Abstract:
Historical linguistic studies are based on ancient written records. Sinhalese language is rich in
two fold varieties of written records, namely, rock inscriptions and classical literary texts. Based
on the linguistic and structural changes, Sinhalese language is classified into four major periods
as Sinhalese prakrit era, Old Sinhalese language era, middle Sinhalese language era and modern
Sinhalese era. In the middle Sinhalese era (8c AD- 13 c. AD) "Buthsarana" written by Vidya
Chakravarthi is considered a significant literary text due to its language style and creativity. This
study explores variations of special categories of verb system identified as micro verb phrases,
quasai verbs and compound verbs in middle Sinhalese language era. The study is
multidisciplinary as it employs the theories of historical linguistics, structural linguistics and
traditional grammatical theories as methodology. Data were collected manually and analysis was
done by applying morphology as a principal structural linguistic theory. Micro verb phrases are
a grammatical category that consists of two verb roots. A base and a subsidiary root which help
to expand the meaning of the base and emerges as a single semantic unit. Three major patterns
can be analyzed regarding these phrases. Quasai verbs are the defective verbs with a limited
paradigm. Compound verbs are formed by joining a noun stem and verb root a together. Noun
stem and verb root are interlocked and occur in the language as a single unit. Limited compound
verbs are found in Buthsarana. Findings of this research benefit both linguists and the researchers
interested in language studies.
