Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/354

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INDONESIAN LINGUISTICS

being taken to represent a secondary development. Might not something of the kind be possible in IN also? In that case the free Philippine type would be the primitive original, and not the determinate penultimate type. This supposition arose in my mind when I observed that in the languages of the penultimate type, there occur, though very sporadically, cases of accentuation which are at variance with the law of penultimate accentuation and coincide with corresponding Philippine cases. The Philippine languages often accentuate personal pronouns on the final syllable, and Nias (which in other respects follows the penultimate type) also has ami, “ you ”.

Comparison with the Accent of the Indo-European
Word.

331. In this sphere also a large number of parallels between the two families of language may be found. For instance, Latin and Makassar have quite similar systems of accentuation:

I. Principal rule. The accent falls either on the penultimate or on the antepenultimate, as in Lat. cadáver, “ corpse ”, Mak. kandáwo, “ hollow ”, Lat. cádere, “ to fall ”, Mak. káttereq, “ to cut ”.

II. Subsidiary rule. In a minority of cases the accent is on the final syllable, viz. as a result of contraction, as in the Lat. perfect audit < audivit (Sommer, “ Handbuch der lateinischen Laut- und Formenlehre ” , § 71, I, e), Mak. kodi with a long i, “ to make bad ” < WB kodi + the suffix i.

332. It is true that the principal rule in Latin has a different linguistic basis from the one in Makassar. In Latin the quantity of the penultimate is the determining factor, while in Makassar the question turns upon the origin of the final, viz. whether it is an original syllable or merely a syllable added as a support.