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MAY, 1910.) A COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR OF DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGES.
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genitive suffix to na or ne or even nē (with the vowel lengthened). This last në may further be reduced to è, after a word ending in n. In the dialects of Canarese mentioned above, the suffix is na. They have also the pure a (written ya). In Kolami it is no, but this is sometimes contracted to nor added to the locative suffix t through a confusion. Thus Kolami has n, ne, net, as genitive suffixes. In Naiki and Burgandi it is nē; or e.
Tuļu too, seems to have used the double form ina for the plural genitive, in pre-historie period while the singular had only a. But in this plural ina the whole in was dropped after a had been fronted to e; so that we have now in Tuļu a for genitive singular, and e for the genitive plural. Otberwise it seems to us that e of the plural genitive cannot be explained. Dr. Caldwell and Rev. Brigel merely mention that a is changed to e, but offer no explanation.
Canarese too, showed very clearly, a tendency to use in as genitive case-suffix and hence the double form ina due to the weakening of in is found even in the oldest period. But this tendency was almost immediately checked ; and the form ina was restricted to the following cases :-(1) Singular genitive nouns ending in u and I () short and long, and 7, au, and also those ending in consonants take ina. With nouns, however, that receive a euphonic v, ina is only optional ; and a may be used instead (Smd. 108). (2) the insertion of in takes place only in a very few instances with words ending in consonants. It is optional with pagal and irul, necessary with igal and agal (Smd. 109). In all other cases, Canarese uses a wbich in many cases is lengthened to a. So Canarese is chiefly an a-dialect, i. e., one that uses a chiefly for genitive.
Dr. Kittel considers the in in ina as euphonic, but we think that the euphonic' explanation must be given up when comparative study can give a better one. Dr. Caldwell, no doubt, identifies this in with the locative genitive in, but says that it has lost its force in Canarese and has become a mere euphonie particle.
Brahui, a Dravidian dialect spoken in Baluchistan, nses na and a as genitive suffixes, nā is ina with the first vowel dropped and final vowel lengthened, and å is a lengthened. For example: lemmah mother, has lummahni (gen.), nat foot, has nattā (gen.) (L. S. 628).
In Gondi the genitive suffix is uniformly a when it is not supplanted by the Aryan ör (-asya): e. g., chalarknā of servants. undinā of one (L. S. 489).
In the earliest period of Tamil a was the only genitive suffix; and in was restricted to the locative case. But soon even this a was confined to possessives followed by plural nouns, influenced no doubt by the nenter demonstrative plural suffix a of appellative nouns. And for the singular, the possessive nouns ending in allu (which were till now used only as nouns) were made to do duty as adjectives too, i.e., they were also used predicatively (just as in English we find mine used for my). A similar tendency seems to have existed in Earliest Canarese. In a stanza quoted in Sabdamanidarpa Na (Smd.) we see that tanattu (his) is used adjectively. But in Cavarese such a use is of the rarest kind. Thus in Early Tamil we find two genitive suffixes a and adu. Adu was used when a singular noun followed the possessive and a when a plural noun came after it (Tolk Sol. 65). In Mid. Tamil, this distinetion was preserved; but in some cases, adu was used even when a plural noun followed the possessive : e. g., nindu adiyar and enadu kaigal mine hands. (Nannul 300). In Early New Tamil, a went out of use except in high literary style ; and adu took its place universally. In this period, in which was till now only a locative sign came to be used as genitive suffix also. In late New Tamil, in is more largely used than even adu. In Modern Tamil, the relative participle waiya has come to be used very largely especially in prose and conversation. Sometimes both in and udaiya are added to words in modern Tamil when in is placed first : e.g.. puli. y-in-udaiya of tiger. This shows that udaiya is gaining influence even over in as 'olla in Modern Telugu
