The Grammaticalization of Aspect in Tamil

and its semantic sources

Harold F. Schiffman

Department of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Tamil has a number of verbs, sometimes referred to as 'aspectual verbs' that are added to a main or lexical verb to provide semantic distinctions such as duration, completion, habituality, regularity, continuity, simultaneity, definiteness, expectation of result, remainder of result, current relevance, benefaction, antipathy, and certain other notions. Though these aspectual verbs are found all over the Indian linguistic area (Emeneau 1956) researchers have generally found them difficult to describe in a categorical way, and not until Annamalai 1981 has any attempt been made to treat aspect in Tamil (or for that matter, any Dravidian language) as a variable component of the grammar. In what follows I will summarize what has been discovered about aspect in Tamil and place it in a framework that recognizes both variability and the process of grammaticalization, that is, how a category becomes part of the morphology in a given language. I will show that Tamil aspect is a category that is on the road to grammaticalization, and that it is primarily by the process of metaphoric extension that the semantic and grammatical change takes place. Some aspectual verbs are already, as it were, at their destination, others are proceeding with all deliberate speed toward that goal, but some are straggling, some have gotten lost, and some are only just beginning to pack for the journey. I will show that aspect is a variable category within the grammar of a given speaker, but is also variable across dialects and idiolects, and between Literary Tamil (LT) and Spoken Tamil (ST).

1. Introduction. Tamil has a number of verbs, sometimes referred to as `aspectual verbs' (or aspect markers, aspectual auxiliaries, verbal extensions, post-verbs, intensive verbs …) that are added to a main or lexical verb to provide semantic distinctions such as duration, completion, habituality, regularity, continuity, simultaneity, definiteness, expectation of result, remainder of result, current relevance, benefaction, antipathy, and certain other notions.

Researchers have generally found these aspect markers difficult to describe in a categorical way, and in only a few studies (Annamalai 1985) has any attempt been made to treat aspect in Tamil (or for that matter, any Dravidian language) as a variable component of the grammar, or as a system that is in a state of dynamic evolution (Steever 1982). In this paper I will attempt to summarize what is known about the facts of aspect-marking in Tamil and to place it in a larger framework, recognizing that a number of different analytic approaches to this difficult topic are necessary. Aspect is a variable category in Tamil, but this variability is a product of the process of grammaticalization (Hopper and Traugott 1993), rather than representing or being expressive of sociolinguistic parameters.[1]

2. Aspect and Commentary. Tamil aspect markers provide information and commentary about the manner in which an action occurred, especially how it began or ended, whether it was intentional or unintentional, whether it had an effect on the speaker or on someone else, whether it preceded another action or was synchronous with it, and so on. Some of these notions are what have been considered aspectual in other languages (having to do with the completion or non-completion, the continuity or duration, the manner of inception or completion) but some have little or no relation semantically to classical notions of aspect, by which I mean aspect as seen, e.g. in the Slavic languages. These `extended' uses of aspect markers sometimes therefore involve value judgments by the speaker about the actions of others, i.e. they indicate what the speaker's attitudes or expectations about the verbal action in question are.

Most aspect markers are derived historically from some lexical verb that is more or less still in use in Tamil but has its own lexical meaning. The `meaning' of aspect markers is primarily grammatical or syntactic and usually only vestigially can be related to the lexical meaning of the verb from which it is derived. It is here that the role of metaphor comes into play, since it is by metaphoric extension of the lexical meaning (especially the spatial meanings) that the grammatical meaning is arrived at.[2]

Syntactically, aspect markers are added to the adverbial participle (AVP) of the lexical (`main') verb. Aspect markers then are marked for tense and person-number-gender (PNG), since the AVP preceding them cannot be so marked. Morphologically (but not phonologically) they then act identically to the lexical verb from which they are derived, i.e. take the tense markers etc. of the class of lexical verb they are identical to. In most analyses of aspect in Tamil, researchers have focused on Literary Tamil, and have tried to show that aspect can be considered a syntactic process, since the aspect markers appear to function independently of morphology. I believe this claim is enabled by the artifact of modern writing, where Tamil aspect markers are (or can be) written with spaces between them and the AVP of the lexical verb. In Spoken Tamil, as I have tried to show, aspect has become (or is becoming) grammaticalized, i.e., aspectual markers now function (in many cases) as part of the morphology of the language, as evidenced by the phonological processes that apply to them that usually only apply word-internally (Schiffman 1993 [3]). In this paper I will show that Tamil aspect is a category that is variably grammaticalized. My focus will be on the role of metaphor in the evolution of this system, such that the lexical meanings of the source verb being aspectualized gradually yield/expand to metaphoric extensions of those meanings, and as the lexical meanings are leached out, grammaticalization of the verb as an aspectual marker takes place. These aspect markers are thus no longer lexical verbs, nor are they, when completely grammaticalized, independent verbs at all---they lose their syntactic independence and become morphological suffixes affixed to main or lexical verbs, as evidenced by their lack of syntactic freedom, which we see from the phonological rules that apply to them but not their lexical analogs.

2.1. Types of Lexical Meanings. What is crucial in the role of metaphor is the types of lexical meanings that the source verbs have or had; in almost all cases, we can identify the following semantic elements:

· Deixis, having to do with motion, spatial relation, or proximity to(ward) or away from the speaker. This varies, of course, and as we shall see, the 'meanings' of different directions with regard to speaker are valued differently (e.g. 'up is good, down is bad' etc.)

· Stasis, having to do with continuity, duration, lack of boundedness, habituality, etc. of action or state.

· Antipathy: the value of the action or state is negative; (speaker does not like some action or state; the negative or pejorative notions are what I refer to below as attitudinal .)

· Containment, in particular abrupt closure, interruption, boundedness, or finiteness of an action, but also continuity or duration.

