I have dealt with this matter in considerable detail in a former monograph.*
156. The object used with reflexive verbs demands special consideration. The IN methods differ to this extent from those of the Indo-European languages best known to us in that they do not say, for example, "I betake myself" but "I betake my body" or "my person". This phenomenon is Common IN. "Body" or "person" is awak in many languages, ale in Bug., droi in Achinese, and so on. — Illustrations. Basa Sangiang, from the First Dirge for the Dead: "Remove yourselves upstream !" = Remove person your upstream = tasat arep m ṅaju-ṅaju. Bug., from the first executioner's story in the Injilai: "It is to be feared that the king will repent him of it" = To + fear that repent person his king the = ajaqke na sěssěi ale na aruṅ e. Achinese, from the Story of the Wise Judge : "He made himself in shape hke a man" = He shaped person like mankind = ji pěrupa droi sěpěrti manusiya. — Enumeration. In Section I mention was made of an enumeration which showed that reflexive verbs are rarer in Mal. than in German, for instance. An analysis of the whole of the Jayalangkara has had a similar result; yet in the highly coloured description of the fight waged by the hero with the inhabitants of Masereq, for example, there are three consecutive cases: "to guard oneself from", "to hurl oneself against", "to throw oneself upon".
157. It is a neat coincidence that not a few IN reflexive verbs find their pendants in French. Bug., as the above example shows, has a parallel to "se repentir", Mal. to "se taire", Mak. to "s'évanouir", and Mkb. to "s'agenouiller".
158. The indirect object. It is the Common IN rule that a preposition is used to link the indirect object with the predicate. — Illustrations. Mak., Jayalangkara, from the king's speech if " This I lay in charge upon you" = iya (mi) ku
- ["Sprachvergleichendes Charakterbild eines indonesischen Idiomes", §§ 116-123.]
† Matthes ed., pp. 143 seqq.
