| Tamil Grammar |
Article Index for Tamil |
Website Links For Tamil |
Information About ®Tamil Grammar |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT TAMIL GRAMMAR | |
| tamil language | |
| grammar, tamil | |
| grammars of specific languages | |
|
PARTS OF TAMIL GRAMMAR Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu, col, porul, yāppu, aṇi. Of these, the last two are mostly applicable in poetry. The following table gives additional information about these parts. TAMIL WORDS Tamil, like other Dravidian languages, is an Agglutinative Language . Tamil words consist of a Lexical Root to which one or more Affix es are attached. Most Tamil affixes are Suffix es. Tamil suffixes can be '' Derivational suffixes'', which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or '' Inflection al suffixes'', which mark categories such as Person , Number , Mood , Tense , etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of Agglutination , which can lead to long words with a large number of suffixes, which would require several words or a sentence in English. To give an example, the word ''pōkamuṭiyātavarkaḷukkāka'' means "for the sake of those who cannot go", and consists of the following Morpheme s: Words formed as a result of the agglutinative process are often difficult to translate. According to Today Translations {Link without Title} , a ) is ranked 8th in '' The Most Untranslatable Word In The World '' list. PARTS OF SPEECH Nouns Tamil nouns (and pronouns) are classified into two super-classes (''tiṇai'') - the " Rational " (''uyartiṇai''), and the " Irrational " (''aḵṟiṇai'') - which include a total of five classes (''paal'', which literally means 'gender'). Human s and Deities are classified as "rational", and all other nouns ( Animal s, Object s, abstract nouns) are classified as irrational. The " Rational " nouns and pronouns belong to one of three classes (''paal'') - masculine singular, feminine singular, and rational plural. The plural form for rational nouns may be used as an Honorific , gender-neutral, singular form. The " Irrational " nouns and pronouns belong to one of two classes (''paal'') - irrational singular and irrational plural. As the example in the table indicates, the ''paal'' is often indicated through suffixes. Suffixes are also used to perform the functions of Case s or Postposition s. Traditional grammars tried to group the various suffixes into 8 cases corresponding to the cases used in Sanskrit . These were the Nominative , Accusative , Dative , Sociative , Genitive , Instrumental , Locative , and Ablative . Modern grammarians, however, argue that this classification is artificial, and that Tamil usage is best understood if each suffix or combination of suffixes is seen as marking a separate case. (Schiffman, 1999). Tamil nouns can also take one of four Prefix es, ''i'', ''a'', ''u'' and ''e'' which are functionally equivalent to demonstratives in English. For example, the word ''vaḻi'' meaning "way" can take these to produce ''ivvaḻi'' "this way", ''avvaḻi'' "that way", ''uvvaḻi'' "the medial way" and ''evvaḻi'' "which way". Some nouns are formed by means of agglutination. For example, "he-who-does" or "that-which-will-become" are the so-called participial nouns. Composite nouns are formed by combining adjectives and pronouns. For example, combining "good" and "he" into "good-he" we obtain the equivalent of the English "a good man". Correspondingly, the noun "good-they" is translated as "good people". Verbal nouns in Tamil are formed from the roots of verbs and are roughly equivalent to the English "-ing" nouns. Verbs Like Tamil nouns, Tamil Verb s are also inflected through the use of suffixes. A typical Tamil verb form will have a number of Suffix es, which show Person , Number , Mood , Tense and Voice , as is shown by the following example ''aḷintukkoṇṭiruntēṉ'' "(I) was being destroyed": Person and number are indicated by Suffix ing the Oblique Case of the relevant Pronoun (''ēn'' in the above example). The suffixes to indicate tenses and voice are formed from Grammatical Particle s, which are added to the stem. Tamil has two Voices . The first - used in the example above - indicates that the subject of the sentence ''undergoes'' or ''is the object of'' the action named by the verb stem, and the second indicates that the subject of the sentence ''directs'' the action referred to by the verb stem. These voices are not equivalent to the Notion s of '' Transitivity '' or '' Causation '', or to the Active - Passive or reflexive-nonreflexive division of voices found in Indo-european Languages . Tamil has three simple Tenses - past, present, and future - indicated by simple suffixes, and a series of perfects, indicated by compound suffixes. Mood is implicit in Tamil, and is normally reflected by the same Morpheme s which mark tense categories. These signal whether the happening spoken of in the verb is unreal, possible, potential, or real. Auxiliaries Tamil has no Article s. Definiteness and indefiniteness are either indicated by special grammatical devices, such as using the number "one" as an indefinite article, or by the context. In the first person plural, Tamil makes a distinction between Inclusive pronouns that include the listener and Exclusive pronouns that do not. Tamil does not distinguish between Adjective s and Adverb s - both fall under the category ''uriccol''. Conjunction s are called ''iṭaiccol''. Verb Auxiliaries are used to indicate '' Attitude '', a grammatical category which shows the State Of Mind of the speaker, and his attitude about the event spoken of in the verb. Common attitudes include Pejorative Opinion , Antipathy , relief felt at the conclusion of an unpleasant event or period, and unhappiness at or apprehension about the eventual result of a past or continuing event. SENTENCE STRUCTURE Except in poetry, the subject precedes the object, and the verb must conclude the sentence. In a standard sentence, therefore, the order is usually Subject Object Verb (SOV) though Object Subject Verb is also not uncommon. Tamil is a Null Subject Language . Not all Tamil sentences have subjects, verbs and objects. It is possible to construct valid sentences that have only a verb - such as ''muṭintuviṭṭatu'' ("It is completed") - or only a subject and object, such as ''atu eṉ vīṭu'' ("That is my house"). The elements that are present, however, must follow the SOV order. Tamil does not have an equivalent for the word ''is'' and the word is included in the translations only to convey the meaning. The verb ''to have'' in the meaning "to possess" is not translated directly either. In order to say "I have a horse" in Tamil a construction equivalent to "There is a horse to me" or "There exists a horse to me" will be used. Tamil lacks Relative Pronouns , but their meaning is conveyed by relative participle constructions which are built using agglutination. For example, the English sentence "Call the boy who learnt the lesson" will be said in Tamil roughly as "That-lesson-who-learnt-boy call". REFERENCES
EXTERNAL LINKS General |
|
|