In many cases, more than one of these semantic elements is part of the lexical meaning of the source verb, and the metaphoric extension/abstraction of any or all of these meanings moves the verb along the continuum to grammaticalized aspect in different ways. Aspect as a grammatical category is thus derived from the semantic elements of deixis, stasis, antipathy, and/or containment. (Parallels with the evolution of aspect in other languages may suggest themselves, since many languages that have aspectual systems seem to have involved the grammaticalization of semantic elements similar to one or more of these meanings.[4])

2.2 Metaphor and Metonymy. Metaphoric extension, however, is not the only semantic process involved in grammaticalization, and some researchers in fact prefer to emphasize the role of metonymy, or metonymic transfer, instead of metaphor. Metonymy of course refers to the transfer of meaning from adjacent material, such as in the evolution of French negation involving particles such as pas, which originally meant ‘pace, step’ and was originally used only with verbs of motion. Thus in a sentence such as je ne marche pas [I neg walk pace] ‘I don’t walk’, the lexical item pas was probably used originally emphatically, and probably only with verbs of motion, but as French came to delete the negative particle ne in most modern colloquial speech, je ne marche pas was reduced to je marche pas, and the meaning of ‘negation’ was transferred metonymically from the no-longer present ne to pas. This is now the overall pattern in modern colloquial French, and is not restricted just to simple negation with pas, but with other nouns or particles that now function as negative markers, such as personne, guere, rien, que, etc. since ne is not present in most informal colloquial speech. Similarly, forms in English like gonna ‘(be) going to’ which originally had a directional meaning, as in He's gonna get married, i.e., ‘he is proceeding to a place where he will get married’ have gradually come to have an ‘intentional’ or ‘future’ meaning and the ‘directional’ meaning is lost. The ‘intentional’ or ‘future’ meanings are in fact derived metonymically from the ‘future’ meaning that is implied by sentences like ‘He’s going to get married’ i.e. if he’s proceeding to the place to get married, marriage is what will take place, and he’s intending to do so, not just moving in that direction.

Thus the ‘intentional’ or ‘future’ is metonymically transferred to ‘be going to’ and this is then phonologically reduced to gonna, if and only if the meaning is ‘future/intentional’ but not if the meaning is still directional, i.e. if the meaning is ‘He's going to the store’, this cannot be reduced to* He's gonna the store. Therefore, while I do not deny the importance of metonymic transfer in the evolution of grammaticalization, I do not see it as the main operative factor in the Tamil material at hand; metaphor still seems to me to what underlies the evolution of Tamil aspectual verbs, as I will try to show in what follows.

3. The focus of this paper: The focus of this paper will be on those elements of the meanings of lexical verbs recruited to serve as aspectual verbs that have to do with spatial relations, in particular relations perceived by the speaker to express his or her personal space, and/or relationship to his/her body. That is, verbs that express motion away from or towards the speaker, verbs that express static proximity to or distance from the speaker, verbs that express benefit or benefaction to the speaker (e.g. as the result of obtaining some benefit, containing some action or benefit, or something pertaining to the speaker) seem to be those that are recruited as aspect markers. Furthermore, any action that is antithetical or malefactive to/for the speaker (speaker perceives the motion, the action, the pertainment to be threatening, annoying, disgusting, invasive, etc.) may also become an aspectual verb, but with this clear element of antipathy or malefaction overtly present, unlike the benefactive verbs. In other words, malefaction is probably more marked than benefaction, so benefaction is the default unless a clearly malefactive or antipathetic action is involved.

To be a candidate for successful aspectual grammaticalization, a lexical verb must contain at least one of the four elements of motion (or perhaps better, deixis), stasis, containment/pertainment/obtainment, and malefaction/antipathy, with the added complexity that these can combine in various ways to yield different surface aspectual verbs, as well as complexities of meaning for individual aspectual markers that are a challenge for my analysis. Just to illustrate briefly, the location/static verb iru 'be (located)' when combined with the containment verb koL are both recruited to form, in combination, a durative/continuative aspectual marker kiTTiru. The metaphoric 'holding' of koL (its lexical meaning is 'hold, contain') plus the metaphoric static 'being' of iru yield an aspectual marker expressing duration: 'holding the being, or continuing the holding.' Just as in English, the verb 'hold' has been extended metaphorically, e.g. in telephone usage, from its original meaning expressing 'holding' the telephone receiver (i.e. not hanging up) while waiting for a line or a connection. 'Will you hold?' thus means, not "Will you hold the receiver and not hang it up?" but "Will you wait for a connection?" It is then further extended to express the kind of waiting at airports when planes are in 'holding' pattern: waiting for a runway. The literal meaning of ‘holding’ is no longer present (nobody's holding anything in their hand) but waiting, in particular waiting in a pattern that gives priority to those airplanes that have been there the longest, is the metaphoric meaning. It is no accident that the verb koL 'hold, contain' involves originally holding something in the hand, in proximity to the body (i.e. no further than arm's length). This defines the original perimeter of what is one's personal space, and things entering or leaving this space, or the action of leaving something, or remaining in proximity to it, and the verbs that express this, are the crucial ones for recruitment as aspectual markers.

Aspectual verbs in Tamil are on a kind of continuum from completely grammaticalized to only-beginning-to-be-grammaticalized. This is evident from the fact that some aspectual verbs (those I call completely grammaticalized) have complete freedom of occurrence with other verbs—they can occur with any verb, transitive or intransitive, with all persons, and with all tenses. They can be used with modals, in the negative, in any context. The most completely grammaticalized aspectual verb is (v)iDu, which is based on the lexical verb viDu 'leave, let.' Furthermore, such completely aspectualized verbs also exhibit phonological peculiarities, which is also an indicator (Hopper and Traugott) of grammaticalization. In this case, the initial [v] of the lexical verb is lost in ST, something that never happens at word boundaries in Tamil, but is quite common word-internally.

