Tamil grammar

 ( Grammar, Tamil ) 

Much of Tamil grammar is extensively described in the oldest available grammar book for Tamil language, the Tolkaappiyam (dated between 300 BCE and 300 CE). Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th century grammar Naṉṉūl, which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam with some modifications.

Eḻuttu (writing) defines and describes the letters of the Tamil alphabet and their classification. It describes the nature of Phoneme and their changes with respect to different conditions and locations in the text.

Sol defines the types of the words based on their meaning and the origin. It defines the gender, number, cases, tenses, classes, harmony etc. This chapter also provides rules for compounding the words.

Porul defines the contents of poetry. It gives guidance on which topic to choose for poetry based on certain conditions like the nature of the land or time or the people. It gives a distinction between Agam (internal / love life) and Puram (external / worldly life).

Yāppu defines rules for composing Traditional poetry. It defines the basic building block Asai and describes how asai should be joined to form a sīr, joining sīr for an adi.

Aṇi defines techniques used for comparing, praising and criticizing the taken topics.

• Prime Letters – முதலெழுத்து
• Dependent Letters – சார்பெழுத்து

• The vowels (உயிரெழுத்துகள் ): அ (a), ஆ (ā), இ (i), ஈ( ī), உ (u), ஊ (ū), எ (e), ஏ (ē), ஐ (ai), ஒ (o), ஓ (ō), ஔ (au)
• The consonants (மெய்யெழுத்துகள் ): க், ங், ச், ஞ், ட், ண், த், ந், ப், ம், ய், ர், ல், வ், ழ், ள், ற், ன்

The vowels are called uyir, meaning soul, in Tamil. The consonants are known as mey, meaning body. When the alphasyllabary is formed, the letter shall be taking the form of the consonants, that is the body, and the sound shall be that of the corresponding vowel, that is the soul.

The vowels are categorized based on the length, as short ( kuril) and long( nedil). The short vowels are pronounced for a duration 1 unit, while the long vowels take two units. Based on the duration of the sound, the vowels form 5 pairs. The other two vowels ஐ( ai) and ஔ( au) are diphthongs formed by joining the letters அ(a)+இ(i) and அ(a)+உ(u). Since these two are a combination two short letters, their pronunciation takes 2 units of time, that is they fall under nedil category. ஐ(ai) and ஔ(au) can also be spelt அய் and அவ். This form is known as eḻuttuppōli and is generally not recommended.

The consonants are categorised into three groups, வல்லினம் (hard), மெல்லினம் (soft) and இடையினம் (medium), based on the nature of the sound.

   !    valliṉam
   !    melliṉam
   !    iṭaiyiṉam
     

From the 30 prime letters, the dependent letters are formed.

• Alphasyllabic letters உயிர்மெய் எழுத்து
• Aidam ஆய்த எழுத்து
• Elongated vowel உயிரளபெடை
• Elongated consonant ஒற்றளபெடை
• Shortened u குற்றியலுகரம்
• Shortened i குற்றியலிகரம்
• Shortened ai ஐகாரக் குறுக்கம்
• Shortened au ஔகாரக் குறுக்கம்
• Shortened m மகரக்குறுக்கம்
• Shortened Aidam ஆய்தக்குறுக்கம்

The alphasyllabic letters – 216 in total – are formed by combining the consonants and the vowels. The duration of the sound is that of the vowel attached to the consonant (or the inherent vowel, in case of the pure consonants). For example, the table below shows the formation of க் based letters.

Aidam is also known as தனிநிலை (stand alone). The aidam is always preceded by a single short letter (தனிக்குறில் ) and followed by a hard alphasyllabic letter (வல்லின உயிர்மெய் ). It takes half unit time for pronunciation.

(உயிரளபெடை) and  (ஒற்றளபெடை) are formed by elongating the duration of pronunciation of a letter to satisfy certain grammatical rules while composing poetry. In ''Uyiralapetai'', the intrinsic vowel of the letter that is elongated is written next to it, to indicate that the letter now is pronounced for 3 units of time.
     

