Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/191

Rh languages. And this phenomenon is so widespread that we must style it Common IN. Proof:

I. By the evidence of translations. The expression in the Sanskrit original of the Prasthãnikaparwa : phalam prāpnōti is in the Old Jav. recension rendered by : phala pińangih.* The prāpnōti of the original is active, pińangih on the other hand is a passive, formed with the infix -in-. — The passage in Tell, where Stüssi says: "He is now gone to fetch the bride at Imisee ", is rendered by Rizal by the passive construction: “The bride at Imisee is now being fetched (= susunduin) by him”. II. By the evidence of enumerations. In the Day. story of the Chopper and the Buffaloes there are upwards of 24 passives in something under 100 lines. — The short episode beginning “sěrta ditikamña” in the battle of the five friends with the pirates in the Hang Tuah contains 9 actives and 6 passives. — In the detailed account of the battle in the Old Jav. Mausalaparwa the number of actives and passives is approximately equal; e.g. the following passage occurs: “Reeds were pulled up, they were used as weapons, for they turned into clubs wherewith blows were dealt on the adversaries”. 72. The frequency of the passive is to be explained as follows : In all the IN languages it is a matter of great moment to emphasize by linguistic means that element of the sentence which is considered the most important one. These means include: intonation, unusual syntactical order, particles of emphasis, and also the choice between the active and the passive construction. If the subject is to be put into the foreground, the active is chosen ; if it be desired to lay stress on the object, recourse is had to the passive construction, i.e. the object is made the subject. In the Toba Sangmaima, therefore, the construction is not as might have been expected: “The mother went to cook and killed a fowl for the dinner”, but: “and a fowl was killed by her” ; for the point of importance is not that she killed, but rather what it was that she killed.