Less advanced on the scale of grammaticalization are aspectual verbs that can only be used in certain contexts, e.g. only with transitive verbs, or only with third person subjects, or only in the past tense, or perhaps have restrictions on use with modal or negative verbs. The less grammaticalized, the fewer instances of phonological peculiarity we also witness, so that the AM vayyi 'future utility' (based on the lexical verb vayyi 'put (for safekeeping)' does not exhibit v-deletion (as does viDu) and can only occur with transitive verbs. Fully-grammaticalized AM's can even occur with their lexical analogs, e.g. naan ade viTTu-TTeen 'I completely left it; I finished it and got it over with', whereas less completely grammaticalized AM's do not occur so freely with their lexical analogs.

Verbs that are the least grammaticalized are those that are only used in very limited contexts, or are used only by certain speakers and/or dialects, or are only used in a metaphoric sense some of the time. The verb kuDu 'give' is an example of this limitation; some speakers can use it with other verbs freely, but many can or do not. There is a phrase sollikuDu meaning 'teach' ('say and give; give by saying') that expresses this metaphoric usage well, and is used by many speakers. But beyond this collocation many do not use it, or would consider this a lexicalization, a 'phrasal verb', but not an aspectual usage, so I relegate it to 'early candidacy' as an aspect marker. If some argue that it is an aspectual marker, it is so only in some dialects, or for some speakers.[5]

Note of course that the verb kuDu 'give' in its basic meaning involves the use of the hands, and involves motion of an object from the physical space of one person (the giver) into the physical space of the recipient, and perhaps into his/her hands.[6]

The hands are also involved in the verb taLLu 'push, shove' which is the source of the AM taLLu 'riddance; distributive'. The latter meaning indicates that motion is metaphorically 'out of one's hands' and into the hands or possession of 'unspecified recipients.'

4. Aspect and Modality. Lest it be assumed that some of the kinds of meanings carried by aspectual markers are like modal verbs in other languages, or that some of these semantic distinctions are in fact modal, it should be noted that Tamil has a full set of modal verbs that express the kinds of notions that are expressed by English modals such as ‘can, should, might, want, need, etc.’ and that modal verbs in Tamil are syntactically different—they occur after the infinitive, e.g. naan pooha-Num (‘I to-go-want’) ‘I want to go’ so the use of the term ‘auxiliary’ (as in ‘aspectual auxiliary’) is one I usually abjure, in order to avoid the confusion with modal auxiliaries. Aspectual verbs, in contrast, occur syntactically after a so-called verbal (past) participle (also referred to by some researchers as an ‘adverbial participle’ or AVP) so in fact aspect and modality can both be expressed in the same sentence/verb phrase, e.g. niinga vandukiTTirukka-Num (you come+durative+obligation) ‘You should have been coming.’[7] Modal verbs occur as the last element of the verb phrase, and are usually unmarked for person, number and gender. Aspectual markers, on the other hand, are ‘finite’ verbs as far as their morphology is concerned, and occur phrase- finally unless something else, such as a modal, occurs.

4.1 What are the aspect markers of Tamil? The verbs that can be treated as aspectual are actually on a gradient scale (or ‘cline’) of grammaticalization; those that are more completely grammaticalized (primarily aspectual and minimally attitudinal) are (v)iDu `completive', kiTTiru `durative', vayyi `future utility', aahu `finality, expected result', vaa `iterative', poo `change of state', koo `self-benefactive', iru¹ `perfect', iru² `result remains', and iru³ `epestemic.' The lexical analogs of these aspectual markers are, respectively, viDu `leave, let', koNDiru [8] (no lexical analog, but made up of elements of the lexical verb koLLu and iru `be located'), vayyi `put away', aahu `become', vaa `come', poo `go', koL(Lu) `hold, contain', and iru `be located.'

4.2 Attitudinal markers The aspect markers that are less completely grammaticalized (i.e., are primarily attitudinal but nonetheless involve some aspectual notion) are taLLu `distributive', tole `riddance', pooDu `malicious intent', and some others that vary from dialect to dialect, such as kuDu which has a `benefactive' meaning in some dialects. The lexical analogs (or `source verbs') of these aspectual markers are, respectively, taLLu `push, shove', tole `(go to) ruin', pooDu `drop, plunk; put on (clothes).' The lexical analog of kuDu is, not surprisingly, kuDu `give'.[9]

The notion that attitudes or value judgments might be semantically related to aspect may seem at first problematical, but as Johnson and Lakoff have shown (1980), notions that are originally spatial or deictic, such as the prepositions `up' and `down' are used metaphorically in many languages for positive and negative meanings: things that are `up' are (usually) good, and things that are `down' are (often) bad; but we also see that these same prepositions have evolved (probably also via metaphor) into aspectual notions in English, so that `up' as a verbal extender has the meaning `completive' as in `eat up, use up, tie up, burn up' while `down' used with the same or similar verbs has another meaning, perhaps not clearly aspectual: `tie down, shut down, pin down, burn down', etc. Similarly in Russian, the preposition u meaning `in proximity to; in the possession of' (u m'en'a est' `I have' (`near-me is') is also used as an aspect marker of completion or inchoativeness: znat' `to know' vs. uznat' `come to know, realize'; snut' `to sleep' vs. usnut' `to fall asleep.'

An attempt to schematize these four elements as they semantically characterize the lexical verbs in question is shown in Tables 1 and 2:

Table 1: Lexical Verbs that serve as Sources for the Primarily Aspectual Markers:

	Stasis	Containment	Deixis	Antipathy
viDu 'leave'	-	-	+	-
vayyi 'put, place'		+	+	-
kiTTiru (no lexical analog)	₊	+	-	-
iru 'be (located)'	+			-
koo 'contain, hold'	+	+-		+-
aahu 'become'		+	-	-
poo 'go'	-	-	+	(+?)
vaa 'come' (usu. LT)		-	+	-

Table 2: Lexical Verbs that serve as Sources for the Primarily Attitudinal Aspect Markers:

	Stasis	Containment	Deixis	Antipathy
taLLu 'push'	-	-	+	-
pooDu 'drop, plunk'	-	+	+	+
kuDu 'give'	-	+	+	-
tole '(go to) ruin'	-	-	+	+

4.3 Primarily Aspectual Verbs

4.3.1 (v)iDu 'completive'. This aspectual verb contributes the semantic notion that an action was, is, or will be complete or definite. It is similar to aspectual verbs in other languages (Russian, Hindi, etc.) that impart the notion of 'perfective' (not perfect). Its lexical correlate is viDu 'leave, let.'[10]

Examples:

1. avan pooyTTaan
he went-compl-png

'He went away; he's definitely gone'

2. naan vand-iDreen
I come-compl-pres-png

'I am definitely coming; I'll come for sure.'

