SOME PROBLEMS IN OLD TAMIL PHONOLOGY by S. V. SHANMUGAM Annamalai University 1. INTRODUCTION The basic requirement to write a historical grammar of a language is to prepare synchronic grammars of the various stages of that language such as Old, Middle and Modern. 1 The synchronic grammar of a stage of a language is first achieved by studying descriptively the surviving docu- ments of that stage. In addition to this, clues available from the com- parative study of the lexical or grammatical forms of the earlier and later stages must be used to find out the forms which existed dialectally? All forms prevalent in a stage may not have been recorded in that age and some may have been entered into the records only at a later period, a The comparative study which helps to find out the forms unrecorded in the documents of that age is necessary because there are only two possible ways of development of a language, modification [evolution] of the older forms and borrowing [diffusion], 4 invention of forms being very rare. 5 Moreover, it would be impossible to explain historically the native forms attested in the later period. This assumption has been implicitly followed in comparative reconstruction. For instance, in Tamil the word cavat.t.u 'destroy' is found in compara- 1 The earlier version of this paper was read in the Research Circle of the Linguistic Department. My thanks are due to Dr. Agesthialingom and Mr. N. Kumaraswami Raja for their suggestions. This is the generalised statement based on C. F. Hockett. "Our knowledge of the design of Old English and Middle English depends on our ability to interpret the surviv- ing documentary evidence, plus what clues we can get from an examination of New English and of documents in the older stage of the Germanic languages akin to English" A Course in Modern Linguistics [New York, 1960], p. 375). 8 T.P. Mcenakshisundaran, A History of Tamil Language (Poona, 1965), p. 106. 4 M.B. Emeneau, India and Historical Grammar (= AUPL, 5) (Annamalainagar, 1965), p. 1. 5 H.M.Hoemgswald, LanguageChangeandLinguisticReconstruction(Chicago, 1960). p. 22. 32 S.V. SHANMUGAM tively later works (see the Appendix-I.1). In Old Tamil (OT) it must have been in use as a dialectal form even in the earliest period of OT, since it is a native word and is found in other Dravidian languages (DED. 1973) too. So also the occurrence of Proto-Dravidian *ntm 'you (pl.) 6' as niihkal, in Middle Tamil (MT) (Appar Teevaaram 4-45.7) and niim 'id.' (Ciivakacin- taaman, i 1932.3) suggests that niim was current in OT as a dialectal form. In this paper, three phonological problems, inventory, distribution (initial occurrence alone), and alternations of OT are discussed. The surviving OT records, Tolkaappiyam, Et.tuttokai, Pattuppaat. t.u, Tirukku_ral., Cilappatikaaram and Man. imeekalai are taken into consideration 7 and their language is compared with other Dravidian languages and MT to arrive at the overall picture which can form a basis to explain the further evolution of Tamil. 2. INVENTORY There is no disagreement in setting up the six stop phonemes, k, c, t, _r, t, andp, and six semivowels, y, r, l, v, _/, and ./, and in taking ~i as an allophone of m. s The dental and alveolar nasals, however, are considered as two different phonemes by some 9 and as allophones of one phoneme n by others. 1~ Both views are justifiable from the point of view of the particular text analysed by them but the problem is to find out whether it is applica- ble to the whole of OT. n and _n contrast in intervocalic position, between i and a, and u and a; and in final position, ix 6 Bh. Krishnamurti, "Dravidian personal pronouns" in Studies in Indian Linguistics (Prof. M. B. Emeneau ~;a~tiparti Volume) (Poona, 1968), p. 204. 7 For the Indices and the abbreviation of OT texts, see the author's "Inflectional Increments in Dravidian", Paper presented to the Seminar on Comparative Dravidian, Annamalai University, 1968. 8 See, for instance, T. P. Meenakshisundaran, op. cit., p. 59. o Ibid.,p. 60. 10 S.V. Subramanyam, Ciluppatikaaram, Descriptive Grammar with Index (Madras, 1965), pp. 1, 14 and 31 footnote 4. V. I. Subramaniyam, Index of Puranaa_nuuru, (Trivandrum 1962), p. iv. 1~ Two words with n have alternant forms with _n in OT in intervocalic position: (1) aaniyam 'planet' in Pat. 24.25; 69.14 (in the sixth edition published by U.V. Caami- naataiyar in the year 1957) has been given in the Tamil Lexicon as aa_niyam, which is based on the second Edition of the book published in 1920 by the same editor. In the sixth edition there is no reference to another reading. (2) paluni (Mat. 475; Kuri. 146, Mal. 96, Ma.n. 3.28) --palun_i (PEr. 113.3; A#i. 414.2; Nat. 276.9; Pat. 21.16, 41.6). According to Tolkaapiyam [Sutra. 79], there is another word porun ('to be suitable') having -n in the final position. This is connected with the word poru (DED 3709) and the form as such is not attested. .