In Kutriyalukaram, the duration of the short 'u' letters of vallinam category (கு, சு, டு, து, பு, று) is reduced to half units, when the letter is found at the end of the word, preceded by multiple letters or a single nedil(long) letter.

If a word with kutriyalikaram is followed by a word with 'ய'(ya) as the first letter, the u sound is corrupted to i sound and takes a half unit of time for pronunciation.

In Aikarakurukkam and Aukarakurukkam, the duration of the letters ஐ and ஔ are reduced to 1 1/2 units if they are the first letters of the word. If situated elsewhere it is reduced to 1 unit.

Most Tamil affixes are . These can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or suffixes, which mark categories such as person, number, Grammatical 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 (போகமுடியாதவர்களுக்காக) means "for the sake of those who cannot go", and consists of the following :

Words formed as a result of the agglutinative process are often difficult to translate. Today Translations, a United Kingdom translation service, ranks the Tamil word செல்லாதிருப்பவர் (, meaning a certain type of truancy) as number 8 in their The Most Untranslatable Word In The World list.

In Tamil, words are classified into four categories namely,

• Nouns Peyarsol
• Verbs Vinaisol
• Particles and Pre-/Postpositions Idaisol
• Adjective and Adverbs Urisol

All categories of nouns are declinable. Verbs are conjugated to indicate person, tense, gender, number and mood. The other two classes are indeclinable.

>

"Kumar (is) (a) student."

"Kumar becomes (a) student."

"The door opened."

It can also be used to mark the direct object when it is indefinite and irrational.

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Accusative Case

The accusative case marks the direct object of a transitive verb. It is marked by the suffix -ai. It is required when the direct object is rational. When used with irrational nouns, the accusative must be used when the direct object is definite. When an irrational direct object is indefinite, the nominative is used instead, unless there is an explicit indefinite determiner present, in which case either the nominative or accusative may be used.

>

(rational direct object, the accusative must be used regardless of definiteness)

(irrational direct object, the possessive pronoun eṉ makes the noun definite, the accusative must be used)

(irrational direct object, the accusative shows the noun is definite)

(irrational direct object, the nominative shows the noun is indefinite)

(irrational direct object, the determiner oru makes the noun explicitly indefinite, accusative is optional)

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Dative Case

The dative case is marked with -ukku, -kku, or -ku. It expresses an indirect object, a goal of motion, a purpose, or an experiencer.

>

(indirect object)

(goal of motion, in this sense restricted to inanimate nouns)

(purpose)

(experiencer)

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Instrumental Case

The instrumental case is shown with -āl. It marks the instrument, means, source, or reason by which an action occurs.

>

"Kumar cuts the fruit with a knife."

It also marks the agent in passive constructions.

>

"Kumar was beaten by father."

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Sociative Case

The sociative case is marked with either -ōṭu or -uṭaṉ. It shows that the noun it modifies is involved in the action of the sentence.

>

"Kumar came with his wife."

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Locative Case

The locative case is marked with either -il or -iṭam. -il occurs with inanimate nouns and plural animate nouns, while iṭam occurs with animate nouns in both numbers. It shows location.

>

"The bird is sitting on the tree."

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Ablative Case

The ablative case is expressed through the suffix -iruntu added onto the locative of a noun. It marks motion away from something.

>

"Kumar fell from the tree."

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Oblique Stems

The oblique stem of a noun is used before adding case suffixes, as a modifier in genitive function before a head noun, as the first element of a compound, and before postpositions.

+ Oblique Stem Formation ! rowspan="2"	Rule ! colspan="2"	Tamil ! rowspan="2"	English ! rowspan="2"	Notes

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Genders and number

The grammatical gender of Tamil nouns corresponds to their natural sex. Nouns in Tamil have two numbers, singular and plural.

Grammatical gender, known as பா in Tamil, encompasses both the concepts of gender and number, thus is highly predictable. Masculine and feminine genders are only applicable to "higher class" nouns. Even though the genders of animals are marked in a sentence (e.g.: பெண் நாய் "female, dog"), grammatically they are handled as a neuter noun. Thus there are five genders in Tamil, namely, masculine singular (ஆண்பால் ), feminine singular (பெண்பால் ), high-class plural (பலர்பால் ), lower-class singular (ஒன்றன்பால் ), lower-class plural (பலவின்பால் ). These are summarized in the table below.