3. avane anuppuccuDu
him send-caus-compl-imp

'Send him away; get rid of him'

4. ade saappiTTuTTeen
it-acc eat-compl-past-png

'I ate it all up'

4.3.2 vayyi 'future utility'.

The aspectual verb vayyi [11] has a lexical analog vayyi 'take, put something somewhere for safekeeping'. It is usually used with transitive main verbs only (since the main verb vayyi is definitely transitive), but may occur with some intransitive verbs, such as siri 'laugh' (see example sentence 11 below). Other aspectual verbs (e.g. (v)iDu ) may follow vayyi , but when present vayyi always follows immediately after the adverbial participle (AVP) of the main verb. The aspectual metaphor conveyed by vayyi is the notion that some action is performed because it will have (usually useful or beneficial) future consequences; it is often translatable as 'in reserve' or 'up', e.g. 'stock up (on)', 'read up (on something), 'study up (on something)', 'lay in (or up) a stock of (something)', which in English also imply that an action is done with an eye to future consequences, or preemptively. In the examples below, the glossed portion within square brackets is not literally present in the Tamil sentence, but is given as one or more of the consequences that the use of vayyi implies.

5. taNNiire kuDiccu veppoom
water-acc drink fututil-fut-1pl

'We will tank up on water' [We will drink our fill of water so as to avoid future thirst.]

6. ammaa piLLengaLukku doose suTTu-veccaa
mother children-dat pancake heat-fututil-past-3sgfm

'The mother made dosas for the children [to eat later].' 'The mother cooked up some dosas [to have ready] for the children [to eat later].'

7. pooliiskiTTe edeyaavadu oLari- vekkaadee
police-to something-or-other babble-fututil-neg-imp

'Don't go blabbing anything to the police [Make sure to take precautions to avoid getting yourself into even more hot water later].'

8. naan naaye kaTTi-vekkalle
I dog-acc bind- fututil-neg

'I neglected to tie up the dog [and keep it from biting people, messing up people's yards, etc.].'

9. sundaram tan mahaLukku nalla eDattle kalyaaNam senju-veccaar
Sundaram his daughter-dat nice place-loc marriage did-fututil-past-3sg-epic

'Sundaram got his daughter married off well [i.e., nicely set up for the future].'

10. talevar kuuTTatte taLLi-veccaar
head-person assemblage-acc push-fututil-past-3sg-epic

'The chairman postponed the meeting […put off the meeting].'

11. DairekTar oru jook sonnaar; naan siriccu vecceen
Director a joke said; I laugh fututil-past-1sg

'The Director told a joke, and I laughed [dutifully, just in case.]'

12. kalyaaNa viiTTle tummi kimmi vecciDaadee
marriage house-loc sneeze echoredup fututil-compl-neg-imp.

'Don't do anything stupid like sneeze or anything during the wedding ceremony [Take steps to prevent inauspicious behaviors … avoiding bringing bad omens later].'

4.3.3 kiTTiru ‘durative’.

This AM has no single lexical analog, but is constructed from the two lexical verbs koL- ‘hold, contain’ and iru ‘be located’. In LT the combination of the AVP of koL, which is koNDu, plus iru gives koNDiru, but in ST this undergoes rather radical phonological reduction, and results, in non-Brahman dialect, in kiTTiru, and in Brahman dialect as –NDiru. In non-Brahman dialect, intervocalic –k- is also often deleted by the same process that deletes intervocalic –v-, so that in more rapid speech kiTTiru is often realized as –iTTiru.

Since this AM is constructed from koL and iru, examples are given below in sentences (43) through (47).

4.3.4 aahu 'expected result; finality'.

This aspectual verb has the lexical analog aahu 'become.' It is usually found only in the neuter past, i.e. aaccu. Suffixed to a main verb it expresses the notion that the action was expected, or occurred after a long wait, or as a regularly expected occurrence.

13. poosT vand-aaccu
mail came-xpreslt

'The mail has come [as it usually does by this time of day]'.

14. inda kaNakkuhaL-ellaam paatt-aaccu
this bills- all seen-xpreslt

'These bills have all been checked [as they were supposed to have been].'

15. saappiTT-aaccaa?
eat- xpreslt-q

'Have you eaten? [as you ought to have, given the time of day]'

4.3.5 vaa 'iterative; connected continuity'.

The aspectual verb vaa has a lexical analog vaa which means 'come'. The notion conveyed by aspectual vaa is that an occurrence is or was of long-standing duration, but more as a series of connected events (or waves of occurrences) rather than as uninterrupted continuity.[12] vaa may often express a kind of 'narrative' or 'historical' (or perhaps even 'mythological') past, describing an action that was common practice in a past time. Since it is only used in LT, the example(s) below are in LT rather than ST. [13]

16. (LT) anta   kaalattil   intiyaavil aneeka aracarkaL aaNTu vantaarkaL
                those times-in   India-in    many    kings         rule       iterat-past-3pl

'In those times, many kings were ruling in India.'

4.3.6 poo 'change of state'.

The aspectual verb poo resembles the lexical verb poo 'go' in its morphology. It is used to express the notion that a change of state has definitely taken place (or will definitely occur). As such it is aspectually completive but the main verbs to which it is attached always themselves contain some semantic notion of change; the addition of poo shows that the change is complete. Usually the net result is also judged to be unfortunate or undesirable, so that it must be (as an aspect marker) marked "+antipathy". Since states are thought of as ‘bounded entities’ (Lakoff and Johnson 1982), it is not surprising that changing states involves ‘motion’ (‘across the boundaries’) from one to another, which we also get in English in expressions like ‘go crazy, go bananas, go nuts, run amuck,’ etc.

