Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/66

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54
INDONESIAN LINGUISTICS


formity with the laws of § 30; Iloko leppas, by the law stated above. — Root pas, from which also is formed Karo ripas, “ away ! ”

Meaning: “ black ”. — Type: Original IN itĕm; Tag. itim; Bis. itom; Magindanao item; Mkb. itam; Mlg. dialect itina, — Root tĕm, whence also Bis. agtom, “ blacking ”. — The vowels correspond with the utmost accuracy to the requirements of the pĕpĕt-law.

Meaning: “ wave ”. — Type: Old Jav., Mal., Achinese, Mkb. alun; Bis. alon; Mlg. aluna, by the law given in § 30. — Root lun, whence also Old Jav. wĕlun, “ to whirl ”.

Meaning: “ skin ”. — Type: Old Jav., Mal., Sund., Gayo, written Mkb., Ponosakan, Sampit kulit; Mlg. huditra, by the laws of § 30. — Root lit, whence also Karo salit, “ to peel ”.

Such word-bases as these we may ascribe in their disyllabic form to Original IN.[1]

92.   When a formative is prefixed to the root we often observe that the two syllables of the resulting word-base have similar vowels. There is an IN root with the meaning “ to turn ”, which occurs in three variants: laṅ, liṅ, luṅ, and we find in many IN languages word-bases such as galaṅ, giliṅ, guluṅ, that is to say, with vowel harmony; but alongside of these there are also such forms as gilaṅ, galuṅ, etc., that is, with dissonance of the vowels. So the harmony in the above cases is merely fortuitous. Still, there are also certain cases where we can clearly perceive a law. The following phenomenon appears in Tontb.: when to any root there is prefixed the formative i + nasal and to this again some other formative (no matter which) is prefixed, then the last-named formative always has the same vowel as the root. This law includes thirty-three individual cases, and is hardly subject to a single exception. Examples: wuimbuṅ, “ to knock all of a heap ”, from the root buṅ, which also appears, e.g., in Karo ambuṅ, “ to throw ”; waimbaṅ, “ to throw away ”, from a variant of the root buṅ; lĕindĕṅ, “ mist ”; see also § 88.

  1. [See also Essay II, §§ 118-9.]