Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/317

Rh IN jalan, "path" > Rot. dalak; r2atus, "hundred" > natun; matay, "to die" > mates, "dead"; lidi, "nerve of a leaf" > lidek. And alongside of the above-mentioned niis > nipis there is a form niik.

216. To explain this state of affairs, one might then have recourse to the principle of the interchange of finals, as in § 208. But this is countered by the fact already mentioned, that the phenomena illustrated in the preceding paragraph are exceedingly common in Rot., whereas interchange of finals in other languages only occurs in isolated cases.

217. Accordingly we must look around for another explanation, namely the following one:

I. Negative part of the explanation. The cases in question are not really instances of a law affecting finals. The three final consonants, k, n, and s, are not the representatives of Original IN finals; even the n in udan is not a survival of the n of Original IN ur1an.

II. Positive part. In a former period of its existence Rot. cast off all its final consonants; there was, therefore, a time when it said dala, "path", uda, "rai", nii, "thin". This condition is the same as the closely related Bimanese has preserved to this day, e.g. in ura, "rain", nipi, "thin", etc. The finals which occur nowadays in Rot. are articles, which have become annexed and have lost their force, like the ones mentioned in § 209.

218. Articles and demonstratives beginning with k, s, or n, are found very frequently in the IN languages. It is also no uncommon phenomenon for such words of form to occur without a vowel. The Old Javanese article for things is aṅ and ṅ. The Bontok article for persons si is often abbreviated into s, and so is the Inibaloi si. Thus in the text "Kalinas", in Scheerer, "The Nabaloi Dialect", p. 149, 1, 5, we find: "I have met the captain" = H. + m. I the c. = inaspol ko s kapitan.

219. The article is put after the principal word in many IN languages, and particularly in those that are near neighbours. Rh