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SEPTEMBER, 1911.] A COMPARATIYE GRAMMAR OF DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGES 241
A COMPARATIVE GRAMMAR OF DRAVIDIAN LANGUAGES.
BY K. V. SUBBAIYA, M.A., L.T., M.R.A.S., RAJAHMUNDRY.
Lecturer in English, Government College, Rajahmundry.
Nouns.-Number.
Continued from page 189.
1. Dravidian nouns are inflected for number. There are two numbers:-Singular and Plural.
Singular.
2. In all the Dravidian languages, the primitive or uncompounded nouns have no distinguishing mark of the singular number. The absence of the plural suffix is indicative of the singular number.
But in the case of the compounded or derivative nouns, the gender suffixes themselves indicate the singular number. Thus, an and its varieties indicate the masculine singular; al and its varieties, the feminine singular; du and its varieties, the neuter singular. In short, in all the Dravidian languages, gender and number are conjointly expressed by one and the same termination.
Plural.
3. The plural is of two kinds :-(1) rational, (2) irrational; and these have different suffixes. 4. In early Dravidian irrational or neuter nouns were not inflected for plural. In Old Tamil, neuter nouns were, as a rule, the same in both the numbers. Even in Middle Tamil, it was considered highly idiomatic not to inflect the neuter noun for the plural number. (Vide Tholkâppiam Sutram 173 of Solladikâram, also Nannûl, Sutram 281.) In the conversational dialect of New Tamil, the neuter singular is used in a plural relation as ndlu málu meygiradu, four cow grazes(the translation being literal).
In Brahui, the number of nouns is generally left undefined. In Malto and Kurukh, there is no difference between the neuter singular and the neuter plural. Dr. Caldwell says that in Toda and Coorg neuter nouns have no plural; and it seems that the only words in Toda that are ever pluralised are the pronouns.
Method of Pluralisation.
5. The plural suffix is directly attached to the crude base. Hence it replaces the masculine or feminine suffix in the case of the rational nouns. But as the neater singular of Dravidian languages is identical with the crade base, the neuter plural suffix is attached directly to the
neuter noun.
In some of the rude spoken dialects, such as the Korava and Burgandi, the rational plural suffix is added to the masculine singular form. (For illustrations see infra.)
The Epicene Plural Suffic; (r, ar).
6. The Primitive Dravidian Epicene plural suffix is r. It is added directly to the base as in nir from ni, Thou'. It is the plural suffix in a few words in Tamil, Canarese, Malayalam, Telugu and Tula.
But the usual rational suffix is ar. As an, male', and al, masculine and feminine singular suffixes in their unemphatic forms an became the rational plural suffix in its unstressed inflexional form ar. a woman'; and ár, persons,' 'men or women'.
Later on, ar the lengthened form of ar was also adopted, because the original vowel of the stressed words an and a was long. Thus ar and ar are indifferently used as epicene plural suffixes in Old Tamil.
woman'; became respectively and al, so their plural ár also Thus dn means a man'; al,