17. avan settu poonaan
he died chgofst

'He died. [He is definitely dead, alas]'

            18. adu keTTu pooccu
              it    spoiled chgofst

‘It got spoiled (i.e., went bad).'

19. tuNiyellaam kaanju poohum
clothes-all dry chgofst ntr-fut

'The clothes will all get dry.'

4.4 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.

4.4.1 taLLu 'distributive', 'riddance', 'exdeixis'

The lexical verb that this aspectual verb 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 away all of one's wealth to the poor; it is thus usually undesirable, or the thing gotten rid of, was no longer wanted. There is also the notion that the recipients of this distribution are unspecified. That is, a sentence like raaman pustahangaLe kuDuttu taLLinaan 'Raman gave away his books' will not have a dative-marked recipient.

20. naan anda kaDidatte paDiccu taLneen
I that letter-acc read exdeix

'I read that letter [and got the task out of the way, over and done with.]

21. avan aDutta viiTTukkaaran vaangna kaDane eRudi taLnaan
he next house-person taken loan-acc wrote exdeix

'He wrote off [as a bad debt] the loan [taken, i.e.] owed [him] by his next-door neighbor.'

22. raajaa tan paNatte kuDuttu taLnaan.
king his money-acc give exdeix

'The king gave away all his money [‘i.e. to the poor, rather than to his heirs]'

4.4.2 pooDu 'malicious intent.'

This verb has an analogous lexical verb pooDu which means 'put, drop, plop (down); 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 appropriate as used for serving food, since in India in order to avoid contact, and ritual 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 others the main notion implied by the use of pooDu is that speakers treat other speakers' motives as involving careless disregard for the likes and desires of others, malice, etc. When bad motives are being attributed, the most felicitous English translations for these AV's are with expletives or pejorative adjectives, etc. Thus the "+ antipathy" marking for this AV.

22. neettu      varakkuuDaadu-NNu sonneenee.     aanaa, neettu       paattu
yesterday come-neg-necess-qt said-emph.    but,      yesterday deliberately

vandu-pooTTaanga.

came-malice -tense-png

'I told them not to come yesterday, but they deliberately came anyway [the jerks!]'

23. tiruDanga en naaye koNNupooTTaanga
thieves my dog-acc kill-malice-tense-png

'[Those (expletive deleted)] thieves [deliberately and maliciously] went and killed my dog.'

24. koRande taaLe kiRiccu pooTTadu
child paper-acc tear malice-tense-png

'The child [carelessly] tore the paper.'

25.    avan ajaakkradeyaa kadave     tirandu pooTTuTTu pooyirukkaan
         he     carelessly         door-acc opened malice          go-perf-png

'He has gone out, inconsiderately leaving the door ajar.'

4.4.3 tole impatience, disgust.

This verb is related to the lexical verbs tole (2 intr 'come to an end, die, be ruined') and tole (6b tr, 'finish, exhaust, destroy, kill, rout') and as such, the AM has both a transitive and intransitive version.[14] The use of the AV tole expresses the speaker's impatience, antipathy, or even disgust with another person's actions, and in some cases, even their general personal attributes. In English this would often be translated by some expletive, or pejorative adjective ('the dumb kid', 'the rotten bastard').[15] Even though this AV expresses impatience and disgust, 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.

26. tiisas innum muDiccu tolekkalleyaa ?
thesis still finish impat-neg-q

'Haven't you finished [that troublesome] thesis yet [slowpoke]?'

27. pooy-tole, engeyaavadu pooy-tole
go-impat-imp, somewhere go-impat-imp

'Oh all right go on, go, go somewhere, [what the hell].'

28. ade saappiTTuTTu pooy- tolenga!
it-acc eat-compl go- impat-polimp

'Please eat it and go! [or there'll be even more botheration.]

29. kaaru tondaravu kuDuttu-kiTTirundadu; ade viTTu toleccuTTeen.
car trouble give- durative-past it-acc abandon-impat-compl-past-png

'My car was giving me trouble; I sold the [dumb] thing [and was rid of it.]

30. avan sondakkaaranaa veeru irundu tolekkraan
he kinsman-adv moreover be- impat-pres-png

'He happens to be a relative of mine [so there's no way to get out of helping the jerk.]

31. ellaarum biir kuDikka Num -NNaanga. naanum kuDiccu tolecceen
everyone beer drink must they-said. I-also drink -impat-past-png

'Everyone was [expected to be] drinking beer [which I don't like but] I drank some too [to get it over with and avoid making a fuss.]

32. avan namma viSayatte DairakTarkiTTe solli-tolecciTTaan
he our matter-acc director-to say-impat-compl-past-png

'[Mr. Bigmouth] has blabbed [spilled the beans/let the cat out of the bag] about our [little] caper to the Director [and now we’re in for it.]'

4.4.4 The aspectual verb koo.

One of the most complex of the Tamil aspectual verbs is koo, derived from the lexical verb koo (LT koL-) which means 'hold, contain'. In LT and in ST, lexical koL occurs usually with neuter subjects only, i.e. sentences in which something holds or contains something, not someone. Lexical koL does occur as an AVP with verbs of motion poo 'go' and vaa 'come', and the combination koNDupoo and koNDuvaa mean 'take (something)' (i.e. 'hold and go') and 'bring (something)' (i.e. 'hold and come') respectively. Since lexical koL is a class I verb, with present koreen, [16] past kiTTeen, and future koveen, these are also the forms for aspectual koo. Its AVP is kiTTu. The phonology of the spoken form of this AV is much more different from its LT counterpart than could be predicted by regular historical or morphophonemic rules, and moreover varies tremendously from dialect to dialect; in some dialects there is a present form kiDreen and infinitive kiDa that are back-formations from the past kiTTu. In other dialects the AVP is –NDu, from LT koNDu with deleted intervocalic –k-.[17]

4.4.4.1 Aspectual distinctions

The aspectual verb koo can provide a number of aspectual distinctions to a sentence. Traditionally (Arden 1942:282 ff.) it is referred to as a 'reflexive' verb, but this is hardly the best analysis of its meaning. Some of the notions provided by aspectual koo are:

1. Self-affective or self-benefactive action. [18]

2. Simultaneous action: one action occurring together with another action; sometimes these actions are wholly coterminous, but at other times it merely states that some portion of the time of the two actions overlapped.

