THE SINHALESE LANGUAGE. 



53 



Cases. 



The Nominative, in the Dravidian dialects, is * the noun itself/ 

 or the inflexional base, without addition or alteration. The Sinha- 

 lese nominative takes e, a in the singular, and o, hu in the plural; 

 and these present the most marked difference to the exceptional 

 formations of the Tamil neuter nominative, and the Canarese nd 

 and ta. Dr. Stevenson observes that in the Dravidian as well as 

 in the North-Indian vernaculars, the nominative is substituted for 

 the accusative, et vice versa. This is not the case in the Sinhalese; 

 for no one, not even the rudest rustic amongst us who knows not the 

 use of case-signs, will ever say balld gozsimi i canes percuti 7 but 

 ballata gozsimi i canem percuti. 7 It is, indeed, true that the il- 

 literate Sinhalese do, as stated by Dr. Stevenson, occasionally use the 

 accusative for the nominative. This, I have, and I believe satis- 

 factorily, accounted for elsewhere,* and shall therefore proceed to 



The Vocative Case. In the Dravidian there is properly no 

 case-sign for the Vocative. It is formed by a simple sign of 

 emphasis, different from the Sinhalese, which takes ce, a and a 

 in the singular, and in, en, nen, ini, eni, neni, and ni in the plural. 

 These, it may be remarked, are different also both in form and 

 principle from the ir, a fragment of the nir 6 you,' which the Tamils 

 use in the plural. 



Again, it will be observed that the exceptional usage in the 

 Sinhalese, by which the Nominative is employed to express the 

 Vocative, accords with the Indo-European languages. 



The Accusative Case. 1 Ordinarily,' says Caldwell, ' the North- 

 Indian vernaculars are distinguished from the Southern by their 

 use of the dative case-sign for the Accusative 7 This is no less a 

 peculiarity in the Sinhalese, which is distinguishable from the 

 Dravidian family, in which, if we except the Good, the Dative is 

 quite distinct from the accusative. 



+ See my Contributions to Oriental Literature, vol. i p. 46. 



