Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/221

 II. In the Old Jav. Kuñjarakarna we find the sentence: "He came upon a door" = A d. was met by him = babahan kapangih de nira. Here, no doubt, one might also regard kapangih as a substantive, for ka- serves in many IN languages to form substantives as well as verbs. But here the agent is attached by means of the preposition de, which never introduces a genitive relation. I cannot, therefore, without putting a strain upon it, construe the sentence as: "the door was a find of his". On the contrary, de corresponds rather with the kind of prepositions that are used in our languages to introduce the agent in passive sentences; that is shown by active constructions like the following from the Āśramawasanaparwa: "To undergo pain through you" = maněmu lara de ñu.

III. In not a few IN languages the agent can be introduced in both ways, either genitively or by a preposition meaning "by, through", as in Mal., where the preposition is oleh. An analysis of the whole of the Mal. work Hang Tuah has resulted in showing that though the construction with the preposition preponderates, the genitive construction is freely represented there too, and no difference in meaning is perceptible as between the two modes of expression. For example: "It was heard by the chief" = didĕnar batin; but: "It was heard by the mother" = didĕnar oleh ibu. This interchangeability of the two forms indicates, to my mind, the occurrence of a transformation in the mental attitude with which they are regarded: what was originally substantival has gradually come to be felt as verbal.

IV. In Bug. the agent is never introduced genitively, but always by the preposition ri, which never indicates the genitive. I have analysed the whole of the Paupau Rikadong — 29 pages of print — from that point of view, and have not found a single exception. That, to my mind, shows that what the Bug. grammar calls " passive " is really felt to be passive, even though one or other of the forms of the passive may have been originally substantival.

V. In individual cases it will often be difficult to put oneself into the mental attitude of the IN native so as to be able