Page:A grammar of the Teloogoo language.djvu/104

38 The గ్రామ్యము, or provincial terms, are contractions or corruptions of pure Teloogoo words, rather than a separate class of vocables; I have therefore deemed it better to offer, in the course of the work, such remarks respecting them as occasion has suggested, than to collect the rules regarding them under any separate head.

Before entering on the subject of declension, a few preliminary observations are necessary, respecting that very useful class of words, by means of which the various cases of the substantive nouns and pronouns, in this language, are formed.

English substantives are declined by prefixing to them, in the singular and plural numbers, certain particles, termed prepositions. The cases of Teloogoo nouns and pronouns are formed in the same manner, except that the particles follow the noun, instead of preceding it; hence, I have termed them postpositions. In Teloogoo, we would not say with swords, by men, of me; but కత్తులతో - మనుష్యులచేత - నాయొక్క swords with, men by, me of.

When a preposition accompanies an English word which is liable to inflexion, the word cannot stand in the nominative case; it must assume it's inflected or oblique form : we cannot say of I, to I, &c. but of me, to me, &c. In the same manner, in Teloogoo, notwithstanding some nouns have nearly the same form in the inflexion, as in the nominative case, yet as all nouns and pronouns may be said to admit of inflexion, it may be laid down as a general rule, that when followed by postpositions, they cannot continue in the nominative case ; by, some of the postpositions, they are converted into their oblique form; by others, either into this simple inflected state, or into the dative; and by a few, derived from verbs, they are changed into the accusative case. The following is a list of the principal Teloogoo postpositions.