Positive adjectival participles: past or present tense marker plus -a.

Embedded before a noun phrase only, the adjectival participle is used in relative clause constructions in situations where English often uses lexical adjectives.See § on adjectives, chap. 5.

• ¼Ô¨ ½Ô¢» Ù½¿¨ naan paa-tt-a payyan `The boy I saw'
• ؼ¢â Ù´ ¾Ô¢» ½º£ neettu kay maatta panam `The money borrowed yesterday'
• Í⢻Ԥ¤×Á Éç¡ÞÅ ÂÖà eduttaaple iru-kkr-a viidu `The house which is opposite'

Note that the Ç -a of the adjectival participle is syntactically equivalent to the RELATIVE PRONOUNS`which, that' of the relative clause in languages that have postposed relative clauses English. The Ç -a in Tamil is always present, although the English equivalent may sometimes be deleted.

Adjectival participles can also be embedded before third person pronouns Çâ, Ǩ, ÇÂ(ª), ÇÂõ´(ª), ÇÂç adu, avan, ava(l), avanga(l), avaru with the meaning `He (etc.) who verb-s/ed.'

• ¼Ô¨ ؼ¢â ½Ô¢»Â¨ naan neettu paatt-avan `He-who I saw yesterday'

• ¾À¢â ؾ×Á Éç¡ÞÅâ marattu meele irukkr-adu `That-which is at-the-top of-the-tree'

• ´¹¡Þ »Ö¢»Âõ´ ´Õ¥×¹ Ø½Ô¿Õ kanakku tiitt-avanka- kitte pooyi `Going to the people (with) whom we paid-off the account'

Often these third person pronouns are best translated with phrases like `the people who', `the thing which', `the man/woman who' rather than literally. Since they are noun phrases, they can take case and postpositions, other adjectives, and can be subjected to all the normal rules governing noun phrases.

Note that relatave clauses formed with AJP's are embedded before other elements such as possessive pronouns, not after:

ؼ¢â Âÿ» ͨ »£½Õ neettu vanda en tampi `My ygr.brother who came yesterday'

instead of *ͨ ؼ¢â Âÿ» »£½Õ.