arbitrary case-marking?

[Esa Itkonen]

Dear Funknetters
     In his (1994) grammar of Old Tamil Thomas Lehmann shows that in this
language case endings can either just be dropped or exchanged without any
semantic motivation. (The latter point is also made in Tolkaappiyam, the
grammar written in and about Old Tamil.) This sounds surprising, at least
to me. However, it recalls what S. Beyer (1991) has called the 'Telegram
Principle': In written (and especially poetic?) language rules of grammar
may be broken to achieve conciseness. How widespread is this phenomenon,
and does it occur in spoken language too? (Presumably it occurred also in
spoken Old Tamil.) I must confess that to me this is a rather new phenomenon.
Esa Itkonen