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This thesis is an attempt to write a descriptive Grammar of the language of the earliest Tamil Inscriptions. It consists of three parts:- Part I. Grammar: Short chapters on bases, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, verbs and particles. Special stress is laid on word-order throughout the work. The views of the Tamil grammars, chiefly Toikappiyam and Nannul are discussed where necessary. Pdart II. The Inscriptions: The Text of the Inscriptions with critical notes and variant readings. Part III. The Index: The index of all the words found in the inscriptions.

The immediate subject of this work is the semantics of a syntactically- defined set of Tamil verbs, all but one of which are used as main verbs as well as auxiliaries. Those which are discussed in most detail are kiTu. viTu. kiTTiru, iru, vai and vecciru. Mentioned in somewhat less detail are kiTTuvaa, kiTTupoo, vaa, poo (in two meanings), aaku and tole. In setting out to investigate these forms, certain limitations of the traditional methods of linguistic investigation became apparent. With the hope of obtaining more reliable information than was available from regular informants, a series of questionnaires was devised and administered to a total of 117 people from 27 villages in the Chidambaram Taluk of Tamilnadu. It is hoped that the account given here of the use of an interrelated series of questionnaires for the detailed investigation of a specified area of a language will contribute to the methodological basis on which linguistic investigation is founded. From the results of this investigation, it was found that a study of Tamil auxiliary verbs is relevant to certain general points of interest within current linguistic theory. Evidence is presented in favour of the separation of syntax and semantics, on the close relationship between auxiliary and main verbs, and on the need within a linguistic theory for devices to handle gradation.

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The study of the verbal forms occurring in the Cankam texts (date about 50 B.C. - 250 A.D.) reveals that at least two of them namely <u>kalittokai</u> and <u>paripātal</u> possess forms of later origin. In the language of the other sixteen texts, many distinct features of the Old Tamil have been observed. The development of the Tamil language began to take a new turn from the period of <u>kalittokai</u>. Therefore the Old Tamil features as seen in the verbal forms of the earlier texts are of much importance especially to understand the true nature of the Dravidian verb.

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