Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/34

22 and if we are compelled to deduce from it a monosyllabic formation luh, is it not then conceivable that this luh might exist in some language or other as a living word, by itself, uncombined with other elements? In general terms: Do the roots exist only as parts of word-bases or are they capable of existing by themselves ?

32. When we search for monosyllabic words in the IN lan-guages and succeed in finding some, we must first enquire whether their monosyllabism might not have arisen out of a former disyllabism. For that has really happened in many cases in IN.

I. In several IN languages consonants between the two vowels of the word-base may disappear in conformity with phonetic law, e.g., in Old Jav. the r of the RGH series, in Bug. h, in Mlg. s. Accordingly Old Jav. wā, “glowing fire”, Bug. pōn, “trunk”, Mlg. fu, “heart”, are not roots that have preserved their monosyllabic character; they are derived from the forms wara, pohon, pusu, which have a wide distribution in the IN languages and are to be regarded as Original IN. The length of the vowel still serves as evidence of the contraction.

II. Achinese accentuates the final syllable, and hence it has in many cases dropped the first, unaccented, syllable of the originally disyllabic word-base, as Snouck Hurgronje has shown. Thus in Achinese “leaf” is un, as compared with the daun of many other IN languages. This un, however, is not a primitive thing but the final product of a process of evolution.

III. In Sund., disyllabic words when employed as the first members of compound expressions are often reduced to monosyllables. “Tree” is kai (disyllabic), but the “Měraq tree”  is ki měraq. —

Other phenomena of this sort are to be found in the IN languages; and the conclusion to be derived from these considerations is : Monosyllabic forms originating in such ways as these must be avoided in our investigation.