One of the Common IN verbal infixes is -um-, e.g. in Old Jav. lumaku, “to go”, from the WB laku. In place of this infix -um- we find in some other languages, e.g. Mentaway and Nias, a prefix mu-. Thus from the WB hede Nias forms the verb muhede, “to speak”. But the texts show that the mu + he in muhede can be replaced by hu + me, according to individual taste and fancy. In the Wedding Song we find the sentence: “Thus spake the old chieftain” — hulo muhede lafauluo; but in the Story of the Captain:
“Why don't you speak?” = Why not s. you ? = hanawa lo
