Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/69

This pĕpĕt, as Poensen rightly asserts, is a meaningless initial syllable. It owes its existence only to the impulse to achieve a disyllabic form in the word-base.

The addition of such a pĕpĕt must, however, in some cases have taken place at a fairly remote epoch, for in Toba it has followed the pĕpĕt-law. Thus by the side of Mai. lat, ĕlat, “interval”, Toba has the word olat, “boundary” , and beside guṅ, ĕguṅ, “gong” , a form oguṅ, etc.*

^{* [See also Essay IV, §§226. seqq.]}