A grammar and dictionary of the Malay language : with a preliminary ...

DISSERTATION. cxiii
inaralan ; pluperfect, naaralau ; future, aaralan ; imperative,
aralaii ; infinitive, aralan ; verbal noun, called a participle, aug-
inaaralan. An optative is formed, as in the other conjugations,
by the auxiliary nava.
In the application of the inseparable particles to the root,
there is much commutation of consonants, which there is no
room in a sketch to describe. According to the Spanish writers,
there is no substantive verb in the Tagala, or any known language
of the Philippines ; but probably they mean only a substantive
verb, employed as an auxiliary, as in the European languages.
From this sketch of Tagala grammar, it will appear that there
is very little in common between it and the grammars of the
Malay and Javanese. In Tagala, the relations of the noun are
expressed by a class of articles appropriated to the purpose ; and
in the Malay, Javanese, and other languages of the West, by
prepositions, as in the modern languages of Europe. In the
Tagala, a plural is formed by a specific particle appropriated to
this special purpose ; in Malay and Javanese, by ordinary
adjectives expressing plurality. Gender is expressed, in Malaj^
by words expressing the sexes, of which there is one set for man,
and a distinct one for the lower animals. In the Tagala there
is but one set, equally applicable to both.
The nearest approach of the Tagala grammar to the Malay
and Javanese, in so far as the mere words are concerned, exists
in the personal pronouns. The pronouns aku, ku, ikau (angkau),
mu, kita, and kami, are to be found either in Malay or Javanese,
but with the exception of the genitives, or possessives, ku
and mu, none of the oblique cases of the Tagala are to be found
in those two languages. The Tagala dual pronoun, and pronoun
of the first person plural excluding the person addressed, have
no such meaning in Malay or Javanese in which they can be
used as singulars or plurals, although, perhaps, most frequently
as the latter. My notion is, that these pronouns have been
borrowed by the Malays and Javanese from the languages of
the Philippines, and added to their own long lists of pronouns
of the first and second persons. The pronoun of the third
person has not been borrowed by the Malays, and the Javanese
have none at all, native or foreign.