Primarily attitudinal aspectual verbs.

The aspectual verbs that express, in addition to various aspectual notions, notions about the speaker's attitude toward actions or other speakers, are, as mentioned taLLu `distributive', tole `riddance', pooDu `malicious intent', and some others that we will deal with later.

• taLLu `distributive', `riddance.'

  The main verb that this AV is derived from is taLLu `push, shove.' In addition to its basic aspectual notion implying completion, taLLu also gives the notion that an action `got rid of' something; this may range from the satisfaction of having cleaned up some sort of mess to that of giving all one's wealth to the poor. There is also the notion that the recipients of this distribution are unspecified. That is, a sentence like raaman pustahangaLek kuDuttu taLLinaan `Raman gave away his books' will not have a dative-marked recipient.
  • naan anda kaDidatte paDiccu taLLneen `I read that letter [and got the task over and done with, out of the way.]

  • avan aDutta viiTTu kaaran vaangna kaDane eRudi taLLnaan `He wrote off [as a bad debt] the loan [taken, i.e.] owed [him] by his next-door neighbor.'

• pooDu `malicious intent.'

  This verb has an analogous lexical verb pooDu which means `put, drop, serve (food)' or `put on' clothes. There is a semantic notion of some lack of care with this verb, so if deliberate careful placing or setting is intended, vayyi is used instead. This verb is used for serving food, and it is appropriate since in order to avoid contact (and pollution), food is often `dropped' on the plate, rather than placed carefully. The AV pooDu varies semantically more than some AV's; for many the notion conveyed is that of bad faith, bad motives, or even malicious intent. Annamalai (1985) calls this AV the verb of casualness; for him the main notion is that speakers attribute motives of `lack of care, inconsiderateness' etc. to others when using this AV. For other speakers the main notion implied by the use of pooDu is that speakers think of other speakers' motives as involving careless disregard for the likes and desires of others, i.e. their motives are malicious, etc. English translations for these AV's seem to be most felicitous when attributing bad motives such as by the use of expletives or pejorative adjectives, etc.
  • neettu varakkuuDaadu -NNu sonneenee. aanaa, neettu paattu vandupooTTaanga. "I told them not to come yesterday, but they deliberately came anyway [the jerks!]"

  • tiruDanga en naaye konnupooTTaanga `[Those dirty rotten] thieves [deliberately and in cold blood] went and killed my dog.']

  • koRande taale kiRiccu pooTTadu `The child [carelessly] tore the paper.'

  • avan ajaakkradeyaa kadave tirandu pooTTuTTu pooyirukkaan `He has gone out, carelessly leaving the door ajar.'

• tole impatience, disgust.

  This verb is related to the lexical verbs tole 2 intr `come to an end, die, be ruined' and 6b tr, `finish, exhaust, destroy, kill, rout'. There is a nominalization of this verb tolle , which means `trouble, care, vexation, perplexity. The use of the AV tole expresses the speaker's impatience or even disgust with another person's actions, and in some cases, even their general personal attributes, the speech event, etc. In English this would also often be translated by some expletive, or pejorative adjective. The intransitive tole is usually used with intransitive verbs, and probably originally the transitive was used only with transitive main verbs. But now transitive tole may occur with intransitive main verbs; there is variability according to dialect. Even though this AV expresses impatience and disgust and must be used with caution, it does not necessarily express lack of respect, since it may be used by wives to husbands, with politeness markers. When so used, the antipathy is toward the event rather than the person.
  • tiisas innum muDiccu tolekkalleyaa ? `Haven't you finished [that troublesome] thesis yet, slowpoke?'

  • pooy tole, engeyaavadu pooy tole! `Oh all right go on, go, go somewhere, what (the hell) do I care!'

  • ade saappiTTuTTu pooy tolenga! `Eat it and get a move on! [or there'll be even more botheration.]

  • kaaru tondaravu koDuttukkiTTirundadu; ade vittu toleccuTTeen. `My car was giving me trouble; I sold it [and got rid of the dumb thing.]

  • avan sondakkaaranaa veeru irundu tolekkraan. `He happens to be a relative of mine [so there's no way to get out of helping the jerk.]

  • ellaarum biir kuDikka -NNum -ngraanga. naanum kuDiccu tolecceen. `Everyone was drinking beer [which I don't like], [but] I drank some too [to avoid making a fuss.]

  • avan namma viSayatte dairakTarkiTTu solli tolecciTTaan `Mr. Bigmouth has spilled the beans about our little caper to the Director [and boy, are we in hot water.]

  Note that verbs with tole and pooDu added, as in some of these examples, can be also marked with completive (v)iDu for extra definitiveness; tole and pooDu are thus not as emphatically completive as (v)iDu is; or, the implicature of completeness is not full established.