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PREFACE
The present volume is the highest one on Gujarati Grammar in accordance with the scheme chaulked out in the Preface to my Elementary Gujarati Grammar. It contains an exhaustive treatment of all points connected with Gujarati Grammar as a look at its contents will show. It gives a history of the Gujarati language, tracing it from the Nâgart Apabhramśa and the old form of the language which Dr. Tessitori chooses to call Old Western Râjasthânî, the Mother of modern Gujarati and Mârwâdi languages. Numerous illustrations from old works are given and the light they throw on the construction and the vocabulary of language and the derivation of words is fully explained. The book embodies the latest researches in philology inasmuch as they bear upon the Gujarati language and takes a comparative view of Indo-Aryan languages as far as is necessary. It tackles the thorny question of the separation of words and Gujarati spelling, shows how it can be satisfactorily solved, and sets forth a way that is practical and expedient. Besides touching upon the formation and the development of language and its classification from a formative and an historical standpoint, Pronunciation, Words, thei Primary and Secondary powers, Contraction, Amplification, and Deterioration of Sense, Accidence, Etymology, Syntax, Analysis, and Punctuation, it deals with Style, points out merits and demerits in it, and draws the attention of the reader to the sort of faults that are commonly met with in Gujarati prose and poetry. The subject of Poetics is also dealt with to some extent. Rasa, Bhava,