Page:An introduction to Indonesian linguistics, being four essays.djvu/71

Homophony.

100. Homophony is as rare in the complete word -base as it is common in the root. That is due to the fact that the formatives which create word-bases from roots are very numerous.

Example of homophony in Old Jav. : ulih = (1) to get, (2) to deliberate, (3) to return.

Example of homophony running through many languages:.

	I. karaṅ:	I. karaṅ:
Old. Jav.	crag, rock	to cut designs.
Mal.	reef	to make garlands, to compose.
Gayo	rock	to compose.
Day	gravel, crag	to compose.
Mak.	coral reef	to compose.

Function.

101. The word-base can be employed, just as it stands, in

living speech. From the root kit^[1],'“to rise”, which appears e.g. in Gayo baṅkit, “to rise” , there is also derived a widely distributed word-base bukit, “rising ground, hill, hill town”. Now the following sentences show that this word-base, without any further additions, is really capable of being used in speech :

Mal.: bukit jadi paya, “Hills become lowland swamps”. (A proverb.)

Day. : äka-m hoṅ bukit galeget, “Thy ( = -m) dwelhng (is) in the distant highlands”.

Mlg. : zana-buhitra,^[2] “suburb” .

The Old Jav. sentence given in § 1 contains four word-bases used in living speech.

102. Although it has been stated that word-bases can be used in speech just as they are, yet we must add that there are certain rules, or limitations, affecting their use.

1. [A still more primitive form of this root was kid (see Essay II, § 65), but that point is not material in this connexion.]
2. The -ra is not a formative suffix but merely the product of a phonetic process (see § 30).