Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/337

Rh became Ja Bayur” = N. h. the b. J. B. = gorar nia i manjadi Ja Bayur, where Ja is an abbreviation for raja, “prince”. — Other abbreviations falng under the present category are, e.g., Sawunese dupamu, “wife” < “person in (the) house” = dou pa ĕmu; Napu anaṅkoi, “little child” < ana, “child”  + anu, “which”  + koi, “little”. — We particularly often meet with such cases of compression in words of form, as in Dayak ranen, “and so on” < ara, “name”  + enen, “whatever”.

VIII. In numerals. In Javanese, in counting (according to Poensen), or in counting rapidly (according to J. N. Smith), the disyllabic digits 1-10 are usually docked of the first syllable, e.g. people say tu for pitu, “seven”. Here the abbreviated forms imitate the forms which are really monosyllabic, like pat, “four”.

IX. In auxiliary verbs. In verbs which are usually followed by another, dependent, verb that contains the leading idea, abbreviation may occur in several languages, the medial sounds of the word being reduced. Thus, for example, in Karo, dapĕt, “to be able”, is abbreviated to dat. In Minangkabau the full form of the word which would correspond to the Malay, etc., pĕrgi, “to go”, no longer occurs, but only the short form pai or pi. But an analysis of the Manjau Ari shows that pai or pi mostly occurs only in the above-mentioned kind of context; thus p. 8, 1. 1: “We go to fetch (him)” = written: kita pi japut = spoken: kito pi japuyq.

X. In enclitics and proclitics: see § 302.

XI. In euphemisms: see § 18.

XII. loan-words: e.g. Modern Javanese deler < Dutch edele heer. Here the tendency towards disyllabism very often asserts itself.

XIII. In colloquial language: see § 20.

XIV. In poetry: see § 27.

277. Abbreviation, particularly in the case of compounds, may go so far that the significative nucleus is lost altogether. This is especially the case with compound negatives in several