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A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages c7: Part III. The Noun

A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages c7

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Contents

Part III. The Noun

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In this section it will be my endeavour to investigate the nature and affections of the Dravidian noun, with the view of ascertaining its method of expressing the relations of gender and number, and the principles on which that method proceeds, together with the characteristics and origin of its case system, or system of means for expressing the relationship of nouns with other parts of speech. It will be shown at the close of the section on "The Verb," how derivative nouns are formed from verbal roots; and the various classes of participial nouns will then also be investigated.

Section I.—Gender and Number

1. Gender

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When the Indo-European laws of gender are compared with those of the Scythian group of tongues, it will appear that in this point, as in many others, the Dravidian languages accord more closely with the Scythian than with the Indo-European family. In all the more primitive Indo-European languages, not only are words that denote rational beings and living creatures regarded as masculine or feminine, according to the sex of the objects referred to, but also inanimate objects and even abstract ideas have similar sexual distinctions attributed to them; so that many nouns which denote naturally destitute of gender, and which ought therefore to be regarded as neuters, are treated by the grammars of those languages as if the objects they denote were males and females, and are fitted not with neuter, but with masculine or feminine case terminations, and with pronouns of corresponding genders. This peculiar system is a proof of the highly imaginative and poetical character of the Indo-European mind, by which principles of resemblance were discerned in the midst of the greatest differences, and all things that exist were not only animated, but personified. It is from this personification that most of the ancient mythologies are supposed to have arisen. A similar remark applies to the Semitic languages also, in which the same or a similar usage respecting gender prevailed. In the progress of the corruption of the primitive Indo-European languages, a less imaginative but more natural usage gained ground. Nevertheless, in a majority of the modern colloquial dialects of this family, both in Europe and in India, the gender of nouns is still an important and difficult section of the grammar, and a standing impediment in the way of the idiomatic use of those languages by foreigners.

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On the other hand, in the Manchu, Mongolian, Turkish, and Finnish families of tongues—the principal families of the Scythian group—a law or usage respecting the gender of nouns universally prevails, which is generically different from that of the Indo-European and the Semitic idioms. In those families, not only are all things which are destitute of reason and life denoted by neuter nouns, but no nouns whatever—not even nouns which denote human beings—are regarded as in themselves masculine or feminine. All nouns, as such, are neuter, or rather are destitute of gender. In those languages there is no mark of gender inherent in, or inseparably annexed to, the nominative of any noun (the crude root being generally the nominative); and in none of the oblique cases, or postpositions used as case terminations, is the idea of gender at all involved. The unimaginative Scythians reduced all things, whether rational or irrational, animate or inanimate, to the same dead level, and regarded them all as impersonal. They prefixed to common nouns, wherever they found it necessary, some word denoting sex, equivalent to male or female, he or she; but they invariably regarded such nouns as in themselves neuters, and generally they supplied them with neuter pronouns. The only exceptions to this rule in the Scythian languages consist in a few words, such as God, man, woman, husband, wife, which are so highly instinct with personality that of themselves, and without the addition of any word denoting sex, they necessarily convey the signification of masculine or feminine.

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When our attention is turned to the Dravidian languages we find that, whilst their rules respecting gender differ widely from those of the Indo-European group, they are not quite identical with those of the Scythian. It seems probable, however, that the particulars in which the Dravidian rules respecting gender differ from those of the Scythian languages, and evince a tendency in the Indo-European direction, are not the result of direct Sanskritic influences, of which no trace is perceptible in this department of Dravidian grammar, but have arisen either from the progressive mental cultivation of the Dravidians themselves, or from an inheritance of pre-Sanskritic elements.

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Dravidian nouns are divided into two classes, which Tamil grammarians denote by the technical terms of high-caste and casteless nouns, but which are called by Telugu grammarians *mahât*, majors, and *a-mahât*, minors. High-caste nouns, or majors, are those which denote "the celestial and infernal deities and human beings," or, briefly, all things endowed with reason; and in all the Dravidian dialects (with a peculiar exception which is found only in Telugu and Gônd) nouns of this class are treated in the singular as masculines or feminines respectively, and in the plural as epicenes, that is, without distinguishing between masculines and feminines, but distinguishing both from the neuter. The other class of nouns, called casteless, or minors, includes everything which is destitute of reason, whether animate or inanimate. This classification of nouns, though not so imaginative as that of the Indo-European and Semitic tongues, is decidedly more philosophical; for the difference between rational beings and beings or things which are destitute of reason is more momentous and essential than any difference that exists between the sexes. The new Persian, which uses one pluralising particle for nouns that denote animated beings, and another and different one for things that are destitute of life, is the only non-Dravidian language in which nouns are classified in a manner which is in any degree similar to the Dravidian system.[*]

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The peculiar Dravidian law of gender which has now been described would appear to be a result of progressive intellectual and grammatical cultivation; for the masculine, feminine, and epicene suffixes which form the terminations of Dravidian high-caste nouns, are properly fragments of pronouns or demonstratives of the third person, as are also most of the neuter formatives. It may, indeed, be stated as a general rule that all primitive Dravidian nouns are destitute of gender, and that every noun or pronoun in which the idea of gender is formally expressed, being a compound word, is necessarily of later origin than the uncompounded primitives. The technical term by which such nouns are denoted by Tamil grammarians is *pagu-padam*, divisible words, *i.e.*, compounds. Hence the poetical dialects, which retain many of the primitive landmarks, are fond of discarding the ordinary suffixes of gender or rationality, and treating all nouns as far as possible as abstract neuters. Thus, in poetical Tamil *Dêv-u*, God, a crude noun destitute of gender, is reckoned more classical than Dêv-an, the corresponding masculine noun. This word is a Sanskrit derivative; but the same tendency to fall back upon the old Scythian rule appears in the case of many other words which are primitive Dravidian nouns—e.g., irei, a king, a word which is destitute of gender, is more classical than irei-(v)-an, the commoner form, which possesses the masculine singular termination.

