THE FORMATION OF WORDS, 23 
authentic commentaries, giving us the exact meaning of the 
idiom of the writer, supposing however that he fully under- 
stood the Arabic of his quotation, which is hizhly probable 1 in 
the majority of cases. 
The “specialization” expressed by reduplication leads us 
to another closely connected meaning, which I do not hesitate to 
place under the same heading. ‘To start from the same expres- 
sion a |, raja-raja, we have found that it cannot be translated 
“kings,” but that the meaning of ;aja has been specialized as 
meaning something not exactly a king, but only similar to one. 
This is a kind of specialization very frequent in Malayan lan- 
guages. Of the large number of examples I can only quote a 
small portion, which ‘will, however, fully suftice to explain the 
rule. 
rasy langit-lungit, a sky yet not a sky: a baldachin ; 
ray buat-buat, to do, yet not to do: to pretend ; 
iS.) 
2s’ ular-ular, a snake, yet not a snake: a streamer, 
pennon ; 
Tél ayam-ayam, a hen, yet not hen: a waterfowl ; 
Fogle jarum-jarum, a needle, yet nota needle, the needle 
of a balance, 
In the same way Jas »? putih-putth means whitish, not 
white, Yaz biru-biru bluish, not blue, foot masah-masak 
to play at cooking, not to cook, f ol anak-anak a doll, not 
a child. T.3\ api-api, the mistletoe, which causes trees in- 
fested by it to have the appearance as if burnt by fire (api). 
Here it is also worthy of note that in order to express ‘‘ flaming ” 
anger or wrath the reduplication iy berapi-api is used, 
R. A. Soc., No. 39, 1903. 
