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In Literary Tamil there is a verb อจ en- which historically
meant `say, think, mean' and occurred in all finite and non-finite forms. In
ST the stem of this verb has the form จ -n- but not all the finite
forms occur. Furthermore, it is not clear that syntactically it is a verb in
all of these structures, though it is common in Tamil grammatical tradition
to always treat it thus. The most common form of it is the `past participle'
which in spoken BT is จํ -nnu and in NBT �แ -nnu.
If we take this item to be a verb, it would mean literally, `having said,
thought, meant', but since it is used in many different ways, not all of which
can be assumed to overtly represent explicit oral or mental activity, it is
more convenient to consider �แ -nnu and its finite forms to
represent a number of different things in Tamil grammar; primarily, we see it
as a form that is being GRAMMATICALIZED to function as a syntactic
marker of various sorts, not as a lexical verb.This is evident also from
its reduced phonological form, i.e. lacking the original initial vowel.
The commonest use of �แ -nnu is as a marker of relative
clauses, which in English are usually marked with THAT, as in:
ผิจ ย็ุยจ�แ ืถิจุฦจ
naan varuveen-nnu sonneen.
`I said that I would come.'
The English relative clause marker, THAT, is often deleted, as in
`I said (that) I would come' but in Tamil the �แ -nnu is
always present in surface structure. Many kinds of other embedded sentences
and clauses are followed by �แ -nnu in Tamil, and we will
consider �แ -nnu in these to be simply a marker that
something is embedded, i.e. originates in another clause or sentence but is
brought into the MATRIX sentence by some process. Usually what precedes
�แ -nnu is a complete sentence, i.e., it could stand alone
without that which follows �แ -nnu. When non-sentences
precede it, �แ nnu it must take a different form; these are
discussed in § 7.3, § 7.4, and § 7.5 below.
Next: �แ nnu in
Up: The quotative verb
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Haorld_F.Schiffman