- 264 p.
The first impulse to the study of grammar in India was given by the religious motive of preserving intact the sacred Vedic texts, the efficacy of which was believed to require attention to every letter. Thus, aided by the great transparency of the Sanskrit language, the ancient Indian grammarians had by the fifth century b.c. arrived at scientific results unequalled by any other nation of antiquity. It is, for instance, their distinctive achievement to have recognized that words for the most part consist on the one hand of roots, and on the other of affixes, which, when compounded with the former, modify the radical sense in various ways.
The first impulse to the study of grammar in India was given by the religious motive of preserving intact the sacred Vedic texts, the efficacy of which was believed to require attention to every letter. Thus, aided by the great transparency of the Sanskrit language, the ancient Indian grammarians had by the fifth century b.c. arrived at scientific results unequalled by any other nation of antiquity. It is, for instance, their distinctive achievement to have recognized that words for the most part consist on the one hand of roots, and on the other of affixes, which, when compounded with the former, modify the radical sense in various ways.