Page:A grammar of the Teloogoo language.djvu/213



An extensive command of words, a knowledge of their various inflexions, and the choice of such as are most fit to convey our ideas, are necessary to the correct use of every language. But these alone are not sufficient: the force, the elegance, and even the meaning of our expressions, must still depend, in a great degree, on an idiomatical arrangement of the terms which we employ. To illustrate the particular disposition of words which is most consonant to the genius of the Teloogoo language, is the object of the present chapter, and as immediately connected with this subject, I shall here take occasion to treat of the adverbs, conjunctions, interjections, and other indeclinable words, unnoticed in the preceding part of this work.

A strict adherence to the rules which have been laid down regarding the permutation and elision of letters, might possibly distract the reader's attention from the main subject of the present chapter- I shall therefore purposely neglect them, in the examples adduced in support of the following remarks, except where the observance of them may be necessary for the elucidation of any particular part of the syntax; and in order to render the study of the Teloogoo more easy to those who have acquired a knowledge of the Tamil tongue, and to shew in what respects the two sister languages coincide, I shall endeavour as much as possible, in this part of my work, to follow the Jesuit Beschi, an author of established authority in' the Tamil language.