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∗ This is not the only particular in which the Dravidian idiom attributes greater importance than the Indo-European to reason and the mind. We make our bodies the seat of personality. When we are suffering from any bodily ailment, we say "I am ill;" whereas the Dravidians denote the mind—the conscious *self* or *âtman*—when they say *I*, and therefore prefer to say, more philosophically, "my body is ill."

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In the modern Tamil spoken by the educated classes, the words which denote sun and moon (sûriy-an and śandir-an, derived from the Sanskrit sûrya and chandra) are of the masculine gender, in accordance with Sanskrit usage and with the principles of the Brahmanical mythology; but in the old Tamil of the poets and the peasants, ñâyiru, the sun, also porudu, and tingal, the moon, also nilâ, all pure Dravidian words, are neuter. All true Dravidian names of towns, rivers, &c., are in like manner destitute of every mark of personality or gender. In some few instances Malayâlam and Canarese retain the primitive laws of gender more faithfully than Tamil. Thus, in the Tamil word peiyan, a boy, we find the masculine singular termination an; whereas Malayâlam (with which agrees Canarese) uses the older word peidal, a word (properly a verbal noun) which is destitute of gender, to which it prefixes in a thoroughly Scythian manner words that signify respectively male and female, to form compounds signifying boy and girl—e.g., ân peidal, a boy, peṇ peidal, a girl. The nature and origin of the terminations which are used to signify gender in the various Dravidian dialects will be inquired into under the head of “Number,” with the consideration of which this subject is inseparably connected. Under this head I restrict myself to a statement of the general principles respecting gender which characterise the Dravidian languages.

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A peculiarity of Telugu, which appears also in Gônd, should here be mentioned. Whilst those dialects agree with the other members of the Dravidian family in regarding masculines and feminines, and both combined, as constituting in the plural a common or epicene gender, they differ from the other dialects in this respect that they are wholly or virtually destitute of a feminine singular, and instead of the feminine singular use the singular of the neuter. This rule includes in its operation pronouns and verbs as well as substantives, and applies to goddesses and queens, as well as to ordinary women. The Telugu possesses, it is true, a few forms which are appropriate to the feminine singular, but they are rarely used, and that only in certain rare combinations and conjunctures. He and it are the only pronouns of the third person singular which are ordinarily made use of by fifteen millions of the Telugu people; and the colloquial dialect does not even possess any pronoun, equivalent to our pronoun she, which is capable of being applied to women of the lower as well as of the higher classes. Ordinarily every woman is spoken of in Telugu as a chattel or a thing, or as we are accustomed to speak of very young children (e.g., it did so and so), apparently on the supposition either that women are destitute of reason, or that their reason, like that of infants, lies dormant. Whilst each woman taken singly is treated by Telugu grammar as a chattel or as a child, women taken collectively are regarded with as much respect as by the other Dravidian dialects. In the plural they are honoured with the same high-caste or rational suffixes and pronouns that are applied to men and gods.

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Canarese and Malayâlam agree in this point with Tamil, and regard women, not in the plural only but also in the singular, as pertaining to the class of rationals: accordingly in those languages there is a feminine singular pronoun equivalent to she, which corresponds in the principle of its formation to the masculine he. With those languages agrees Ku, which, though the near neighbour of Telugu and Gônd, pursues in this respect a politer course than either. In the idioms of the Tudas and Kôtas, the rude aborigines of the Nilgherry hills, there is, properly speaking, only one pronoun of the third person, and that is without distinction of gender or number. atham, remote, itham, proximate, mean indiscriminately he, she, it, they. The pronouns avan, aval, he, she, are also occasionally used, but Dr Pope thinks they have been recently introduced from the Tamil and Canarese. This usage reminds one of the employment in the old Hebrew of the same pronoun, hû, to signify both he and she, and still more of the use of the reflexive pronoun of the Latin se, for all genders and numbers. Compare wuh, Hindustani, he, she.

2. Number

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The Dravidian languages recognise only two numbers, the singular and the plural. The dual, properly so called, is unknown, and there is no trace extant of its use at any previous period. Several of the languages of this family contain two plurals of the pronoun of the first person, one of which includes the party addressed as well as the party of the speaker, and which may therefore be considered as a species of dual, whilst the other excludes the party addressed. As, however, this peculiarity is restricted to the personal pronouns, it will be examined in that connection. Under the head of "Number," we shall inquire into the Dravidian mode of forming the masculine, feminine, and neuter singular, and the epicene and neuter plural.

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(1.) *Masculine Singular.*—It has already been intimated that the formatives by which the gender of nouns is occasionally expressed are identical with the terminations of the demonstrative pronouns. From a very early period of the history of these languages, particles or formatives of gender were suffixed to the demonstrative bases, by the addition of which suffixes demonstrative pronouns were formed. Those formatives of gender were not originally appended to or combined with *substantive nouns*; but their use was gradually extended as their utility was perceived, and nouns which included the idea of gender were made to express that idea by suffixing the gender terminations of the pronouns, whereby they became appellative nouns. The manner in which all these suffixes are added will be sufficiently illustrated by the instance of the masculine singular.

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The masculine singular suffix of the Tamil is *an*, *ân*, or *ôn*. *An*, the shorter formative, is that which appears in the demonstrative pronoun *avan* (*a-(v)-an*), he; and by suffixing any of these formatives to an abstract or neuter noun, the noun ceases to be abstract and becomes a concrete masculine-singular appellative. Thus *mûpp-u*, age, by the addition of *an* becomes *mûpp-an*, an elder, literally age-he, or age-man; and from *Tamir* comes *Tamir-an*, a Tamilian, a Tamil-man. These and similar nouns are called generically “compound or divisible words” by Tamil grammarians. They are obviously compounded of a noun—generally a noun of quality or relation—and a suffix of gender, which appears also to have been a noun originally.

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In the instances which have been adduced, the suffix of gender is annexed to the nominative or *casus rectus*; but in many cases it is annexed to the oblique case or inflexional base, viz., to that form of the noun to which the case signs are suffixed, and which, when used by itself, has the meaning of the genitive or locative. When the inflexion, or oblique case, is employed instead of the nominative in compounds of this nature, it generally conveys a possessive or locative signification—*e.g.*, *maleiyinan* (*malei-(y)-in-an*), a mountaineer, literally a man of or on the mountain; *paṭṭinattan* (*paṭṭin-att’ân*), a citizen, literally a man of or in the city. Sometimes, however, the inflexional “in” is merely added euphonically—*e.g.*, there is no difference in meaning between *villan* (*vill-an*), a bowman, and *villinan* (*vill’-in-an*), which is considered a more elegant form. Words of this description are in some grammars called adjectives; but they are never regarded as such by any native grammarians: they cannot be simply prefixed for the purpose of qualifying other words, and it is evident from their construction that they are merely appellative nouns.

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A subdivision of appellatives consists of words in which the suffixes of gender are annexed to adjectival forms—e.g., koḍiya-n, a cruel man. I regard words of this class as participial nouns, and they will be investigated in the part on “The Verb,” under the head of “Appellative Verbs;” but whatever be the nature of koḍiya (the first part of the compound), koḍiya-n is certainly not an adjective, for before it can be used adjectivally we must append to it the relative participle āna, that is—e.g., koḍiyan-āna, that is a cruel man; and as the compound, cruel man, cannot be called an adjective in English, neither is koḍiyan an adjective in Tamil: it is properly an appellative noun. It may be said that the neuter plural of this word, viz., koḍiya, may be prefixed adjectivally to any substantive; but koḍiya, cruel things, the neuter plural of koḍiyan, is not really identical with the adjective koḍiya, cruel. It is totally distinct from it, though identical in appearance. The a of the former word is the neuter suffix of plurality; whereas the a of the latter is that of the possessive case and of the relative participle, as will be shown at the close of this part (see “Adjectival Formatives”) and in the part on “Verbs.”

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Another species of Tamil appellative nouns is said by Beschi to be formed by annexing suffixes of gender to verbal roots—e.g., ôduvân, a reader, from ôdu, to read; but this, I believe, is an error. Those words are to be regarded as participial nouns, and ôduvân is literally he who will read, i.e., he who is accustomed to read. In the same manner, ôdinan is the participial noun of the preterite tense, and means he who read or is accustomed to read: ôdugindravan, the corresponding present participial noun, he who reads, belongs to the same class; and these forms are not to be confounded with appellative nouns properly so called. On the other hand, such words as kâppan, a protector, are true appellatives; but kâppan is not formed from the future tense of the verb (though kâppân means he will protect), but from kâppu, protection, a derivative noun, of which the final and formative ppu is from the same origin as the corresponding final of mûppu, old age. See the concluding section of the part on “The Verb.”

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The suffixes of gender which form the terminal portion of appellative nouns vary somewhat in form, but they are one and the same in origin, and their variations are merely euphonic. It is the vowel only that varies, never the consonant. When a neuter noun ends with a vowel which is essential to it, and is incapable of elision, and also when a noun happens to be a long monosyllable, ân, or in poetry ôn, is more commonly suffixed than an. In some cases avan, he, the full demonstrative pronoun, is suffixed instead of its termination only, and this mode is thought peculiarly elegant. Thus, from vil or vill-u, a bow, we may form vill-an, vill-ân, and vill-ôn, an archer, a bowman, and also vill-avan. Indeed, *ân* and *ôn* have evidently been formed, not from *an*, but from *a + v + n*, by the softening of the euphonic *v*, and the coalescence of the vowels. This corruption of *avan* into *ân* appears systematically in the third person masculine singular of the colloquial Tamil verb—e.g., *pô-(n)-ân* (not *pô-(n)-avan*), he went.

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The Canarese masculine singular suffix *anu* is identical with the Tamil *an*, the addition of *u* being merely a phonetic necessity of the modern dialect. In the older Canarese, the termination which was used was *am*, a particle which is to be regarded as the equivalent of *an*, *n* and *m* being interchangeable nasals. Malayâlam is in this particular perfectly identical with Tamil. The corresponding Telugu masculine singular formative is *ḍ-u*, *uḍ-u*, or *aḍ-u*; or rather *ṇḍ-u*, *uṇḍ-u*, or *aṇḍu*, the obscure *ṇ* being always pronounced, and being probably an essential part of the original form of the particle, and by suffixing the same formative to any substantive noun, it becomes a masculine singular—e.g., *mag-aṇḍu*, a husband, a word which seems to be identical in origin with the Tamil *mag-an*, a son (the primitive and proper meaning of each word being a male). The masculine singular suffix of Telugu often takes the shape of *uṇḍ-u*, and in like manner the epicene plural suffix, which is in Tamil *ar-u*, is often *ur-u* in Telugu; but in these instances *a* changes into *u* through attraction.

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As Tamil forms masculine appellatives by suffixing the demonstrative pronoun *avan*, so does Telugu sometimes suffix its full demonstrative pronoun *vâṇḍu*—e.g., *chinna-vâṇḍu*, a boy (Tamil, *śinna-(v)-an*), literally he who is little. It is probable that the Telugu masculine singular suffix was originally *an* or *an-u*, as in Tamil-Canarese. *aṇḍu*, *uṇḍ-u*, or *ṇḍu*, is found only in the nominative in correct Telugu, and it is replaced in all the oblique cases by *ani* or *ni*; and that this *ni* is not merely an inflexional increment, but the representative of an old masculine singular suffix, appears on comparing it with *ri*, the corresponding oblique case suffix of the masculine-feminine plural, which is certainly formed from *ar-u*. When *vâniki*, to him, is compared with its plural *vâriki*, to them, it is evident that the former corresponds as closely to the Tamil *avanukku* as the latter to *avarukku*; and consequently the *ni* of *vâniki* must be significant of the masculine singular. Probably the same termination survives in the demonstrative, *âyana*, he, a form which is more rarely used than *vâṇḍu*.

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The Telugu *ṇḍ* being thus found to be identical with the Tam., Can., Mal. *n*, and the old Can. *m*, the masculine suffixes *an*, *am*, and *aṇḍu* are also found to be identical. It is more difficult to determine the origin of this suffix *an*. *an* is sometimes used in Tam. and Mal. instead of *am* as a formative of neuter nouns, as will be shown hereafter.

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in the section on the Nominative—e.g., palan (Sans. phala), fruit, instead of palam; but I cannot see how this can be identical in origin with the suffix an which denotes the masculine, the Dravidian masculine being a distinctive one—that is, not merely a grammatical term, but a sign of sex. On looking around for an explanation of the origin of the masculine suffix, it appears to me that the Ku, though one of the most barbarous of the Dravidian dialects, throws more light than any other upon this point. It forms its demonstrative pronouns in a simple and truly primitive manner by prefixing â, the demonstrative base, to common nouns which signify man and woman. These nouns are âñ-u, a man, and âl-u, a woman; and ââñ-u (compare Tam. a(v)an), literally that man, is used to signify he, and ââlu (compare Tam. a(v)aḷ), that woman, to signify she. The Ku âñ-u, a man, seems certainly identical with the Tam. noun āṇ, a male, and probably also with āḷ, a man, a person. In the use to which this primitive root is put in the Ku word â-âñ-u, we may see, I think, the origin of an, the suffix of the masculine singular in most of the Dravidian dialects. The final u, of the Ku word âñ-u, being merely euphonic, the root appears to be âñ or ān; and as ṇ and n have been shown to be interchangeable, ān must be regarded as only another form of āṇ. ṇ, again, is not only often euphonised by suffixing ḍu (e.g., peṇ, Tam. a female, colloquially and poetically peṇḍ-u), but it is also sometimes directly changed into ḍ, of which we have an instance in the classical Tamil peḍ-ei, a hen, a word which is derived by this process from, and is identical with peṇ, a female. Hence, the Telugu suffix aṇḍ-u might naturally be derived from an older form in aṇ, if it should appear that that form existed; and that it did exist, appears from the vulgar use to the present day of ṇ instead of n in some of the oblique cases (e.g., vâṇṇi, him, instead of vâni), and from the half anusvâra, or obscure nasal, which precedes ḍu itself—e.g., vâṇḍu, for vâḍu, he. A close connection appears thus to be established between the Tamil-Canarese an and the Telugu aḍ-u, through the middle point aṇ.

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The only difficulty in the way of the perfect identification of the formative an with the Ku añu, a man, and with the Tamil āṇ, a male, lies in the length of the vowel of the latter words. Here again Ku comes to our assistance; for we find that the vowel was euphonically shortened in some instances in the very dialect in which the origin of the word itself was discovered. In Ku the â of âñ-u is long, both when it is used as an isolated word and in the demonstratives ââñ-u, he, and ââl-u, she; but when the demonstrative pronoun is appended to, and combined with, the relative participle of the verb, so as to form with it a participial noun, the â of âñ-u is shortened into a, and in this shortened form the connection of the Ku formative with the Tamil-Canarese is seen to be complete. Compare the Ku participial noun gităñ-u, he who did, with the corresponding Canarese gêyidăn-u; gitâr-u, Ku, they who did, with gêyidar-u, Can., and also gital-u, Ku, she who did, with gêyidal-u, Can.

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(2.) Feminine Singular.—Though Telugu and Gônd generally use the neuter singular to supply the place of the feminine singular, the other Dravidian dialects possess and constantly use a feminine singular formative which is quite distinct from that of the neuter. This formative is aḷ in Tamil, Malayâlam, and old Canarese, and by suffixing the sign of gender to the demonstrative base, the feminine singular demonstrative pronoun avaḷ (a(v)aḷ), she, is formed—a word which perfectly corresponds to avan (a(v)an), he. A numerous class of feminine singular appellative nouns is formed by suffixing the same particle to abstract or neuter nouns in their crude state—e.g., compare mag-aḷ, Tam. a daughter, with mag-an, a son; ill-âḷ, housewife, a wife, and ill-ân, a husband, are formed from the addition of the pronouns avaḷ and avan (euphonised into âḷ and ân) to il, a home.

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Telugu, in some connections, uses a feminine singular formative which appears to be identical with that of Tamil-Canarese. That formative is âl-u, which is used by Ku more largely than by Telugu; and its identity with Tamil-Canarese aḷ, will be found to furnish us with a clue to the origin and literal meaning of the latter. As âñ-u, in Ku, means a man, so âl-u means a woman: ââl-u, she, is literally that woman. The same word âl-u, means a woman, a wife, in poetical and vulgar Telugu also; and in Gônd there is a word which is apparently allied to it, âr, a woman. Even in Sanskrit we meet with âli, a woman's female friend. It is evident that âl-u would be shortened into al as easily as âñ-u into an, and the constant occurrence of a cerebral ḷ in Tamil and Canarese, where Telugu has the medial l, fully accounts for the change of the one semi-vowel into the other. The unchanged form of this suffix appears in Telugu in such words as manama-(r)-âlu, a granddaughter, compared with manama-ṇḍu, a grandson. The abbreviation of the vowel of the feminine suffix, which is characteristic of Tamil and Canarese, is exemplified in Telugu also, in the words maradal-u, a niece, and kôḍal-u, a daughter-in-law; in which words the feminine suffix al-u, is evidently identical both with Tamil-Canarese aḷ or aḷ-u, and also with âl-u, the older and more regular form of this suffix, which is capable of being used by itself as a noun. Probably the Telugu aḍ-u, adj. female, though now treated as a different word, is identical in origin with âl-u, through the very common interchange of ḍ and ḷ; an illustration of which we have in *kei-(y)-âḷu*, Tam. to use, which is converted in the colloquial dialect to *kei-(y)-âḍu*.∗ The feminine singular suffix *aḷ* appears in Tamil and Canarese in the terminations of verbs as well as in those of pronouns. Telugu, on the other hand, which uses the neuter demonstrative instead of the feminine singular, uses the final fragment of the same demonstrative as the termination of the feminine singular of its verb. It may be remarked that in some of the Caucasian dialects, *n* and *l* are used as masculine and feminine terminals, exactly as in Tamil—e.g., in Avar, *emen*, is father, *evel*, is mother.

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∗ It is more doubtful whether the Tuḷu *âḷ*, Gônd-Telugu *âḷ-u*, a woman, is allied to the Tamil common noun *âḷ*, a person; and yet the existence of some alliance appears to me probable. *âḷ* appears to mean properly a subject person, a servant—male or female—a slave. It is derived from *âḷ* (Tel. *êḷ-u*), to rule, and this seems a natural enough origin for a word intended to signify a Hindu woman. The ordinary Tamil word which signifies a woman is *peṇ*, the literal signification of which is said to be desire, from the verbal root *peṇ*, to desire; but the word is generally restricted to mean, a young woman, a bride. Hence, taking into consideration the subject position of women in India, the word *âḷ*, one who is subject to rule, a person whose sole duty it is to obey, is as natural a derivation for a word signifying a woman, a female, as *peṇ*; and perhaps more likely to come into general use as a suffix of the feminine singular. Dr Gundert has no doubt of the identity of the Tamil *âḷ* and the Telugu *âḷu*: their identity, however, is not admitted by Mr C. P. Brown.

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There is another mode of forming the feminine singular of appellative nouns, which is much used in all the Dravidian dialects, and which may be regarded as especially characteristic of Telugu. It consists in suffixing the Telugu neuter singular demonstrative, its termination, or a modification of it, to any abstract or neuter noun. The neuter singular demonstrative being used by Telugu instead of the feminine singular (it for she), this neuter suffix has naturally in Telugu supplied the place of a feminine suffix; and though in the other dialects the feminine pronouns are formed by means of feminine suffixes, not by those of the neuter, yet the less respectful Telugu usage has crept into the department of their appellative nouns. In Tamil, this neuter-feminine suffix is *atti* or *tti*. This will appear on comparing *veḷḷâḷ-atti*, a woman of the cultivator caste, with *veḷḷâḷ-an*, a man of the same caste; *oru-tti*, one woman, *una*, with *oru-(v)-an*, one man, *unus*; and *vaṇṇâ-tti*, a washerwoman, with *vaṇṇâ-n*, a washerman. *tt*, a portion of this suffix, is sometimes erroneously used in vulgar Tamil as a component element in the masculine appellative noun *oruttan*, one man, instead of the classical and correct *oruvan*. With this exception its use is exclusively feminine. The same suffix is *iti* or *ti* in Canarese—e.g., *arasiti*, a queen (corresponding to the Tamil *râśâtti*), *okkalati*, a farmer's wife. The Telugu uses *adi* or *di*—e.g., *kômaṭi-(y)-adi* or komaṭi-di, a woman of the Komti caste; mâla-di, a Paria woman; chinna-di, a girl. It seems to me evident, not only that all these suffixes are identical, but that the Telugu form of the demonstrative neuter singular, viz., adi, it, which is used systematically by Telugu to signify she, is the root from whence they have all proceeded.

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Another feminine singular suffix of appellatives occasionally used in the Dravidian languages may possibly have been derived from the imitation of Sanskrit. It consists in the addition of i to the crude or neuter noun; and it is only in quantity that this i differs from the long ī, which is so much used by Sanskrit as a feminine suffix. In the majority of cases it is only in connection with Sanskrit derivatives that this suffix is used; but it has also come to be appended to some pure Dravidian nouns—e.g., talei-(v)-i, Tam. a lady (compare talei-(v)-an, a lord), from talei, a head; compare also the Gônd perdgal, a boy, with perdgi, a girl. This feminine suffix is not to be confounded with i, a suffix of agency, which is much used in the formation of nouns of agency and operation, and which is used by all genders indiscriminately. See “Verbal Derivatives,” at the close of the part on “The Verb.”

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3. Neuter Singular.—There is but little which is worthy of remark in the singular forms of neuter Dravidian nouns. Every Dravidian noun is naturally neuter, or destitute of gender, and it becomes masculine or feminine solely in virtue of the addition of a masculine or feminine suffix. When abstract Sanskrit nouns are adopted by the Dravidians, the neuter nominative form of those nouns (generally ending in am) is preferred. Sanskrit masculines, with the exception of those which denote rational beings, are made to terminate in am, being treated as neuters; and there are also some neuter nouns of pure Dravidian origin which end in am, or take am as their formative. The Dravidian termination am is not to be regarded, however, as a sign of the neuter, or a neuter suffix, though such is often its character in Sanskrit. It is merely one of a numerous class of formatives, of which much use is made by the Dravidian dialect, and by the addition of which verbal roots are transformed into derivative nouns. Such formatives are to be regarded as forming a part of the noun itself, not of the inflexional additions. See “Verbal Derivatives,” at the close of the section on “The Verb.”

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All animated beings destitute of reason are placed by Dravidian grammarians in the caste-less, or neuter class, and the nouns that denote such animals, both in the singular and in the plural, are uniformly regarded as neuter or destitute of gender, irrespective of the animal's sex. If it happen to be necessary to distinguish the sex of any animal that is included in this class, a separate word signifying male or female, he or she, is prefixed. Even in such cases, however, the pronoun with which the noun stands in agreement is neuter, and notwithstanding the specification of the animal’s sex, the noun itself remains in the caste-less or neuter class. For this reason, suffixes expressive of the neuter gender, whether singular or plural, were not much required by Dravidian nouns. The only neuter singular suffix of the Dravidian languages, which is used in the same manner as the masculine *an* or *aḍu*, and the feminine *al*, is that which constitutes the termination of the neuter singular of demonstrative pronouns and appellative nouns. This pronoun is in Tamil, Canarese, and Malayâlam, *adu*, that, *idu*, this; in Telugu *adi*, *idi*; in Gônd *ad*, *id*.

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In the Tuḷu pronoun the *d* has dropped out. The pronoun ‘that’ is *avu*. Dr Gundert considers this simply a corruption, and he shows that the language had its neuter singular in *d* originally, like its sister languages, by adducing such words as *att’*, it is not, which was evidently *aldu*, originally, like the Tamil *allaud* (old Tam. *andru* = *aldu*), in which the suffix *du* or *d* is the formative of the neuter singular.

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The same neuter demonstrative, or in some instances its termination only, is used in the conjugation of Dravidian verbs as the sign of the neuter singular of each tense, and in Telugu as the sign of the feminine singular also. The bases of the Dravidian demonstratives being *a* and *i* (*a* remote, *i* proximate), that part of each pronoun which is found to be annexed to those demonstrative vowels is evidently a suffix of number and gender; and as the final vowels of *ad-u*, *ad-i*, *id-u*, *id-i*, are merely euphonic, and have been added only for the purpose of helping the enunciation, it is evident that *d* alone constitutes the sign of the neuter singular. This view is confirmed by the circumstance that *d* never appears in the neuter plural of this demonstrative, but is replaced by *ei*, *u*, *i*, or short *a*, with a preceding euphonic *v* or *n*—e.g., compare *adu* (*a-d-u*), Tam. that, with *ava* (*a-(v)-a*), Malayâlam, those. It will be shown afterwards that this final *a* is a sign of the neuter plural.

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Appellative nouns which form their masculine singular in Tamil in *an*, and their feminine singular in *al*, form their neuter singular by annexing *du*, with such euphonic changes as the previous consonant happens to require—e.g., *nalla-du*, a good thing; *al-du*, euphonically *andru*, a thing that is not; *periya-du* or *peri-du*, great, a great thing. This neuter singular suffix *d* is largely used in all the dialects in the formation of verbal nouns—e.g., *pôgira-du*, Tam. the act of going, *pôna-du*, the having gone, *pôva-du*, the being about to go. This form has been represented by some, but erroneously, as an infinitive: it is a concrete verbal or participial noun of the neuter gender, which has gradually come to be used as an abstract.

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The affinities of the neuter singular suffix in *d* appears to be exclusively Indo-European, and they are found especially in the Indo-European pronouns and pronominals. We may observe this suffix in the Sanskrit *tat*, that; in *tyat*, that; in *adas*, a weakened form of *adat*, that; in *état*, this; and in the relative pronoun *yat*, who, which, what. We find it also in the Latin *illud*, *id*, &c. (compare the Latin *id* with the Tamil *id-u*, this); and in our English demonstrative neuter it (properly *hit*), the neuter of *he*, as also in *what*, the neuter of *who*. Compare also the Vedic *it*, an indeclinable pronoun, described as "a petrified neuter," which combines with the negative particle *na* to form *nêt*, if not, apparently in the same manner as in Telugu the aoristic neuter *lêdu*, is not, is compounded of the negative *la* for *ila*, and the suffix *du*. Though the Dravidian languages appear in this point to be allied to the Sanskrit family, it would be unsafe to suppose that they borrowed this neuter singular suffix from Sanskrit. The analogy of the Dravidian neuter plural in *a*, which though Indo-European, is foreign to Sanskrit, and that of the remote and proximate demonstrative vowels *a* and *i*, which though known to the Indo-European family, are used more systematically and distinctively by the Dravidian languages than by any other class of tongues, would lead to the supposition that these particles were inherited by the Dravidian family, in common with Sanskrit, from a primitive pre-Sanskrit source.

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The Plural: Principles of Pluralisation.—In the primitive Indo-European tongues, the plural is carefully distinguished from the singular; and with the exception of a few nouns of quantity which have the form of the singular, but a plural signification, the number of nouns is always denoted by their inflexional terminations. Nouns whose number is indefinite, like our modern English sheep, are unknown to the older dialects of this family. In the languages of the Scythian group a looser principle prevails, and number is generally left indefinite, so that it is the connection alone which determines whether a noun is singular or plural. Manchu restricts the use of its pluralising particle to words which denote animated beings: all other words are left destitute of signs of number. Even the Tartar, or Oriental Turkish, ordinarily pluralises the pronouns alone, and leaves the number of other nouns indeterminate. In Brahui also, the number of nouns is generally left undefined; and when it is desired to attach to any noun the idea of plurality, a word signifying many or several, is prefixed to it. Notwithstanding this rule, Brahui verbs are regularly pluralised; and the number of an indeterminate noun may often be ascertained from the number of the verb with which it agrees.

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With respect to principles of pluralisation, most of the Dravidian tongues differ considerably from the Indo-European family, and accord on the whole with the languages of the Scythian stock. The number of Tamil nouns, especially of neuter nouns, is ordinarily indefinite; and it depends upon the connection whether any noun is to be regarded as singular or as plural. It is true that when more persons than one are referred to, the high-caste or rational pronouns that are used are almost invariably plural, and that even neuter nouns themselves are sometimes pluralised, especially in polished prose compositions; but the poets and the peasants, the most faithful guardians of antique forms of speech, rarely pluralise the neuter, and are fond of using the singular noun in an indefinite singular-plural sense, without specification of number, except in so far as it is expressed by the context. This rule is adhered to with especial strictness by Tamil, which in this, as in many other particulars, seems to exhibit most faithfully the primitive condition of the Dravidian languages. Thus in Tamil, *mâḍu*, ox, means either an ox or oxen, according to the connection; and even when a numeral which necessarily conveys the idea of plurality is prefixed, idiomatic speakers prefer to retain the singular or indefinite form of the noun. Hence they will rather say, *nâlu mâḍu mêygiradu*, literally four ox is feeding, than *nâlu mâḍugaḷ mêygindrana*, four oxen are feeding, which would sound stiff and pedantic. Telugu is an exception to this rule. In it neuter nouns are as regularly pluralised as masculines or feminines, and the verbs with which they agree are pluralised to correspond. In Tuda, on the other hand, the only words that appear to be ever pluralised are the pronouns and the verbs which have pronouns for their nominatives. In Coorg neuter nouns have no plural. We find a similar usage occasionally even in English, as Mr C. P. Brown points out, in the military phrases, a hundred *foot*, three hundred *horse*.

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In Tamil, even when a neuter noun is pluralised by the addition of a pluralising particle, the verb is rarely pluralised to correspond; but the singular form of verb is still used for the plural—the number of the neuter singular being naturally indeterminate. This is almost invariably the practice in the speech of the lower classes; and the colloquial style of even the best educated classes exhibits a similar characteristic. Tamil contains, it is true, a plural form of the third person neuter of the verb; but the use of this neuter plural verb is ordinarily restricted to poetry, and even in poetry the singular number both of neuter nouns and of the verbs that correspond is much more commonly used than the plural. It should be remarked also, that the third person neuter of the Tamil future, or aorist, is altogether destitute of a plural. In this particular, therefore, the Tamil verb is more decidedly Scythian in character than the noun itself. Max Müller supposes that a Dravidian neuter plural noun, with its suffix of plurality, is felt to be a compound (like animal-mass for animals, or stone-heap for stones), and that it is on this account that it is followed by a verb in the singular. The explanation I have given seems to me preferable. The number of all Dravidian nouns, whether high-caste or caste-less, was originally indefinite: the singular, the primitive condition of every noun, was then the only number which was or could be recognised by verbal or nominal inflexions, and plurality was left to be inferred from the context. As civilisation made progress, the plural made its appearance, and effected a permanent settlement in the department of high-caste or masculine-feminine nouns and verbs; whilst the number of caste-less or neuter nouns, whether suffixes of plurality were used or not, still remained generally unrecognised by the verb in the Dravidian languages. Even where the form exists it is little used. It is curious, that in this point the Greek verb exhibits signs of Scythian influences, or of the influences of a culture lower than its own, viz., in the use of the singular verb for the neuter plural.

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The Dravidian languages ordinarily express the idea of singularity or oneness, not by the addition of a singular suffix to nouns and pronouns, or by the absence of the pluralising particle (by which number is still left indeterminate), but by prefixing the numeral adjective one. Thus, mâḍu, Tam. ox, does not mean exclusively either an ox or oxen, but admits of either meaning according to circumstances; and if we wish distinctly to specify singularity, we must say oru mâḍu, one or a certain ox. Europeans in speaking the Dravidian dialects use this prefix of singularity too frequently, misled by their habitual use of an indefinite article in their own tongues. They also make too free a use, in Tamil, of the distinctively plural form of neuter nouns, when the objects to which they wish to refer are plural. Occasionally, when euphony or usage recommend it, this is done by Tamilians themselves, but as a general rule the neuter singular is used instead of the neuter plural, and that not in Tamil only, but also in almost all the languages of the Scythian group.

