next up previous
Next: Demonstrative Adjectives Up: Use in the Previous: Use in the

Predicate Adjectives: termination in â tu and ß cu.

If the adjective is in the predicate and not preceding any noun, as in English `this house is new', it must be nominalized in Tamil by the addition of â -tu or in some cases, ß su Example: Éÿâ ÂÖà äâß inta viidu pudusu `this house is (a) new (one)'. In some cases, the consonants of the stem also undergo morphophonemic alternation when nominalized: ¶Õ¨Æ cinna ¶Õìß sirisu. The following is a list of nominalized forms of `true' adjectives:

Nominalizations of the sort in English `good man' are also possible, by suffixing the third person pronouns directly to the adjectival stem: ×½Àտ¨ periyavan `big man', ¶Õ¨Æ¨ cinnavan `small man', ¼§ÁÂç nallavaru `good man', ×´¥¹Âõ´ kettavanga `bad people', etc.Arden (1942) refers to these as `participial nouns'.



Harold_F.Schiffman