Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/128



SECTION V: EXTENSION OF THE WORD-BASE.

Preliminary Observations. 143. In the preceding Section, §§ 81-142, we have been discussing word-bases. The term “word-base” is thoroughly appropriate and legitimate. For, in the first place, the word-bases are the shortest, and so the most fundamental, forms that have a real living existence in actual speech ; and, secondly, they serve as a basis or foundation for the further formation of derivatives.

144. Word-bases may either do duty- in a sentence just as they are, without any addition, or else they may require certain extensions to enable them to perform that task. In the Kupangese text communicated by Jonker we find the sentence: “I shall go to-morrow” = To-morrow then I go = ola kam auk laho. Here the Kupangese word-base lako is used as a predicate without any change whatsoever. In Juanmarti's Magindanao dialogues we read: “I too am well” = mikapia aku den. Here the word-base pia, “good”, has had to undergo an extension in order to fit it for serving as a predicate.

145. In works on the IN languages one often meets with the technical term " stem " (German '"Stamm"): see Misteh, “Charakteristik”, pp. 229 seqq., and Finck, “Haupttypen” , pp. 8-I seqq. But I notice that some scholars when they speak of the “stem”  refer to the word-base, while others thereby denote the forms produced by extension of the word- base. And, after all, either usage can be justified, for (as has already been remarked in § 65) the elements that are used for forming the word-base from the root and those that are used in extending the latter, are in a great measure identically the same. I Rh