Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/301

 SECTION VI : THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT PHONETIC COMBINATIONS AND THEIR LAWS.

Preliminary Observations. 157. The two most interesting phonetic combinations in IN are the combination of a vowel with a semi- vowel and the combination of an explosive with the aspirate h. The first are called diphthongs, the second aspirates. In the diphthongs the semi- vowel may precede, as in the Dayak yaku, "I", or follow, as in the Tagalog patáy, "to kill". Only the second kind can lay claim to special interest, and we shall therefore deal only with it.

158. In many writings on IN subjects — to some extent, I regret to say, in my own former monographs also — the semi-vocalic components of the diphthongs have not been distinctly indicated. Thus in Malay textbooks one meets with such spelhngs as, for example, bau, "smell", and rantau, "coast", the end of the word being spelt in each case in the same way, though it is only in the second case that the end is a diphthong, while in the first word the a and the u belong to two separate syllables; I now write bau, and, on the other hand, rantaw.

159. Madurese spelhng has no means of denoting aspiration, and accordingly spells ghuluṅ, "to roll", and gulun, "a delicacy made from glutinous rice", in the same way.

The Diphthongs and their Laws. 160. The IN diphthongs are mostly combinations of vowels with one or other of the two semi-vowels y and w. Other possible combinations are rare; Original IN final i becomes in certain Achinese dialects the diphthong oy, thus Ach. Rh