Page:Tamil studies.djvu/198

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PLACE OF TAMIL IN PHILOLOGY
171

Basque, and the degrees of comparison are expressed by words meaning ‘more', 'less', &c.

(5) Tenses and moods are formed by the insertion of certain elements between the root and the personal ending. Ex:செல் + ற் + ஆன்=சென்றான்.

(6) There are no relative pronouns in Basque as in Tamil

(7) The existence of two pronouns of the first person plural, one of which includes and the other excludes the person addressed, is a peculiarity of the Dravidian languages.

(8) Use of continuative particles in the place of conjunctions. Ex: சேரனும் சோழனும்

(9) The crude root verb is capable of being used in the imperative of the second person singular. Ex: நட, வா, etc.

(10) There are only two numbers in Turkish.

In all these languages the so-called cases are formed by agglutination, their number being limited only by the number of post-positions that may be attached to the noun.

Till very recently it was usual with comparative philologists to classify all languages which are neither Aryan, Semitic nor Hamitic under the Turanian or Scythian or Allophylian family. But it has now been proved that there cannot be such a family as the Turanian or Scythian, as no two languages which are brought under it bear the same geneological relationship to each other as Sanskrit bears to Latin or Greek in the Aryan family, except that they are