Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/201

 Rh 93. The IN languages have three means of forming tenses: formatives, auxiliary words of form, and reduplication.

94. The Present Active. We have given, in Section IV, the formation of the three genera. The verbal forms of the active, which we there ascertained, are in some languages presents, in others they have no implication of any particular time, and so can be used for the present. — To that rule there are, however, exceptions. We have already learnt that the formative -um- is used in certain languages as a future, in others as an imperative.

95. The Past Active. The past tense is formed either by means of formatives or with the help of auxiliary words of form. The first type of past has formatives which are characterized by the possession of the sound n. This mode of formation is found in the Philippines ; the intermediate islands south of the Philippines; in Northern Celebes; in Nias, at the back of Sumatra; and in Madagascar. So its distribution is quite a wide one; but, on the other hand, it is to be noted that this type is wanting in Old Jav.; and, moreover, the formative is not the same in all the above languages, though it everywhere contains an n.

96. Now the first way of forming the past tense is to add to the active form, as delineated in Section IV, the formative ni- or no- or in- or -in-. Rh