3. Completive aspect: indicates that an action is, has been, or will be definite and complete(d); but even when completive aspectual distinctions are provided, the meaning is always more than it would be if the AM (v)iDu were provided.

4. Inchoative vs. Punctual. koo is used with a number of stative verbs to indicate that a state has begun or been entered into.

5. Lexicalization. Sometimes koo has only marginal lexical or aspectual value of its own, and is attached to verb stems that no longer occur alone as bare stems. It therefore serves as a lexicalizing suffix for these verbs.

6. Purposeful vs. accidental. Use of this AM sometimes indicates that the action was purposeful and volitional; or, (paradoxically) the action was accidental, depending on what is considered to be culturally appropriate.

4.4.4.2 Self-affective or self-benefactive action.

Self-affective or self-benefactive action is action that affects the subject of the sentence in some way, usually to his/her benefit, but sometimes not in any clearly beneficial way. (This is what has been called 'reflexive' by other grammarians, but is not an adequate description of many of its uses.) Sometimes the benefaction is clearly for someone else, as in (39) below. Beyond the benefaction, koo is essentially a completive aspect marker as well, since whatever else happens, the implication is that the action was definitely accomplished. Compare sentences with and without koo such as

33. kumaar veele teeDinaan, aanaa keDekkalle

'Kumar looked for a job, but didn't find one.'

and

34. kumaar veele teeDikkiTTaan

'Kumar looked for a job and found one'

The latter implies completion, so cannot be followed by …aanaa keDekkalle
`… but didn't find one' without contradiction. Other examples [19] of uses of the AM koo are

35. payyan tanne aDiccu-kiTTaan.
boy self-acc. beat- benef-past-png

'The boy hit himself.'

36. raaman saTTe pooTTu- koraan.
Raman shirt-acc. put- benef-pres-png

'Raman dresses himself.'

37. naan paNatte eDuttu-kiTTeen.
I money-acc take- benef-past-png

'I took the money for myself.'

38. niinga paattu-koonga!
you see- benef-imp

'Watch out (for yourself)!'

39. nii koRandengaLe paattu-kaNum
you children-acc see- benef-must

'You need to take care of (watch) the children.'

40. kumaar nallaa naDandu-kiTTaan
Kumar well conduct-benef-past-png

'Kumar behaved well.'

41. raamasaami muDiye veTTi-kiTTaan
Ramaswamy hair cut- benef-past-png

'Ramasamy cut his hair (on purpose)'.

42. raamasaami kayye veTTi-kiTTaan
Ramaswamy hand-acc cut- benef-past-png

'Ramasamy cut his hand (by accident)'.

If the example (37) did not contain aspectual koo, i.e. were simply naan paNatte eDutteen, the meaning would be 'I took the money (but not for myself, i.e. I transported it somewhere for someone else.') The accidental and volitional meanings of koo are somewhat problematical, since the last two examples above ([41] and [42]) can also be reversed, i.e., Ramaswamy cut his hair by accident and Ramaswamy cut his hand on purpose, but since this is not what one usually expects of people, the expected result is the preferred interpretation.[20] The decision as to whether an action was deliberate or accidental depends on how society valorizes the effect. In this case, South Asian society valorizes deliberate hair-cutting and devalorises deliberate mutilation of one's body, unless done for religious reasons.

4.4.4.3 Durative or Continuative Action.

Durative or continuous action similar to the 'progressive' construction verb+ing in English, is expressed in Tamil by combining koo in its AVP form kiTTu with the 'stative' aspectual verb iru, i.e. kiTTiru, and affixing this to the AVP of a main verb: vandu+kiTT-irundeen 'I was com-ing.' Thus the 'containment' semanteme combined with the 'stasis' semanteme results in 'continuous, durative action,' similar to English 'holding' as a metaphor for continuing to wait (on the telephone, above congested airports, etc.)

43. ellaarum peesi- kiTTiru-ndaanga
all speak- durative-were

'Everyone was talking.'

44. raaman saappiTTu-kiTTiru-kkaaru
Raman eat- durative-perf-png

'Raman is eating.'

45. kamalaa vanda poodu, naan paDiccu-kiTTiru-ndeen
Kamala came when, I read-durative-tense-png

'When Kamala arrived, I was reading.'

46. koRande eeRu maNikkuLLee tuungi-kiTTiru-kkum
child seven o’clock-within sleep- durative-will-be

'By 7:00, the child will be sleeping.'

47. engee pooy-kiTTiru-kkiinga?

where go-durative-pres-png

'Where are you going?'

48. en kaaru tondaravu kuDuttu-kiTTirundadu
my car trouble give- durative-past

My car was giving me a lot of trouble.

4.4.4.4 Inchoative and Punctual notions.

We have already introduced the notion that koo can serve as a marker of the beginning of a new state or action. This emphasizes the point of beginning, rather than the duration of the state. With stative verbs that require the dative (e.g. teri 'know', puri 'understand'), the addition of koo emphasizes the point (hence punctual) of beginning to understand or know. Erstwhile dative-stative verb stems with koo affixed become nominative-subject action verbs. Examples of contrast between verbs without koo are labeled (a) below, and examples with koo are labeled (b) below:

49a. adu enakku teriyum
that to-me known

'I know that.'

49b. naan ade terinjukiTTeen
I that-acc know-inchoat-past-png

'I realized (came to know; found out) that'

50a. avar solradu ungaLukku puriyumaa
he says-thing to-you understand-q

'Do you understand what he says?'

