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In the Tamil ya-n, Tuluva ya-nu, the contracted forms an, anu, take the common y prefix. The Todava one, on (pl. om) is a similar contracted variety, with the radical vowel changed to o. In the broad form won, wom it assumes a quasi-consonantal augment, like some other words, e. g. on, won, "one." The o form of the vowel also occurs in the Tamil verb form of the plural om, corresponding with the Todava; in the Gond oblique no-wa sing., and in the Male poss. ong-ki sing. om pl. (Tam. Tod.) The substitution of o for a is characteristic of the Toda phonology. But as the Gond and Male forms cannot have been immediately derived from it during the era in which the more civilised Dravirian nations have been interposed between the Todas and the Gonds, it is probable that the o forms are very archaic and were at one time widely prevalent. The Tamil remnant in the plural of the verb postfix is a strong evidence of the antiquity of o. Possibly it is the original form, but the general character of Dravirian phonology makes it more propable that variations in the vowel existed from an early stage of the formation. In unwritten languages dialectic changes in the vowels are very common.

The Second Pronoun has the full form ni in all the Southern dialects and in Gond, with and without postfixes (-nu, -vu, -en, -k). The forms nu and u [def. replacing pronoun] occur in the Tamil plural poss., and na in the Todava pl. The contractions i and ai are also found.

Two kinds of pronominal plurals occur. In one the root postfixes the ordinary plural definitives like substantives. All the relative or "exclusive" plurals of the 1st pronoun are thus formed. The second kind postfix m or flexionally replace the n of the singular by it. As it only occurs in the absolute or "inclusive" forms of the 1st pronoun, it is possible that in Dravirian, as in some other formations, one of the plurals of this pronoun is formed by the annexation or incorporation of the plural of the 2nd. In this view m would be radically a plural particle or root of the 2nd the definitive postfix. The great commutability of the vowels in both the proper Dravirian and the Kol dialects, with the agglutinated and concretionary condition of the pronominal system, renders absolute certainty unattainable in minute analysis of forms. The Kol affinities favour the opinion that en, ne was the original form, while the Australian and the still more remote and primordial affinities render it hardly doubtful that the most current agentive-form in the South na, nga with its variations in o, is the most archaic. Whether the three vowels a, o, e, were archaically flexional,-that is, marked different forms of the pronoun, agentive, oblique &c-is considered in a subsequent page.

pronoun only, and it would simply carry into those forms of the 1st in which it occurs the idea of "you" in addition to the original "I", the Tamil na-m being thus literally "I-you"-i. e. "I and you." Its displacement of the n in such forms as the Telugu me, Karn. and Toda am, Gond ma, would be a flexional change of an ordinary kind. In the Telugu me-mu both the root and the definitive postfix are flexionally changed to m. Whatever may be the ultimate origin of this exceptional m, and whether or not it passed from the 2nd pronoun to the 1st, its true character, in the present condition of the formation generally, is that of a plural element confined to the 2nd pronoun and to the absolute or inclusive form of the 1st. Toda however presents a remarkable exception in its Srd pronoun, which in the plural is atam or adam. This remnant of the undoubted use of -m as a plural definitive, and not merely as a form of the 2nd pronoun, when taken in connection with the Gangetic and Ultraindian remnants of a similar usage adverted to in a subsequent page, leaves little doubt as to its having been a very archaic plural particle in Dravirian, or-in one or more of its branches. The phonetic identity of this archaic plural postfix with the archaic neuter (sometimes fem.) definitive postfix in m, b, p, v can hardly be accidental. The fem. I is also identical with the common plural postfix in I, r. The Karnataka pronouns have -vu in the plurals of the 1st and 2nd persons and -ru in the 3rd as in the other languages save Toda (in Tuluvu -ru becomes -lu). This vu is identical with one of the forms of the neuter definitive. In the use of these particles the dialectic confusion and irregularity are very great, and it is difficult to determine their true primary functions.

The Vindyan languages present some remarkable dialectic peculiarities. The Gond and Khond have the common a forms of the 1st pronoun. The other nothern languages in their agentive forms have only that contracted variety of the e form which is the separate pronoun in Tuluva (en), and occurs also as a possessive and verbal form in Tamil, Malayalam and Karnataka, and the plural of Kurgi, the full form being found in Telugu nenu (pl. memu). In the more purely Dravirian Male and Uraon the Tuluva form is preserved unmodified en Male, enan Sing., en, Pl. Uraon. So n the possessives,-Sing. Uraon en-ghi, Pl. Uraon em-hi, Male

em-ki. Male preserves other varieties also, as om Pl. (in addition to na-m) ong-ki poss. Sing. In the Kol dialects the vowel changes from e to i, ing, eing, aing, inge. These forms appear to preserve the original possessives of South Dravirian, to which in a later page I refer the e. It should also be remarked that the vowels i, e, a are definitives and definitive prefixes in Kol as in Dravirian generally. Compound vowels occur both as a simple definitive and as a possessive. Kol has ia or ya poss. as in S. Dravirian and it has ayo, ay, ai &c as a definitive or 3rd pronoun, identical with the Tuluva 3rd pronoun ayc (so ayi-no, "this"). It is found also in Male. Compare the possessives ai-ge Bhumij, ahi-ki Male "his" &c. The change of ai into e, or e into ai, is easy, for e is but a condensed form of ai.

