Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/40

28 would only have three sounds, but the r seems to us so essential to the symbolical representation of the sound of rattling that we must decline on this occasion to take it for an infix. Here then we have another root of four sounds. Interjections of this type may conceivably have been Original IN, and in that case the remark in § 11 about the Original IN initial would require modification accordingly.

Variation.

44. The concept of root-variation. In Day. the word tuli means “to land” and talian is “a landing place” ; in Karo the expression " to roll " can be rendered by guluṅ and gulaṅ. Viewing the matter quite superficially, we find in both languages the same process, an interchange between a and u. But if we look closer we notice great differences. In Day. the change of u to a occurs frequently, it is bound up with a certain condition — namely that a suffix containing an a is annexed to the word — and it occurs with the strictest regularity and necessity every time that condition is fulfilled. Besides which it is to be observed that in Day. this phenomenon affects the first vowel of the word-base, and the meaning suffers no change. — In Karo we find this kind of vowel change in some other cases besides that of guluṅ and gulaṅ, to be sure, but yet only in a limited number, forming no sort of groups or series. Nor can we detect any condition determining the occurrence of the vowel change. Moreover, the phenomenon takes place in the second part of the word-base, that is to say in the root, and is often accompanied by a modification in meaning ; thus in this very case, guluṅ signifies “to roll up”, gulaṅ "to roll down". — This phenomenon, which we observe in the two Karo words guluṅ, gulaṅ, we call root- variation. It affects the consonants of the root as well as the vowel and it occurs in all the IN languages without exception.