Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/45

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ESSAY I
33
ka kas
Tag. ouka Tag. bukas
Bis. boka Bis. bokas
Old Jav. buka Ponosakan wukas
Sund. buka Tontb. ĕṅkas
Karo pulka Karo tĕlkas.

53. Some of the phenomena that are usually regarded as variations could perhaps with equal justification be classed under the concept of determination. It is customary to say that suk in Old Jav. asuk, “to bring into”, and sup in susup, “to force one's way into”, stand in the relation of variation to one another. But it is also a tenable view that suk and sup are cases of the determination of a root of two sounds, su. But this would remain a mere figment of the imagination until it had been shown that such a root su had a real existence.

54. The explanation of the determining elements is more difficult in IN than in IE.[1] In the latter the formatives are affixed as suffixes, in the same place, that is, where the determinatives also appear, and thereby we are enabled to gain from the formatives some indications as to the nature of the determinatives (see Brugmann, “Kurze vergleicheiule Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen”, § 367). In IN the determinatives, it is true, are suffixed, but the formatives mostly appear as prefixes. There is only one universally distributed IN suffix, viz. -an, -ĕn or -n, which is used both in nominal and verbal derivation. By means of this suffix we are enabled, it is true, to explain one of the phenomena of determination. In § 41 we became acquainted with a root si, “contents”; in Tettum it has the form sin, occurring in isin, “contents”. In the determining n we may recognize the above-mentioned formative -n. This phenomenon is found chiefly in Masaretese and Tettum, which has twenty quite certain cases, but we also meet with it in other languages. Other examples:

  1. [See also Essay IV, § 348 ]
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