Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/39

Rh “to fall” ", Karo tabah, “to fell” . If therefore, in what follows, series of words are set out from which roots of two sounds are to be inferred in each case, the languages comprised in such series must include some that do not drop any sound whatsoever.

41. Here follow the series in question:

Old Jav. ipi, Bug. nipi, Mal. mimpi, Day. nupi, Tontb. impi, “to dream” : root pi.

Old Jav. wĕli, Bug. ĕlli, Mak. balli, Mal. beli, Sund. böli, “to buy” : root li.

Old Jav. tuju, “to hit, to aim” ", Mal. tuju, “to pursue a certain course”, Sund. tuju, “course” , Karo tinju, “to cuff?”  : root ju.

Old Jav., Mlg. isi, Mak. assi, Sund. ösi, “contents” : root si.

42. Here then we have four roots of two sounds arranged in the order; consonant + vowel. All four roots run in perfect phonetic concordance through many languages, and can therefore be assigned to Original IN.

43. Roots formed otherwise than of three sounds or two, like those in the preceding paragraph, are quite exceptional and occur only in individual languages. Thus in the Philippine languages we meet with a sort of extension and subdivision of the vowel resulting in the production of roots of four sounds, with two interior vowels. The IN languages have a root gĕm, “to shut, to clench the fist, to seize” "; in Jav. it exists as a monosyllabic word-base gĕm, Karo has siṅgĕm,.  “to fit closely”, but Bis. has goom , “to shut the mouth” . — In Sund. and Gayo there are interjections beginning with a mute and a liquid, e.g. Sund. drel, an interjection used of the ratthng of musketry fire. At a pinch one might regard the -r- as the infix discussed in § 86, in which case the root