VI
GRAMMAR

INTRODUCTION

“Age cannot wither nor custom stale” the freshness of our language. She has withstood the shock of the ages. Old as she is, astonishingly modern. She has an organic structure of her own. It is true, grammar presupposes a body of literature from which it is derived. However, one must have an adequate conception of it, if one were to make oneself acquainted with the finest romances and nuances of the language.

Tolkāppiam is the most ancient treatise on grammar now available. It is indeed a great work of a mastermind. It mirrors the civilisation of the age in which it was written. Rules of grammar have been expressed in a terse aphoristic manner and the metrical skill with which they have been clothed enables one to commit them easily to memory.

Any living language cannot but admit of alteration in her mould of expression with the lapse of time. A new world of thought may dawn. Fresh patterns of expression have to be forged. What has been vague and nebulous may crystallize itself into definite shape. Obsolete and obsolescent words may be revived. Change is inherent in any organism. The old order changes yielding place to new; and language is no exception to it.

There is a welter of confusion because of the impact of the new on the old. The commentators of Tolkāppiam enter the field and strive to offer explanations for the new usages and turns of expression that have befallen the language.1 Now the hour has arrived for the grammarians to raise a new edifice of grammar.