The Male and Uraon 2nd pronoun is the South Dravirian ni,— nin Male, nien Uraon. The Khond inu is Tuluvz (pl.) which again is a contraction of the Karnataka ninu. Gond has the full form with its own def. postfix in oblique forms, nik.

Besides this form Gond has a peculiar agentive form imma, to which the Kol 2nd pronoun is allied, am Bhumij, Mundala, um Ho, umge Sonthal (ami poss.) The Kol duals and plurals present further variations of this labial 2nd pronoun, me, m, be, pe. Its probable origin is adverted to further on.

The Dravirian plural element m is found in Khond,—anu “I,” amu "we," inu "thou," mi "you"; Gond nak "I," mak "we," nuna “I,” mar“we”; so in the oblique forms of the second pronoun nik, S. mik, mek Pl., Male has na-m, o-m, “we,” e-m-ki, na-m-ki Pl. Uraon e-m-hi Pl. poss.

poss.,

The Kol plurals in m, b, p represent the Dravirian plural labial. In the 1st pronoun the relative plural takes the common plural def. -le, and the absolute only has the labial, under the form bu, conformably with the South Dravirian idiom.

It appears from these details that the original forms of the pronouns were na or nga "I" and ni "thou"; that m was a plural definitive originally generic but afterwards restricted save in Toda to the 2nd pronoun and to the plural absolute of the 1st; and that the ordinary plurals of all the pronouns were formed by the plural definitives used with nouns. The form of the 1st pronoun in

In chap. IV. § 6, this form is not identified with the Dravirian plurals in m, but it is inferred that the labial element represents be, "you."

en is a dialectic variation which must have prevailed in the parent Kol dialect as in Tuluva. The Gond imma of the 2nd person is evidently a secondary form (in which i is the common pronominal element) as the regular primary form nik is preserved in the oblique cases. The allied Kol labial 2nd pronoun must be of similar secondary origin.

The Kol dialects distinguish the dual from the plural in pronouns, as in substantives, the dual form being given by annexing the nasal to the plural. Thus the substantive pl. definitive is ko, which in the dual becomes king [=ko+ing]; the pl. rel. of the 1st pron. is alle, which in the dual becomes alleng; the pl. of the 2d pron. is appe, which in the dual becomes abben. The dual particle is probably the Dravirian en "two" (the Uraon form) but it may be a variation of the Draviro-Ultraindian plural el, le, li, ni &c., the dual being indicated by plural particles in some other families (Semitic, Scythic &c.) as well as in some Australian dialects.* The South Dravirian dialects with Gond Uraon and Male, do not possess a dual.

Besides the indication of number and case, it does not appear that any other ideologic element is involved in the postfixes or flexions. The 3rd pronoun indicates sex by its postfixed definitives, the consonants being n masc., l fem. and d, th, t neuter. There are no clear traces either of these or of a vocalic distinction of sex in the proper pronouns, which is the more remarkable from the sex definitives having, in the archaic stage of the formation, been used with substantives, and from their being found largely concreted in all the vocabularies as well as still partially current. If any sexual function can be ascribed to the pronominal postfixes, it would appear that the common forms now in use are masculine, -n and -nu being the form of the postfix. If sexual forms were ever current, we might have expected to find some traces of a feminine form in the 2nd person, but I nowhere occurs as the postfix.

The variations in the vowel of the 1st pronoun to e and in that of the 2nd to u may have been glossarial. There are indications of this with respect to e, which however may have been the common phonetic variation of the final vowel found largely in the vocabularies. If, as seems more probable, it had a flexional power,

In Australian the plural particle forms duals and one of its variations is -le.

it would appear to have been possessive (and oblique), as it is now found in all the Southern dialects, save Telugu, in those cases, or as the agentive postfix to verbs, which is radically possessive. In Telugu, by a dialectic variation, it occurs only in the nominative, the oblique cases taking the primary a. The Northern dialects, Uraon, Male, in their preference for e, follow Telugu, or more probably the Southern Tuluva, which has other special affinities with the Northern dialects including the Kol. It is probable from this that a (sometimes varied to o) was the proper nominative vowel, and that the substitution of the possessive e for it was a dialectic variation which spread from Telugu or Tuluva to most of the Northern dialects, or was internally produced by the loss of the ideologic distinction between the two forms. It is clear that the use of e in the possessive like that of m in the plural belongs to a very archaic condition of the formation or some of its branches. It is not probable that in any single branch there were originally two modes of indicating the plurals and possessives, and it is still less probable that both admitted of being combined. When we now find such combinations it is to be inferred that one of the particles is primary and the other secondary, the combinations having been produced by the blending of a foreign system of postfixes with the Dravirian or of two Dravirian systems previously characteristic of different branches of the formation. The antiquity and wide prevalence of the ordinary plural particles in 1, r &c are proved by their occurrence not only in South Dravirian, Kol and Gangetico-Ultraindian languages but in Asonesia. But one branch may have originally possessed labial plurals. The possessive in e whether postfixual or flexional must have preceded the use of the superadded possessive postfixes. The most probable explanation afforded by the Dravirian particle system by itself is that the pronominal root na took the archaic possessive in i (in, ia &c South Dravirian, Kol) and that this became e by the coalescence of the root vowel a with the definitive vowel i (na-in=nen). But even the current possessive has sometimes e. Thus in Tamil we find ci, in Malayalam ye, in Dhimal eng &c.

The u of the 2nd pronoun can hardly be explained as a merely phonetic variation of the radical i. In the Anc. Tamil it occurs in the full form nu- in the possessive plural only nu-ma-du, the

B

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