Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/214

 124. In languages that possess two series of short personal pronouns the speaker is free to choose between those that precede and those that follow the verb. In the Jayalangkara we find : "When you arrive at Masereq, you will ascend the mountain" = W. a. y. there at M., y. w. mount up m. = punna baltu ko maṅe ri Masereq, nuw eroq naiq ri moncoṅ, but it could equally have been: nu battu and eroq ko. That appears most plainly from an analysis of the dialogue of the two cats in the Jayalangkara, when they want to go to Masereq, for nowhere else in the whole of the Jayalangkara are the pronouns as frequent as in that passage: we see there that the two series are used indiscriminately.

125. When the short forms of the personal pronouns precede the verb, some languages omit the active formatives, others do not. In Mal. the word for "to see" is mĕlihat, but "I see" is ku lihat, the mĕ- being dropped. In Rottinese "to seek" is akaneni < aka + WB neni, "he seeks" is nakaneni, the aka- being retained. — Illustrations. Mal., from the Hang Tuah: "I have taken it away from you again" = + t.-a again from you = ku ambil pula daripada mu. Rottinese, from the Animal Play: "He seeks the man" = H. s. m. the = nakaneni touk a.

126. The most interesting question is as to the degree of intimacy that exists in the combination of short personal pronoun and verb. In some languages the connexion is a close one, in others it is looser.

127. The looser combination. This is found, e.g., in Bug. and Mak.: I. In these languages it is not absolutely essential that the pronoun should come immediately next to the verb. In the Jayalangkara we find : "Go you!" == maṅe ma ko, where the verb and pronoun are separated by the emphatic particle ma.

II. Genuine suffixes effect a shifting of the accent, but pronouns put after the verb do not.