Next: Neuter Future.
Up: Examples of Strong
Previous: Neuter Past.
For still
other speakers, however, the «ß/«¶Õ past neuter is used with many other
verbs as well, so that one encounters forms like ׶ԧÁÕ«¶Õ sollicci `it
said' instead of the expected ׶ԨÆâ sonnadu, Âÿ»Õ«¶Õ
vanducci instead of Âÿ»â vandadu `it came', etc.
We will consider the use of «ß/«¶Õ to be `standard' only with ؽÔ
poo and ÈÞ aaku, although its use with other verbs is not wrong.
It is helpful, however, to remember that in Literary Tamil, the literary
equivalent of «ß occurs usually only with Ø½Ô poo and ÈÞ
aahu, and all other verbs have the `regular' neuter past. A minor exception
to this statement is that the use of «ß as a neuter past is optional
with the so-called Class III verbs (those in § 3.326) in LT, but not
required. Thus, LT Class III verbs like ÂÔõÞ vaangu may have
neuter past ÂÔõ´Õ±ì. Thus, the spoken equivalent ÂÔõ´Õ«¶Õ
vaangicci is not as unusual as is the occurrence of «¶Õ cci with,
e.g., Éç iru `be' as in Éçÿ»Õ«¶Õ irunducci (LT Éçÿ»â).
The use of this latter is strongly identified with the dialects of the Kaveri
delta area (Trichy and Tanjore areas), and is also a marker of Malaysian and
Singaporean Tamil, who emigrated in large numbers from those parts of
Tamilnad u.
Vasu Renganathan
Sat Nov 2 21:16:08 EST 1996