260 ON THE ROOTS IN THE MALAY LANGUAGE. 
be used. It would, moreover, be strange if other derivative 
forms of these words were not actually in colloquial use. For, 
correctly speaking, the possible existence of no derivative can 
be denied, while there is a real demand for the expression of a 
certain meaning the idea underlying which has an independent 
form in use, even though present custom may be unacquainted 
with it, or may have neglected to preserve it, a thing of fre- 
quent occurrence. However, such forms did not, at first, come 
into existence at the same time and together with the roots; 
it was once considered sufficient, and this sometimes happens 
even now, simply to mention the word marking the thing which 
is or does this or that, or the action itself of being cr doing, in 
order to call attention to the subject. By saying tick-tick or 
tick-tock every one will be reminded of the ticking of a watch 
or clock. But the man who does not know these articles will 
think of something else giving forth a similar sound. So it 
comes that from tik we get the derivative tiktik a drop, and 
from tis we have ménétis to drip, while kétik is the Malay for 
the ticking, or rather the tick of a clock. After the same man- 
ner ménztak, transitive, means to hew or chop; ménétas, trans- 
itive, signifies cutting open, or breaking through for the purpose 
of disuniting, as in ripping aseam, while the same word, intrans- 
itively used, expresses the bursting open of a hatched egg. 
Then ménétoek names the action of giving a soft or, better still, 
a muffled knock ; ménétis is to drip beside anything, also to 
descend from (with reference to origin); ménétik, to flatten by 
blows, &c. Also méngétis, which means to fillip off, as in re- 
moving an insect from the hand by a sudden jerk from the tip 
of the finger, but, it is also used to express the showing of a 
ring one wears by pushing forward one’s finger and thereby 
performing an action somewhat similar to filiping. The same 
meaning is ascribed to méngétik but this word also means the 
act of jumping in insects, when it is executed by the stretch- 
ing out of their hind legs after the manner of a grasshopper, 
whence the primitive word kétzk receives an additional mean- 
ing by being used to express a leg of this sort, which is, again, 
figuratively employed for the hammer of a rifle because a 
grasshopper’s leg more or less resembles it. Allied to kétik is 
the word kéting, the name for that posterior portion of the leg 
