A sentence containing the embedding marker ýá -nnu and a finite verb cannot be embedded with ýá -nnu before another finite verb, if the subjects of the two verbs is the same. That is, Tamil equivalent of an English sentence like `I said THAT I said THAT I would go' cannot have two ýá's -nnu's because the subject of the two verbs is identical. If the subject is different, as in `I said that he said he would go', two instances of ýá -nnu's occur. That is, the first of the following examples is ungrammatical; the second is grammatical.
For sentence (xx) above to be grammatical, one verb phrase with ýá ׶ԨØƨ nnu sonneen must be deleted or the verb changed to perfect tense:
