THE SINHALESE LANGUAGE. 



47 



cornea balla in the singular, —and ballo in the plural. The same 

 word serves as an example of the change which it undergoes in 

 the different cases. Again, the root daka ' to see,' becomes daki- 

 mi *I see* in the present tense; duti-mi i I saw ' in the past tense; 

 dakinnemi ( I shall see ' in the future tense; and daka ' having seen ' 

 iu the participle.* 



Noun. 



Gender — In entering upon the Noun, its Gender demands at- 

 tention first. The Sanskrit family recognize besides the two natural 

 genders, another — the neuter or the eunuch. To the Sinhalese 

 are, however, known only the two first, f See Sidatsangara, § 24. 

 This is quite consistent with the practice of the Sanskrit. For, 

 although the kliva, according to its original intention, had to 

 represent inanimate nature only ; yet when it is remembered that 

 it has not every where confined itself to these old limits, and that 

 the Sanskrit imparts life to what is inanimate, and, on the other 

 hand, (according to the view then taken), impairs the personality 

 of what is by nature animate; (Bopp. i. p. 126), a language formed 



* For different other changes which the radical undergoes, see my Introduc- 

 tion to Sinhalese Grammar, p. 17 et seq. 



f In the Dravidian languages all nouns denoting inanimate substances and 

 irrational beings are of the neuter gender. The distinction of male and female 

 appears only in the pronouns of the third person; in the adjectives (properly 

 appellative nouns) which denote rational beings, and are formed by suffixing 

 the pronominal terminations; and in the third person ot the verb, which, being 

 formed by suffixing the same pronominal terminations, has three forms in the 

 singular and two in the plural, to distinguish the several genders, and in accor- 

 dance with the pronouns of the third person. In all other cases where it is 

 required to mark the distinction of gender, separate words signifying 1 male ' and 

 1 female' are prefixed; but, even in such cases, though the object denoted bo 

 the male or female of an animal, the noun which denotes it does not cease to 

 be considered neuter, and neuter forms of the pronoun and verb are required to 

 be conjoined with it. This rule presents a marked contrast to the rules res- 

 pecting gender which we find in the vivid and highly imaginative Sanscrit, and 

 in the other Indo-European languages, but it accords with the usage of all the 

 languages of the Scythian group. Caldwell's Dravidian Grammar, p. 34, 



