ON THE ROOTS IN THE MALAY LANGUAGE. ZO 
for an expression indicative of frequency, durability and con- 
bination or connection, there was a call for a special form to 
render the opposite idea of something disconnected, abrupt, 
sudden, isolated and unexpected, to be obtained by modifi- 
cation of the word, and thus accounting for the antecedent re- 
presentation of /é which proceeding, as it were, direct from 
the throat without interference from the other organs of arti- 
culation, was more suitable than any other explodent letter for 
expressing the suddenness and abruptness of a report or ex- 
plosive sound when such required rendering by a figure of 
speech. But, even though it might, in after times, have been 
possible for é and 22 to be assimilated when nature was no 
longer the sole guide, yet they originally repelled and excluded 
each other, sae lé could no more be inserted after hé than ké 
could be made to precede /é; besides which, the latter would 
imply a chronological precedence of i% and such a supposition 
cannot possibly be entertained or tolerated. The only solu- 
tion we can, therefore, arrive at is, that we are bound to accept 
léas being quite as independent a prefix as ké, and that the 
position of this term /é was assigned to it phonetically after 
the initial term of the word instead of before it, through meta- 
thesis, or transposition. To look upon the pr -efixes f2 and 1z 
as being nothing more than mere phonetic affixes is incorrect, 
for they evidently define the meaning of the word, in some res- 
pect, by modifying the quantity although not affecting the qua- 
lity. 
There are also instances of dé being found as a meaningless 
prefix, in which light we shall hardly be able to account for it 
otherwise than by bane it to a phonetic change from the 
/into the dental d. Thisis preferable to the argument that 
we have here a softened ¢, the consequence of reduplication, for 
this dé is also found occurring before other consonants. 
By analysing the meanings of tik, tak, toek, it becomes ap- 
arent that the principal idea conveyed by the word is repre- 
sented by the explodent Z, in excatly the same way as we al- 
ready n noticed of the s and p, while the final 4, with which the 
above words terminate, merely serves the purpose of abruptly 
breaking off the tone to imply a sudden ending. Accordingly 