50b. avar solradu purinju- kiTTiingaLaa?
he says-thing understand-inchoat past-png-q

'Did you (finally) understand what he is talking about? (Do you get it?)

51a. okkaarunga
sit-imp-polite

'Please remain seated.'

51b. okkaandukoonga
sit-inchoat-polite

'Please be seated; please sit down' (Please enter the state of being seated.)

5. Getting to Aspect.

The crux of the matter here is how do we get from deixis, stasis, antipathy, and containment to aspect, in particular, how does it happen that so many of the aspectual markers contain a notion of perfectiveness (which I also refer to as completive or definite)? Moreover, we have not fully specified what kinds of deixis pertain in the various source verbs, and how these different types get transformed or metaphorized into semantic values of various sorts, that we are calling aspectual.

Let us take the easy part first: stasis easily transforms into duration; states of various sorts, or any kind of stative/static element makes sense as a durative or continuous aspect marker. Deixis and containment, however, are more complex. For starters, deixis has to be specified as to whether the motion is away from or toward ego, and whether it is up or down. For convenience, let us use the following conventions:

Table 3: Motion and Ego:

Direction re: Ego	Symbol	Meaning
Away from Ego:	E4	Lateral Exdeixis
Up/away from Ego:	E5	Vertical Exdeixis
Down to Ego:	E6	Downward Addeixis
Towards Ego:	E3	Lateral Addeixis

As we have already noted, it is typical in many languages for there to be orientational metaphors such that good is up and bad is down (Lakoff and Johnson 1980:16) so any verb in Tamil that contains any element of descending deixis, i.e. E6, will be valued negatively or antipathetically. Thus tole and pooDu both (as lexical verbs) express notions of descending deixis, and are thus, as aspectual markers, used to express antipathy. Similarly, lateral exdeixis, or motion away from speaker, is part of the meaning of a number of the lexical source verbs, such as vayyi 'put away for safekeeping' and taLLu 'push, shove.' These seem to be a subset of the up is good/good is up metaphor, i.e. foreseeable future events are up (and ahead). Getting things 'put away' for safekeeping, or 'pushed away' and gotten rid of gives Ego control over the future, and these seem to be therefore positively valued when used as aspectual markers.

This does not hold for all types of lateral exdeixis, however, since poo, which indicates a change of state and uses the verb poo 'go' as its lexical source, generally is negatively valued, since the changes of state involved may themselves be negatively valued: death, spoilage, breakage, etc. On the other hand, drying (kaanju poo) is usually desirable, as when the expectation is that laundry hung out to dry will dry.

Lateral addeixis, or motion toward ego (E3), is problematical. Being the opposite of lateral exdeixis, which is positively valued, means logically that it should be negatively valued, but that it is not always its meaning in Tamil. The AV vaa, which has its lexical source in the verb vaa 'come' has a meaning of iterative or repetitive continuity, i.e. an action that comes ‘toward’ the speaker from the past, as it were. The 'benefactive' AV kuDu, however, based on the lexical verb kuDu 'give' certainly involves E3 i.e. goods and services flowing towards Ego. It is perhaps worth noting that Lakoff and Johnson do not have a ready metaphor for this kind of time/motion relationship. It is also perhaps useful to remember that though some actions can be perceived as invasive, annoying, and threatening, etc. as personal space is invaded or encroached upon, other approaches or movements into personal space can be pleasant, agreeable, and beneficial, if culturally or personally they are so perceived. It could also be noted that when ‘come’ is used aspectually in other languages, e.g. in French, its meaning is ‘immediate past’ as in il vient d’arriver [he come arrive-inf] ‘he has just arrived.’

6. Summarizing so far:

This summary of what is known about Tamil aspect is not meant to be exhaustive; it may never be possible to encapsulate all that can be said about this issue. But we do seem to be able to make the following generalizations:

6.1.1. There seems to be a category of aspect that must be recognized for Tamil that involves a continuum of grammaticalization from none (i.e. purely lexical or syntactic concatenation) to full-fledged morphologization.

6.1.2. Most dialects (and the Literary Language) recognize a subset of aspectual markers that are clearly aspectual, and have little or no overlap with their lexical analogs. Indeed, the lexical verb can often be followed by its corresponding aspectual verb.

6.1.3. Most dialects also show a set of aspectual verbs that involve a component of aspect, but also an attitudinal notion of some sort. This set varies more from dialect to dialect, but nevertheless language-wide and even family-wide features are shared. For example, Tamil pooDu 'malicious intent' (lexically 'put') has as its analog in Kannada the verb haaku, which has the same aspectual and lexical meanings in Kannada, even though the two verbs are quite different phonologically. This seems to be a feature of the Indian linguistic area that has been noted for many languages, i.e. the lexical-aspectual-attitudinal polarity will be found in languages as different as Tamil and Bengali; one even notes some carryover into Indian English.

6.1.4. Theories of syntax that require categorical rules, or fixed grammaticality cannot capture generalizations about aspect in these languages.

6.1.5. In the case of clearly-aspectual auxiliaries, we often find that they are phonologically different from their lexical analogs, having undergone certain phonological rules that do not apply to lexical verbs because the conditions for their application are not met there. Phonological rules that operate across morpheme boundaries of concatenated verbs do not have the same application when what is concatenated is a verb and an aspectual verb.[21]

6.1.6. The role of metaphor is clearly visible in the development of aspectual verbs in Tamil; without it we can only with difficulty describe what kind of process is going on, and in the verbs that are what we call 'attitudinal', the metaphoric extension from the lexical meaning to the 'attitudinal' one is the only explanation we have of how the meaning is changing. When the grammaticalization process is complete, however, metaphor is no longer operative; the new aspectual verb is totally functional grammatically, and no longer relies on metaphor for its meaning, though the role of metaphor in the development of the verb in question is clear in retrospect.[22]

7. Pragmatic Considerations.

Another variable feature of Tamil aspectual verbs is that there are pragmatic considerations that are involved in the choice of whether aspect can occur or not. Since aspect is not an obligatory category, it may or not be present. However, there is a tendency not to mark aspectual distinctions in certain constructions, even if they might be technically grammatical. The reasons for this are pragmatic ones, having to do with politeness, shared perceptions, the nature of truth propositions, etc. There is also a tendency to use aspectual marking to add speaker commentary to the sentence, even with the 'purely' aspectual markers, but especially with the attitudinal ones.

