A Grammar of the Kannada Language in English: Comprising the Three Dialects of the Language (Ancient, Mediæval and Modern) (Classic Reprint)

The present Grammar is chiefly based on Kesava sS abdamanidarpana. The terminology of this his Grammar is simple, and fit for the three dialects of Kannacla. At the same time it will be interesting to learn the general way of an ancient native scholars teaching Kannada grammar. In Kesava sage most of the rules of Kannada grammar were fixed. That before him there had been grammarians who had not deserved that name, seems to follow from his quoting a part of aK anda verse that is fully quoted in theS abdanusasana (under its sutra 469), from which we translate it as follows 1R emain, 0daughter! Could the unprofitable grammarian (sushkavaiyakarana), the unprofitable sophist and the rustic have as (their) subject matter the gem of poetical composition which is the subject matter of the assemblage of very clever poets? Some specific statements of Kesava concerning bis predecessors or contemporaries are the following He considered it a matter of necessity to caution literary writers against using final 1in several Kannada words, as only rustics would do so (228). He teaches (252) that if there exist Tadbhavas of two words compounded, both words ought to be in their Tadbhava form. In this respect he quotes an instance from his great predecessor Hamsaraja (of A, D. 941, according toM r. B. Lewis Rice), viz. taravel manikyabhandarada putikegalam, which, he says, is a mistak (tappu), as manikabhandarada would be right (suddha). He says that in satisaptami (365) which always refers to two subjects, the letter eis to be used; by some (of his predecessors or contemporaries al has. without hesitation, been employed for it; clever people do not agree to that. Then he quotes two sentences with al, and calls them wrong abudda:0. He states (very probably in order to counteract a tendency of that kind) that to form kanike, teralike, punike of kan, pun, teral (which formations a
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)