50 



ON THE ORIGIN OF 



Gas=Maram, ' Tree.' 



Singular. Plural. 





Sinhalese. 



Tamil. 



Sinhalese. 



Tamil, 



No. 



Gasa 



Maram 



Gas 



Maran-gal 



Vo. 



Gasa 



M aramr 



Gas-/u 



Maran-gal 



Acc. 



Gasa- to 



Marattei 



Gas 



Man-galei 



Ins. 



Gasm 



Mara-ttal 



Gas-val-in 



Maran-galal 



Aux. 



Gas-en 





Gas-val-in 





R. 



Gasa-fa 



Mara4tufcu 



Gas-vula-ta 



Mafan-galattuku 



Ab. 



Gas-e?? 



Marattu-nindu 



Gas-val-in 



Maran-galinindra 



Gen. 



Gas-e 



Marattudei 



Gas valu 



Maran-gal-udei 



Loc. 



Gas-e 



Marattii 



Gas-AI 



Maran-gal-il 



On a careful examination of the above forms* the reader can- 

 not fail to observe that in the Sinhalese (1) the radical is inflected 

 in the Nominative case,* as in all the oblique cases 5 (2) that al- 

 though the plural nominative occasionally takes a sign of plurality, 

 yet it is not invariably to that sign, but to the root, that the inflex- 

 ional signs are annexed in the oblique cases; (3) that all the inflex- 

 ions in the plural are not every where identical with those in the 

 singular, — facts, which serve to distinguish the Sinhalese not only 

 from the Dravidian but from the North-Indian dialects.f 



With respect to the principle of pluralization, it will also be 

 observed that the Sinhalese noun, like the Dravidian, is not ordi- 

 narily indefinite, and does not depend upon its connection in a 

 sentence to determine its number. As in the primitive Indo-Eu- 

 ropean tongues, the plural of a Sinhalese word is carefully distin- 

 guished from the singular. It is true that in modern usage we 

 find a few nouns which take in the plural vol, like the Tamil gal, 

 but it should be borne in mind that that formative is not an in- 

 flexion, but that which may be regarded as a complete word by 

 itself, serving, when added to nouns indicating inanimate objects, to 

 render the expression a compound, like i stone- heap' or 1 trees-mass,' 

 Thus ge, * house,' becomes in the plural ge-val. 



• The Dravidian nominative singular is simply the inflexional base, Cald- 

 well, p. 204. 



f The signs of cases are suffixed to the sign of plurality in the Dravidian. ib. 



