Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/163

Rh ope by the Water Snail there are hardly any but derived verbs in 23 lines of print. On the other hand, in the Masaretese Story of the Ghost with Seven Cords we find in 39 lines of print only 5 derived verbs: eptea < formative ep + WB tea, "to set", ephatak, "to sacrifice", danewen < da + newen, "to live", damata, "to die, and epmata, "to kill",

21. Having learnt that verbal WB's, without any formatives, are capable of being used in the sentence, if we now proceed to enquire whether any particular categories of verbs are used in that way, we get the following result from an analysis of the texts: the WB's most commonly thus used as predicates are those which have a passive or neutral sense; more rarely the dative ones, i.e. such as link themselves with the object by means of a preposition; and very seldom accusative* ones, which take an object without a preposition. — Illustrations: Day., from the Story of Sangumang: "He wishes to be addressed" = blaku tiṅak. Kamberese, from the Riddle about Maize: "He stands up" = na hadaṅ. Old Jav., from the Ādiparwa: "To be versed in the spiritual life" = wĕruh ri ambĕk. Mal., from the Hang Tuah: "To have breeding" = Know speech = tahu bahasa. — Here then we have the passive WB tiṅak, "to be spoken to", the neutral hadaṅ, "to stand", the dative wĕruh, "to be versed in", and the accusative tahu, " to know ", used in sentences.

That the passive WB's are really passive in their nature, is proved by the circumstance that they can be accompanied by an agent linked with them by means of the same preposition as in the case of a derived passive, e.g. in Mal. by means of oleh, "by". — Illustration from the Sĕjarah Mĕlayu: "This king was defeated by King Alexander" = Was + defeated k. this by K. A. = (maka) alah (lah) raja itu oleh raja Iskander.

Note. — The IN languages are rich in particles. Such particles often merely serve the purpose of beginning the sentence, like the above maka, or laying stress on some part of it, like


 * [I.e. what are commonly called transitive verbs, the others (so far as they are active) being intransitive.]