Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/333

 appearance of simple vowels instead of diphthongs we meet in several languages with phenomena that cannot be simply-explained as contraction, weakening, and the like. For the consideration of these cases we will use the following table as a basis:

Here we are struck by two sets of facts. Why do Malay and Dayak in some of these cases have the diphthong, as in punay and punäy, respectively, while in others they have a simple vowel, as in mati and gawi? Why does Original IN ay appear in the Old Jav. pati as i, while in gawe we observe that it is regularly contracted into e?

The answer to these questions is given by certain phenomena of the Philippine languages. In these a word ending in a diphthong appears in different forms according to whether it stands alone or has a suffix or enclitic attached to it. Original IN balay is also in Ibanag baláy, “ house ”, but “ their house ” is balé-ra. In Tagalog the word for “ to give ” is bigáy, but its passive is bigyán. Now I assume that a similar change used to take place in Original IN, so that one and the same word was e.g. sometimes pronounced gaway and sometimes gawi; Old Javanese, Malay, Dayak, etc., then compromised the matter, so that in some cases the form with the diphthong and in others the form with the vowel came to be used exclusively, and hence e.g. Malay mati side by side with punay. Rh