Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/86

 74 9. Besides having recourse to phonetic laws we shall find references to parallel cases of great service. In Mentaway laṅit no longer means “sky”, as it does in Common IN, but “the red tint of dawn and sunset”. This transition in meaning would hardly, I imagine, disconcert us: instead of the sky we have a phenomenon in the sky. But our confidence will be even greater when we observe that a parallel case occurs in a dialect of Formosa, where araṅit < laṅit means “cloud” : here, too. instead of the sky we have a phenomenon in the sky.

It is, however, not only in our researches into the varying significations of words, that this method of reference to parallel cases will assist us: we shall also occasionally apply it instead of the appeal to phonetic laws. As stated in § 1, Common IN laṅit, “sky”, appears in Batanese under the form gaṅit. Now the hitherto published Batanese material includes barely a hundred words, and among these there are only three cases in which ñ represents Common IN ñ. Three cases are, however, too few to enable a phonetic law to be formulated with safety. Here, therefore, we take refuge in a parallel and say : In Batanese gaṅit < laṅit, ñ represents Common IN ñ, as in aṅin < Common IN aṅin, “wind”.—Further, among those hundred words, the number of cases in which Batanese g represents Common IN l is somewhat larger, there are ten safe cases ; but even that number seems to me too small to enable a phonetic law to be formulated on the strength of it; I therefore again apply the method of reference to a parallel and say: In Bat. gaṅit < laṅit, g represents Common IN l as in bugan < Common IN bulan, “moon”.

10. We shall exhibit the Common IN linguistic phenomena from the following points of view: phonetic system, synthesis of sounds into words, word-accent, formal analysis of words, formation of derived words, reduplication of words, and synthesis of words into sentences (i.e. syntax).

11. The second principal fart of the monograph will have for its subject the Original Indonesian language. We style Original IN the fundamental form of speech from which the individual IN languages are descended.