Renward Brandstetter

“ THE PERSONS.
118. The IN languages often possess two parallel series of personal pronouns: full forms and short forms. Thus in very many languages the full form of "I" is aku, while its short form in Bont. is ak, in Mal. ku, in Old Jav. k. Full forms are found in all the languages, so that this linguistic fact must be called Common IN; the distribution of the short forms is less extensive, though we find them in nearly all the great areas of distribution: in Celebes, Bug. possesses them, but Tontb. does not. In certain languages the series of the short forms is incomplete ”

“ INDONESIAN VERB.
43. The great majority of IN languages possess the capacity of forming he three genera of the verb: the active, the causative, and the passive. This phenomenon, therefore, is Common IN. It is the chief characteristic of the IN verb.
44. We have learnt that the languages of the East are very poor morphologically. So it is striking that even there we still find languages that possess the three genera, as, for example, Kamberese. ”

“ II. IN possesses a feature which the grammars rightly call a copula. Only it is not a verb, but a particle, viz., i or ay or ya, etc., which links different parts of the sentence, particularly subject and predicate, together. The copula is found in the Philippines, in Northern Celebes and in Madagascar; it cannot, therefore, be called Common IN.
142. The status constructus, in Nias.
It is formed principally in two ways: words that begin with a vowel take n or g before that vowel; words that begin with a surd turn it into a sonant. Many words do not form the status constructus at all. ”

“ There are, to be sure, a large number of IN grammars and vocabularies, and amongst them we meet with not a few that deserve to be styled “exemplary”. Still, numerous as these are, there are quite as many languages that are represented only by inadequate manuals, or none at all. — Moreover, the point of view of the grammarian dealing with a single language is not the same as that of the comparative philologist. ”

“ I. In these languages it is not absolutely essential that the pronoun should come immediately next to the verb. In the Jayalangkara we find : "Go you!" == maṅe ma ko, where the verb and pronoun are separated by the emphatic particle ma.
II. Genuine suffixes effect a shifting of the accent, but pronouns put after the verb do not. III. Pronouns can be used with other parts of speech besides verbs.-Illustration, Bug., from the Injilai: "You are a man, I am a bird" = tau ko, ku manuqmanuq.
IV. The short form need not necessarily be the subject, it may be the object. ”

“ Among the languages which form their tenses with genuine formatives, there are some that have only elaborated two tenses : thus Magindanao only has the present and the past, and has to use a periphrasis for the future. Other languages form all the three tenses, and also bring the imperative into the ambit of this system of tenses. Such elaborated systems are found in Formosa, the Phihppines, the intermediate islands, e.g. Sangir, and Madagascar. Example ”

“ We have learnt that the IN verb can express genus, mood, tense and person. That, however, does not conclude the cycle of its vital manifestations.
I. We have already heard that certain languages are able to express the beginning of an action, by means of the aorist formative um. — Now some languages can also indicate duration: thus Old Jav. has given the active formative man- and the passive formative -in- a durative tinge which did not originally belong to them. ”

“ In the Sumbawarese text about Dog's Dung — 27 lines of print — mo occurs eleven times, of which nine are cases where it follows the verb.
III. A minority of the languages makes but sparing use of the particles of emphasis; thus Kupangese, for example, where in the Story of the Fool — 10 pages of print — ma occurs only once, viz., in the phrase baku ma, “it is enough”. The majority use them very plentifully, e.g. Toba. In the Toba Story of Sangmaima the particle ma occurs in the ordinary course of the narrative after nearly every predicate. ”

“ The one school delves deeply into the texts of the several literatures that bear upon the subject, the other is inclined to depend more on manuals and vocabularies. The second method, though it may not give perfect satisfaction, certainly has the advantage of greater facility and rapidity; but as the special character of the present IN ( = Indonesian) monograph compels me to follow in the footsteps of the first school, I will endeavour to justify my procedure in the eyes of those who pursue other methods. ”

