Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/255

36. For the understanding of IN phonetic phenomena it is absolutely necessary to study texts. Naturally those texts are most satisfactory which mark accent, quantity, sandhi, and the like. One can often get more Hght from the texts than from the explanations of the manuals. For instance, Seidenadel, in his grammar of the Bontok language, gives no theory of quantity, but out of his most conscientiously edited texts we can construct the theory for ourselves. Not infrequently the texts even correct the data of the grammars. Matthes, in his Bugis grammar, § 193, says that the pronoun of the first person ku is abbreviated proclitically, but never enclitically, to u, but in the Budi Isětiharatě, edited by himself, p. 294, 1. 8, we find: “My husband loves me” = He loves me, husband my = na-elóriy-aq woroiwané-u. Moreover for several languages we possess carefully edited texts, indicating accent, quantity, sandhi, etc., but as yet no grammars or vocabularies.
37. Comparison of IN with IE. In this monograph I compare, where it seems to me feasible, the phonetic conditions of IN with those of IE. The idea of comparing IE linguistic phenomena with IN is nothing new. Humboldt and Bopp did it, though with an inadequate comprehension of the IN material. Kern does it with a true insight into both the IN and the IE material, and the critical student is grateful to Kern for his work. But recently certain voices have made themselves heard, denying the desirability of such comparisons. Therefore I must adduce some considerations in support of my point of view.
I. IE research has advanced further than IN, its subtle and highly developed methods can, indeed must, serve as a guide to IN research. For example, many IN scholars classify the IN languages according to the sounds they admit as finals; others have classified them on the basis of their genitive construction, particularly as regards the position of the genitive before or after the principal word. Both systems depend upon a single linguistic phenomenon. In the IE sphere we find (inter alia) a classification of the Germanic