Abstract
I. The form of the Austronesian words is generally of dissyllabic type (C)+v+C+v+(C), of which C represents respectively a consonant and v a vowel; the first and the last C may be missing.
Here with the first two consonants, we have the phenomena of so-called “nasal compensation” which consists in the morphological nasalisation of homorganic occlusives, e. g. Malay degar “to hear”: me-negar “to hear, ”(ancient form), and the phenomena of “nasal prothesis” by which an occlusive may receive a homorganic nasal before itself, e. g. Malay degar “to hear, hearing”: me-ndegar “to hear.”
With the nasal compensation of the type (Malay) sakit “sick”: me-n'akit “sickness, ” we have to recognize the origin of s in a sort of occlusive t homorganic to n′, that is a t′.