“ We have now dealt with the phonetic aspects of the formatives and turn to the further consideration of these verb-forming syllables. At the beginning of this Section we drew a distinction between formatives and auxiliary words of form. We will now supplement what we said on that subject by adding that the limits of the two concepts are often somewhat vague, inasmuch as the word of form can turn into a formative. By means of the word buah, “hit”, Day. fashions a passive formula, which is used when it is necessary to speak of pain, disadvantage, and the like ”

“ Bareqe, from the Song to the Moon: “It gets dark, before one wends one's way homewards” = Gets dark, before go + home = maweṅi (mo) nepa jela.
It is true that the subject is sometimes indicated in cases of that kind. In the Bont. Story of the Stars the expression “it is growing dark” (i.e., night is coming on) is sometimes rendered by malafi and at other times by malafi nan talon, “the daytime is becoming night”.
II. When the verb is in the imperative the pronominal subject may be added or omitted. Languages that possess short forms of pronouns are fond of adding the subject in such cases. ”

“ IV. In Bug. the agent is never introduced genitively, but always by the preposition ri, which never indicates the genitive. I have analysed the whole of the Paupau Rikadong — 29 pages of print — from that point of view, and have not found a single exception. That, to my mind, shows that what the Bug. grammar calls " passive " is really felt to be passive, even though one or other of the forms of the passive may have been originally substantival. ”

“ In the Mkb. work Manjau Ari there is a sentence: "It grows in the field, surrounded by trees". "Surrounded by trees" is: diliṅkuaṅ kayu. The form diliṅkuaṅ is explained by the traditional grammar as a passive, and it is further added that the agent kayu is annexed without the preposition "by". But the WB liṅkuaṅ is also a substantive in Mkb., meaning "something that surrounds"; and di is also a preposition; so I could also take di liṅkuaṅ kayu as meaning "in a ring-fence of trees", for the genitive relation is expressed in many IN languages, and in Mkb. ”

“ If we find in the above-mentioned letter about manuscripts: na ala i karaeṅ riy anu = “He has taken them, the Prince of X”, this means no more than: “The Prince of X has taken them”.
IV. There are also certain limitations in the use of the short forms, which vary from one language to another. Usually they only accompany the active and causative forms of the verb. ”

“ Now the formative faqa - is not mentioned in the Nias grammar, but we find it in the texts. Illustration: in the story of "Samagowaulu in the South " is the sentence: " Do let me go, Father ! " = Let-go me only yet, father = faqamoi do mano sa, ama. Here we have the causative faqamoi, " to let go ", derived from the WB moi, "to go ".
3. The literatures of the IN nations are rich, particularly in popular productions which are most welcome material, not only for the folklorist, but also for the student of comparative philology. ”

“ In this paragraph we always mean the use of the short form as subject; its function as object will be discussed later.
I. The full forms are employed when the emphasis is on the subject; when that is not the case, the short forms are used. In the Bug. letter from the Princess Weyanu (i.e., Princess X) to Matthes, which is about Bug. manuscripts, occurs the passage: “I myself will give orders to convey them there” = I self order, convey them = iyaq pa maqsuro panoq i. Here the word pa, “self”, shows that the emphasis is on the subject. ”

“ In Mak., "to ask" is palaq and "help" is tuluṅ, but "to ask for help " is papalaqtuluṅi. In this case a verb has been formed by means of the two formatives pa- and -i out of the conglomerate palaq tuluṅ. — Illustration, from the Jayalangkara: "None other can we ask to help save only the serpent" = Not other can we ask + for + help except serpent the only = taena maraeṅ maka kiq papalaqtuluṅi pasaṅalinna naga ya ji. ”

“ As a preposition la occurs, e.g., in Kupangese; the sign of the future is la in Mak., da in Bareqe, and, far away from the Eastern group, in Nias.
III. Bont. uses ad as a preposition and as a sign of the future. It is conceivable that this ad is identical with the da = la in II. above. For, in the first place, metathesis is a very common phenomenon in the IN languages; and, secondly, another preposition in Bont., synonymous with ad, appears both as is and as si.
109. Like Hova, Day. also employs the preposition ku to indicate the future, but it has made it into a verb: maku. ”

