¼Ô¨ ÂÀ¾Ô¥Ø¹¨ ýغ¨cannot be embedded before ýá ׶ԨØƨ -nnu sonneen `I said that', i.e. quotations cannot be infinitely embedded if their subjects are the same.
naan varamaatteen-nneen `I refused to come'
However, the previous example sentence can be embedded before ýá ׶ԨÆÔ¨ -nnu sonnaan `he said' because the subjects of the two verbs are different:
¼Ô¨ ÂÀ¾Ô¥Ø¹¨ ýá ׶ԨÆÔ¨ naan varamaatteen- nneen-nnu sonnaan `He said that I refused to come'
One can have embeddings of obstinate negative constructions before other quotative verbs, however, but n order to be grammatical, the first ýغ¨ nneen must be deleted, as in:
¼Ô¨ ÂÀ¾Ô¥Ø¹¨ ýá ׶ԨØƨ naan varamaatteen-nnu sonneen `I said that I refused to come.'Since Tamil direct and indirect quotations are structurally the same, the above sentence could also be glossed as a direct quote: `I said, "I will not come".'
Note that Tamil future-negatives sometimes have the illocutionary force of an obstinate negative, i.e. the sentence
¼Ô¨ Éý׺¡´Õ ¶Ô¿õ´ÔÁ£ Éõ×´ ¶Ô¤½Õ¹¾Ô¥Ø¹¨actually has the illocutionary force of `I refuse to eat here this evening'; the obstinacy can be mollified by changing the verb to ¶Ô¤½Õ¹ ÂÀ¾Ô¥Ø¹¨ saappida varamaatteen `I won't be coming to eat here ...'
naan innekki saayankaalam inge saappidamaatteen `I will not eat here this evening'