Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/248

 is a continuous sound instead of a momentary one, indicates duration; in a former monograph I have given a purely mechanical phonetic explanation of this phenomenon, and I am convinced that all IE scholars will approve of my view.

Madurese exhibits a peculiar phenomenon in connexion with words where the WB is partially reduplicated, after the fashion of los-alos, “ very fine ”, te-pote, “ quite white ”; alos, “ fine ”, is evolved phonetically from the Original IN, and likewise Malay, etc., halus, and similarly pote from putih. But alongside of los-alos, te-pote, we also find forms which have preserved the Original IN vowels, viz., lus-alus, ti-puti, and these denote a still higher or more superlative degree than los-alos, te-pote. In these cases, then, it is the more archaic phonetic type that denotes the higher degree of quality.

17. Onomatopœia exercises its influence on the evolution of the IN sounds mainly in the way of impeding the consistent operation of phonetic laws. It manifests itself in the first place in interjections that mimic a sound. In Minangkabau an Original IN liquid at the end of a WB disappears; Original IN lapar, “hunger”, is also written lapar in Mkb., but pronounced lapa. Further, Original IN final explosives turn into hamzah in spoken Mkb.: thus Original IN atĕp, “ roof ”, > spoken Mkb. atoq. So no r and no p can occur as finals in spoken Mkb. But interjections like gar, “crack !”, dapap, “ plop ! ”, etc., are exceptions to this rule. — Besides these, the operation of onomatopœia is seen in words of substance, mostly in names of animals, which have been formed in imitation of natural sounds. In Tontemboan, in the case of WB's consisting of a doubled root, the final consonant of the first half must as a rule become q: thus Original IN korkor, “ to scratch ”, becomes Tontb. koqkor. But the onomatopceically formed kerker, the name of a species of bird, retains the r in the first half.

18. Euphemism. For reasons of euphemism certain words, especially such as are connected with sexual matters, have been deliberately deformed in the IN languages. A number of these are given in Van der Tuuk's Toba vocabulary, e.g.,