accent depends a great deal upon the position of the word in the sentence. For instance when the words tiang, turun or tahan come at the end of a sentence the accent falls on the last syllable, but when placed elsewhere in the sentence there is some uncertainty as to the accent, though it generally seems to be on the penultimate. Words of Arabic origin are often accentuated by the Malays in a manner different from the Arabs. In this vocabulary no attempt has been made to indicate the original Arabic pronunciation; the aim has been to accentuate every word in the way in which it is ordinarily pronounced by Malays in the colloquial language.
Accent in Derivatives.
Many authorities on the Malay language have maintained that in derivatives the accent moves forward on the addition of a suffix from the penultimate of the root to the penultimate of the derived word. The Dutch scholar van der Wall was the first to controvert this theory, which is also opposed by the grammarian Gerth van Wijk, and is undoubtedly incorrect. As a rule the accent in derivatives remains on the same syllable on which it stood in the root, the principal exceptions being words ending in ang, in which the accent falls on the penultimate of the derivative on the addition of the suffix an. Those who wish to see the arguments on both sides of this question will find it fully discussed in a paper on “The Evolution of Malay Spelling,” in No. 36 of the Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, published as a separated paper by the Methodist Publishing House.
In regard to the division of the syllables it will be found that on the addition of a suffix commencing with a vowel the final consonant of the root is carried forward to commence the new syllable. The Malays invariably divide the syllables in this way, each syllable being begun with a consonant wherever it is possible. The same thing is done when a prefix ending in a consonant comes before a root commencing with a vowel, as m-nga-uu from mng and aku.
Synonyms.
Another special feature of this vocabulary is that synonyms or words of cognate meaning and sometimes those of exactly opposite meaning, are referred to in the case of a very large proportion of the words. This is intended to open up a very wide field of study to those who wish to make a careful comparison of the precise meanings of Malay words, and who desire to be able to discriminate between words of nearly similar meaning. The advanced student is strongly recommended to make such words a special study.