“ Old Jav., from the Ādiparwa: "To be versed in the spiritual life" = wĕruh ri ambĕk. Mal., from the Hang Tuah: "To have breeding" = Know speech = tahu bahasa. — Here then we have the passive WB tiṅak, "to be spoken to", the neutral hadaṅ, "to stand", the dative wĕruh, "to be versed in", and the accusative tahu, " to know ", used in sentences.
That the passive WB's are really passive in their nature, is proved by the circumstance that they can be accompanied by an agent linked with them by means of the same preposition as in the case of a derived passive, e.g. in Mal. ”

“ This kind of imperative formation is found in all the IN languages, and is accordingly Common IN; even languages that generally employ some other method always exhibit a few cases of the one just described. In Hova I know only the one instance: fuha, “wake up !”, the indicative of which is mifuha. — Illustrations. Old Jav., from the Kuñjarakarna: “Go, then, into the underworld !” = laku la mareṅ Yamaloka. Modern Jav., from the drama Prabu Dewa Sukma, Act I.: “And, elder brother, hasten ! ” = Ian, kakań, gupuh. Bug., from the Epigrams against Cowardice: “Retire, you cowards !” ”

“ I have dealt with this matter in considerable detail in a former monograph.*
156. The object used with reflexive verbs demands special consideration. The IN methods differ to this extent from those of the Indo-European languages best known to us in that they do not say, for example, "I betake myself" but "I betake my body" or "my person". This phenomenon is Common IN. "Body" or "person" is awak in many languages, ale in Bug., droi in Achinese, and so on. — Illustrations. Basa Sangiang, from the First Dirge for the Dead: "Remove yourselves upstream !" ”

“ The imperative of the passive has the formative -en, in Tag. -in, in Toba -on, in conformity with the phonetic laws already stated. This formative has a considerable distribution, being found in the languages of the Philippines, Northern Celebes, Java, and Sumatra. — Illustrations. Tag., from Tell : " Forget it now (and live only for joy) !" = Must + be + forgotten by + you = limutin mo. Tontb., from the first Vampire Story: " Let us only look for crabs !" = Must + be + sought by -f us only c. = umuṅĕn ta reqe komaṅ. Toba, from the Sangmaima: "What then must be done by me?" ”

“ II. Here and there we also find participial formatives. Nias has a present participle in s-, the formation of which has been discussed in Section III. — Illustration, from the Story of the Fish and the Rat: "A woman drawing water" = Woman d. w. =alawe sanaqu idano.
III. In several IN languages number can be expressed. Masaretese has a verbal formative which is da- in the singular, and du- in the plural. ”

“ We know that the IN languages have no word corresponding to the Indo-European copula "to be". Therefore sentences in which, in our languages, the copula forms, or introduces, the predicate, have no verb in IN. In such cases the imperative is expressed merely by intonation. Illustration, Mentaway, from the Fishermen's Stories : "Be my bride!" = Bride my you = madi ku äkäw.
81. The imperative of the causative is analogous to that of the active. In Hova maturi is "to sleep", mampaturi, "to cause to sleep"; the corresponding imperatives are: maturia and mampaturia. In Bug. ”

“ In Hova “ to rule ” is, in the indicative, mandzáka, the imperative is mandzaká < mandzaka + a. Now in the Testament of Umbiasa we find: “ Do not rule with the flesh, rule with the spirit! ” = aza mandzáka ami ni mifu, mandzaká ami ni fanahi.
86. The Conjunctive. Only a few IN languages have a formative for this mood; it is, therefore, not a Common IN phenomenon. Frequently it is not expressed at all; or else only by means of auxiliary words of form, such as the Mal. baraṅ, “ possibly ”. Special conjunctive formatives exist in particular in Old Jav. ”

“ In all Mal. dictionaries we find the statement that tidor means "sleep" and "to sleep"; but tidor, "sleep", when used in a context, requires different pronouns from tidor, "to sleep". "He sleeps" is tidor iya, "his sleep" on the other hand is tidor ña. So verb and substantive are at least distinguished by the construction. Again another case: Toba pintu means both "door" and "shut"; but pintu, "door", has the accent in the usual Common IN fashion on the i, while pintu, "shut", has it on the u. — It often happens that the same formatives are used to form both verbs and substantives; Bug. ”