+ peyarccol (Name-words)
Class	Male	Female	Collective	One	Many
Example: "doer"	He who did	She who did	They who did	That which did	Those which did

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Pronouns

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Demonstratives and Interrogatives

!இவன் ivan	he, who is near to the 1st person	near deixis, demonstrative particle

In Tamil, the demonstrative particles are a- (அ), i- (இ), and u- (உ) (archaic and has fallen out of use, except in Sri Lankan dialects). These demonstrative particles display deictic properties. i- (இ) is a near deixis form, which demonstrates the objects around/near the first person, while a- (அ) has distant deixis form, which demonstrates things near the 3rd person. u- (உ) was used to indicate objects near the second person, but has gradually fallen out of use. In modern Tamil i- (இ) indicates objects nearer and a- (அ) indicates objects in a distance. Using these particles demonstrative pronouns are derived. The same set of pronouns is also used as personal pronouns in 3rd person. e.g. avan (he), atu (that object/being), anta (that)

e- (எ) and yā- யா are the two important interrogative particles in Tamil. e- (எ) is used for deriving the interrogative pronouns. e.g. evaṉ (which one, 3rd person singular masculine), enta (which), etaṟku (for what?)

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Personal pronouns

First person plural pronouns in Tamil distinguish between Clusivity. In Tamil, plural terminators are used for honorific addressing. It could be noted in both 2nd and 3rd persons. There are unique personal pronouns available for first and second persons while demonstrative pronouns are used in place of personal pronouns as well.

நான் nāṉ	என் eṉ	I	1st / neutral / singular
நாம் nām	நம் nam	Inclusive we	1st / neutral / plural
நாங்கள் nāṅkaḷ	எங்கள் eṅkaḷ	Exclusive we	1st / neutral / plural
நீ nī	உன் uṉ	you	2nd / neutral / singular
நீங்கள் nīṅkaḷ	உங்கள் uṅkaḷ	honorific singular you	2nd / neutral / singular
		you	2nd / neutral / plural
அவன் / இவன் avaṉ / ivaṉ		he	3rd / Masculine / singular
அவள் / இவள் avaḷ / ivaḷ		she	3rd / Feminine / singular
அவர் / இவர் avar / ivar		Honorific he/she	3rd / neutral / singular
		they (low class)	3rd / neutral / plural
அவர்கள் / இவர்கள் avarkaḷ/ivarkaḷ		they (high class)	3rd / neutral / plural
அது / இது atu / itu		it (animals and objects)	3rd / neuter / singular
அவை / இவை avai / ivai	அவற்று / இவற்று avaṟṟu / ivaṟṟu	they (animals and objects)	3rd / neuter / plural

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Verbs

Like Tamil nouns, Tamil are also inflected through the use of suffixes. A typical Tamil verb form will have a number of , which show person, number, Grammatical mood, tense and voice, as is shown by the following example aḻintukkoṇṭiruntēṉ (அழிந்துக்கொண்டிருந்தேன்) "(I) was being destroyed":

"to be destroyed"	affective voice; past (absolutive)	progressive aspect	past tense	first person, singular

Person and number are indicated by the oblique case of the relevant pronoun ( ēṉ in the above example). The suffixes to indicate tenses and voice are formed from grammatical particles, which are added to the stem. The chart below outlines the most common set of suffixes used to conjugate for person and tense, but different groups of Tamil verbs may use other sets of suffixes or have irregularities.

+ Tamil Verb Classes

-v- (ceyv-)

-v- (mīḷv-)

-v- (kolv-)

-v- (vaḷarv-)

-v- (pāṭuv-)

-v- (pōṭuv-)

-p- (uṇp-)

-p- (tiṉp-)

-ṭp- (kēṭp-)

-ṟp- (viṟp-)

-pp- (vaḷarpp-)

-pp- (paṟapp-)

– (cāv-)

+ Tamil Personal Terminations
-ōm
-āy	-īr	-īrkaḷ
-āṉ	-ārkaḷ
-āḷ
-aṉa2

¹Class five verbs take -iṟṟu added directly to the root (-iṉ + -tu). In the future, -um is added directly to the root of verbs in Classes I through VIII, whereas -um replaces the -iṟ- in the present stem to form the future of verbs in Classes IX through XIII (and no termination is added afterwards).

