Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/314

302 IV. The consonant saved by the supporting vowel may nevertheless disappear owing to further phonetic processes, while the supporting vowel may be preserved, as in Ambon; hence Original IN tuwak, "palm-wine" > Amb. túwao, Original IN atěp, "roof" > áteo. 207. Some of the IN languages only recognize one of the tendencies dehneated in §§ 204 seqq., others two, others again all three of them. I. Nias only has loss of the final: all Origmal IN final consonants disappear. II. Minangkabau has both unification and loss. The explosives are unified to q, the liquids disappear. The nasals and h persist, s becomes h. III. Makassar employs all the methods. The aspirate disappears, the nasals are unified into ṅ, the explosives into q, the liquids and s receive a supporting vowel + hamzah. 208. In all the IN languages we meet with the phenomenon that final consonants are interchanged. In Malay alongside of butir, "grain", which is in conformity with phonetic law, there is also a form butil. Hova has as a pendant to the Malay burut, a phonetically regular word wúrutra, but alongside of it it also has a form wúruka, "broken, torn, rags", etc. This phenomenon occurs everywhere in isolated cases, mostly only in a few cases. Probably these are due to prehistoric formative processes, or to the working of the principle of analogy, and the like.

209. We very often meet with the phenomenon that in some language a word ends in a consonant, while the Original IN and some of the other living languages have a vowel as final. Here we are dealing with words of form that have become annexed to the original word. "How much" in Original IN is pira but in Makassar piraṅ; "this" in Old Javanese is ika, but in Modern Jav. kaṅ. The ṅ is an article welded on, originating from such formulas as the Old Jav. for "this child " = Greek tuto to teknon = Old Jav. ika ṅ anak. Such