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Another important particular in which the Indo-European languages differ from the Scythian is, that in the former the plural has a different set of case-terminations from the singular, by the use of which the idea of plurality is not separately expressed, but is compounded with that of case-relation; whilst in the latter family the plural uses the same set of case-terminations as the singular, and plurality is expressed by a sign of plurality common to all the cases, which is inserted between the singular, or crude form of the noun, and the case-terminations. I call it a sign of plurality, not a noun denoting plurality, for in many instances only a fraction of a word, perhaps only a single letter, remains. In the Indo-European languages, each inflexion includes the twofold idea of number and of case. Thus there is a genitive singular and a genitive plural, each of which is a complex idea; but there is no inflexion which can be called genitive, irrespective of number; and in many instances (this of the genitive being one) there is no apparent connection between the case-termination of the singular and that which is used in, and which constitutes, the plural.

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In those few cases in which the sign of number and the sign of case seem to have been originally distinct, and to have coalesced into one, the sign of case seems to have preceded that of number—e.g., the Gothic plural accusative *ns* is derived from *n* or *m*, the sign of the accusative singular, and *s*, the sign of plurality. When the Scythian family of languages is examined, it is found that each of their case-signs is fixed and unalterable. It expresses the idea of case and nothing more, and is the same in the plural as in the singular, with the exception of those few trivial changes which are required by euphony. The sign of plurality also is not only distinct from the case-sign, but is one and the same in all the cases. It is an unalterable postposition—a fixed quantity; and it is not post-fixed to the case-sign, much less compounded with it, as in the Indo-European languages, but is prefixed to it. It is attached directly to the root itself, and followed by the signs of the different cases.

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In the Dravidian languages a similar simplicity and rigidity of structure characterises the use of the particles of plurality. They are added directly to the crude base of the noun (which is equivalent to the nominative singular), and are the same in each of the oblique cases as in the nominative. The signs of case are the same in the plural as in the singular, the only real difference being that in the singular they are suffixed to the crude noun itself, in the plural to the pluralising particle, after the addition of that particle to the crude noun. The only exception to this rule is in Tuḷu, in which *a*, the sign of the genitive, keeps its place in the singular, as in the other dialects, but is weakened to *e* in the plural.

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In Hungarian, *hâz*, a house, is declined as follows:—

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| SINGULAR. | | PLURAL. | |
| Nom. | *hâz.* | Nom. | *hâzak.* |
| Gen. | *hâz-nak.* | Gen. | *hâz-ak-nak.* |
| Dat. | *hâz-nak.* | Dat. | *hâz-ak-nak.* |
| Acc. | *hâz-at.* | Acc. | *hâz-ak-at.* |

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In Tamil, *manei*, a house, is declined as follows:—

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| SINGULAR. | | PLURAL. | |
| Nom. | *manei.* | Nom. | *manei-gaḷ* |
| Acc. | *manei-(y)-ei.* | Acc. | *manei-gaḷ-ei.* |
| Instr. | *manei-(y)-âl.* | Instr. | *manei-gaḷ-âl.* |
| Conj. | *manei-(y)-ôdu.* | Conj. | *manei-gaḷ-ôdu.* |
| Dat. | *manei-kku.* | Dat. | *manei-gaḷ-(u)-kku.* |
| Ablat. | *manei-(y)-il-irundu.* | Ablat. | *manei-gaḷ-il-irundu.* |
| Gen. | *manei-(y)-inadu.* | Gen. | *manei-gaḷ-inadu.* |
| Locat. | *manei-(y)-idatt-il.* | Locat. | *manei-gaḷ-idatt-il.* |
| Voc. | *manei-(y)-ê.* | Voc. | *manei-gaḷ-ê.* |

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(See Paradigm of Nouns.)

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We here see that the particular signs which are used to express plurality and as exponents of case, in Tamil and Hungarian respectively, are taken from the resources of each language; whilst the manner in which they are used in both languages is precisely the same.

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The neuter of Dravidian nouns being identical with the crude base, when the pluralising particle is attached to a neuter noun, it is attached to it not as a substitute for any suffix of the singular, but directly and without any change: it is attached to it pure and simple. In the case of masculine and feminine nouns, including pronouns, a somewhat different method of pluralisation is necessary. The singular of the masculine and feminine is formed, as has already been pointed out, by the addition to the root of particles denoting a male or a female. Hence, to pluralise those nouns, it is necessary either to add a pluralising particle to the masculine and feminine suffixes, or to substitute for those suffixes an epicene pluralising particle. In all the Dravidian languages the primitive plan of pluralising these two classes of nouns seems to have been that of substituting for the masculine and feminine singular suffixes a suffix of plurality which applied in common to men and women, without distinction of sex. This is the mode which is still used in most of the dialects; but in Telugu it retains its place only in connection with pronouns and verbs, and has disappeared from substantives, which form their plural by means of a neuter suffix.

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The classification of Dravidian nouns into rationals and irrationals has already been explained; it has also been shown that in the singular, the masculine of rational nouns is distinguished from the feminine. In the plural both those genders are combined; the high-caste particle of plurality, or plural of rational beings, is the same for both genders, and includes men and women, gods and goddesses, without distinction of sex. Irrational or neuter nouns have a particle of plurality different from this, and in general peculiar to themselves. Hence the Dravidian languages have one form of the plural which may be called epicene or masculine-feminine, and another which is ordinarily restricted to the neuter; and by means of these pluralising particles, gender and number are conjointly expressed in the plural by one and the same termination. The masculine-feminine plural expresses the idea of plurality conjointly with that of rationality; the neuter plural, the idea of plurality conjointly with that of irrationality.

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