²This suffix takes an irregular present in -kiṉṟ-/-kkiṉṟ- before it. The -um future (see directly above) can be used in the plural, as well.

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 which mark tense categories. These signal whether the happening spoken of in the verb is unreal, possible, potential, or real. Tamil verbs also mark evidentiality, through the addition of the hearsay clitic .

Sanford B. Steever (2025). 9789027229588, John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027229588

at p. 105.

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 notions of transitivity or Causality, or to the active voice-passive voice or reflexive-nonreflexive division of voices found in Indo-European languages.

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Auxiliaries

Tamil has no articles. Definiteness and indefiniteness are indicated either by context or by special grammatical devices, such as using the number "one" as an indefinite article. In the first person plural, Tamil makes a distinction between Clusivity pronouns that include the listener and exclusive pronouns that do not. Tamil does not distinguish between and – both fall under the category uriccol. Conjunctions are called iṭaiccol.

Auxiliary verb 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.

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Sentence structure

Except in poetry, the subject precedes the object, and the verb concludes the sentence. In a standard sentence, therefore, the order is usually subject–object–verb (SOV), but object–subject–verb is also common.

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 (முடிந்துவிட்டது, "It is completed"), or only a subject and object, such as atu eṉ vīṭu (அது என் வீடு, "That is my house").

The elements that are present, however, must follow the SOV order. Tamil does not have an equivalent for the existential verb to be; it is included in the translations only to convey the meaning. The negative existential verb, to be not, however, does exist in the form of illai (இல்லை) and goes at the end of the sentence (and does not change with number, gender, or tense). The verb to have in the meaning "to possess" is not translated directly, either. 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", is used.

Tamil lacks , but their meaning is conveyed by relative participle constructions, built using agglutination. For example, the English sentence "Call the boy who learned the lesson" is said in Tamil like "That-lesson-learned-boy call".

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Example

A sample passage in Tamil script with transliteration.

noun	honorific plural indicated by suffix ar	The feminine gender āciriyai can be used here too; the masculine gender āciriyaṉ is rarely used, considering the honored position of the teacher
adverb	n/a	Sandhi (called puṇarci in Tamil) rules in Tamil require euphonic changes during agglutination (such as the introduction of y in this case)
verb	honorific plural	In an honorific context, the masculine and feminine equivalents nuḻaint āṉ and nuḻaint āḷ are replaced by the collective nuḻaint ār
pronoun	honorific plural indicated by suffix ar	In honorific contexts, the masculine and feminine forms avaṉ and avaḷ are not used
adverb	n/a
adverb	n/a	Sandhi rules require a v to be inserted between an end-vowel and a beginning- u during agglutination.
collective noun	plural indicated by suffix kaḷ
verb	plural
proper noun	singular
adjective	n/a
pronoun	singular
adverb	n/a	The postposition il indicates the locative case
adverb	n/a	The verb has been morphed into an adverb by the incompleteness due to the terminal a
pronoun	singular
Proper noun	n/a	The name Kaṉimoḻi literally means sweet language
verb	singular	Continuousness indicated by the incompleteness brought by koṇṭu
pronoun	singular
pronoun	singular	The postposition ai indicates accusative case
verb	singular, plural would be indicated by substituting -ēn with -ōm

• A. H. Arden, A progressive grammar of the Tamil language, 5th edition, 1942.

Harold F. Schiffman (1998). 9780521640749, Cambridge University Press. . ISBN 9780521640749

• Lehmann, Thomas. A Grammar of Modern Tamil. Pondicherry Institute of Linguistics and Culture, 1989.

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Notes

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External links

• The online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages

Categories: Grammar, Tamil, Dravidian Grammars