Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/164

152 the above lah, or marking an antithesis, and then they are untranslatable. For the greater convenience of the reader I put them between parentheses: let the reader simply pass them by. 22. In practically all the IN languages the verb "to be" — not our copula "to be" but "to be" in the sense of "to exist, to occur somewhere" — is devoid of a formative; this phenomenon must be styled Common IN. —Illustrations: Magindanao, from the collection of dialogues in Juanmarti's work: "There is someone there" = Is someone = aden sakatau. Mad., from the story Paman Manceng: "There was once a man" = Was one man male = bada settoṅ oreṅ lakeq. Sěraway, from the story Riṅgan Sëdayu: "There was once a king" = Formerly w. a k. = bëmidaw adaiv suqatu rajaw. 23. Enumerations bearing on §§ 21 and 22. I. In the Old Jav. story of the evil serpent Takshaka in the Adiparwa of the Mahābhārata we find many neutral, some passive, some dative, and one accusative verbal WB, viz. tuṅgaṅ, "to sit on". — Illustration: "It sat on the hill" = tuṅgaṅ parwata. II. In the part of the Mal. Hang Tuah which relates the early history of the hero we meet with the same state of things as in Old Jav. Amidst many neutral WB's there are a few passive and dative ones, and a single accusative one, tahu, "to know". — Illustration: "To have breeding" = tahu bahasa. III. In the Day. story Asang Baratih the proportion is again similar, only there we come across more accusative WB's, namely such as denote motion, which will be dealt with hereafter. IV. In the collection of Hova fables by Rahidy the neutral and passive WB's are in the majority, the dative ones are represented by a single case: "to say to (a person)" = hui; accusative ones are wanting. But in contrast with the Old