MacDonnell II - Wilbourhall.org

CHAPTER VIIOUTLINES OF SYNTAX190. Having in the preceding parts of the presentgrammar dealt with single words in their phonetic, theirderivative, and their inflexional aspects, we now turn totheir treatment in syntax, which regards their arrangementand mutual meaning when they are combined to form asentence, which is the expression of a connected and definiteunit of thought. The parts of which the sentence mayconsist are either inflected words : the noun (substantiveand adjective) and the verb, the participle which shares thenature of both, and the pronoun ;or uninflected words :prepositions, adverbs, and conjunctions. A comparison ofthe syntax of the RV. with that of classical Sanskrit shows(1) that the use of the middle voice, the tenses, the moods,the inflected participles, the infinitives, and the genuineprepositions is much fuller and more living in the former,while (2) that of the passive voice and of indeclinable participlesis much less developed, that of absolute cases and ofadverbial prepositions with case-endings is only incipient,and that of periphrastic vei'bal forms is non-existent. Thelater Samhitas and the Brahmanas exhibit a gradual transitionby restriction or loss in the former group and by growth inthe latter to the condition of things prevailing in classicalSanskrit.The Order of Words.191. Since metrical considerations largely interfere withthe ordinary position of words in the Samhitas, the normalorder is best represented by the prose of the Brahmanas,