7.1 Aspect marking is an optional category; unlike tense or some other obligatory categories, its marking in Tamil is not required. There is a polarity of going/coming, known and unknown, culturally correct and incorrect.

7.1.2 Aspect marking occurs most often in positive declarative sentences, rarely in negative, except that it is common in both positive and negative imperative constructions.

7.1.3 Even in non-attitudinal aspect-marking, aspect marking can be used expressively to comment, to deprecate, etc. We have already noted the form kattiru 'be learning', whose illocutionary force is sarcastic or ironic.[23]

7.1.4 Aspect may be bi-polar, and paradoxical, meaning 'intentional' in one context and 'accidental' in another. ('Ramaswamy cut his finger/hair')

7.2. Grammaticalization

I claim that it is in the theoretical literature on grammaticalization (e.g. Harper and Traugott 1993) that we can find an answer deal with the verbal category of aspect. Most analyses of VAM in languages I am familiar with have dealt with aspectual verbs as if they were simply a special kind of verb with special syntactic properties, rather than a morphological marking of an obligatory or optional category.

This approach has characterized most previous analyses (including my own). But as the result of a study of certain phonological processes that seem to apply only word-internally in Tamil, however, I had to conclude ( Schiffman 1993) that in spoken Tamil, verbal aspect marking, once explainable as a syntactic process, has become morphological; since verbal aspect marking is clearly not inflectional in the same way that e.g. tense-marking is, it almost seems to be more of a derivational process than an inflectional one.[24] The fact that the evidence for this is phonological is problematical, but the very absence of the phonological reduction (e.g. intervocalic v- and k- deletion) in Literary Tamil has meant that verbal aspect marking can be handled as a syntactic phenomenon with impunity in LT.[25] And in fact, most syntactic studies of verbal aspect marking (e.g. Steever 1983, Annamalai 1978, Dale 1975) have relied on data from LT, rather than ST. Had these studies used the spoken language for data, they would, I believe, have been forced to draw slightly different conclusions.[26] In the history and structure of a language, a lot can happen in seven centuries and as far as verbal aspect marking is concerned, the difference seems to be that the process of grammaticalization of this category has made radical progress since the time LT was last codified, i.e. in the 13th century.

What does the evidence from studies of grammaticalization in general offer this analysis in particular? Let us review some of the characteristics of grammaticalization, the process by which lexical items become grammatical morphemes in various languages.

7.2.1 Grammaticalization is a common process involving verbal items that are recruited to function as modals, auxiliaries, or to express aspectual distinctions in some way.[27]

7.2.2. Grammaticalization may be more widespread if data from spoken languages is considered, rather than data from their written versions, and especially if diglossia is involved. Newly grammaticalized modals in English like `gonna’, ‘gotta’, 'sposeta' and 'hafta' (derived, of course from ‘be going to, have got to, be supposed to’ and ‘have to’, respectively), are found with those pronunciations in vernacular English, but tend to be replaced by other items, e.g. `must, should, be going to’ in written English.

7.2.3. The process is gradual, lasting perhaps centuries, but retaining semantic traces of the lexical past and its history, but the meaning of the item remains polysemous even when fully grammaticalized.

7.2.4. Phonologically, newly-grammaticalized material operates differently than the old lexical item: [hæftƏ] instead of have to, [spostƏ] instead of supposed to, be going to is replaced by [gonna] except when 'motion toward' is meant:

52a. He's gonna go to the store.

but not

52b. * He's gonna the store [= He's going to the store.]

Formal grammatical descriptions of languages in which grammaticalization is ongoing, and not yet codified, tend to ignore the process and give information only about the older norm(s); the existence of newer developments may be used or noted humorously (as in cartoons, jokes, etc.), but are not taken seriously. Or, prescriptivism may prevail, and the spoken forms treated as ‘ungrammatical, non-standard’, etc. As we can see, then, the aspectual system of spoken Tamil exhibits many of the signs of grammaticalization:

7.3.1. The system shows great variability in syntax, morphology, and phonology. No one set of rules (e.g. phonological, sociolinguistic) can account for all of the kinds of variability. In particular, phonological ‘reduction’ is seen to proceed further in grammaticalized items than in ‘regular’ forms, i.e. the ‘regular’ phonological rules cannot explain forms like kiTTu.

7.3.2. There are more aspectual verbs in modern ST than in LT, and aspectually-marked verbs are more common in the ST data than in LT.

7.3.3. Verbs all have lexical analogs, but those that are more grammaticalized exhibit more phonological deviance (i.e. phonological reduction) from the lexical form.

7.3.4 There is idiolectal, dialectal and pragmatic variation, but none of these types of variation explains everything, and some kinds of variation are not due to any of these, but come out of the variability of the grammaticalization process.

7.3.5 The most grammaticalized of the AM's (such as (v)iDu) are quite uniform in their regularity and freedom of occurrence, and have few if any attitudinal nuances; less fully-grammaticalized AM's retain semantic notions that are commentarial and judgmental, and hence highly variable. This is what researchers in grammaticalization refer to as being ‘speaker-centered’ or ‘expressive’ i.e., the motivation to develop new grammatical forms comes out of speakers’ desire to express things that they feel can not be easily expressed using the older forms.

7.3.6 What could easily be explained as part of the syntactic system in LT can now best be explained as a more morphological one in ST, as in fact grammaticalization exactly specifies that material that was previously separate (lexically and syntactically) has become part of the morphology, i.e. the internal grammar of the verbal word, and not the verb phrase. This is also revealed by phonological processes that show that certain rules must be considered to be word-internal, and that the aspect markers that show word-internal phonological reductions are thus part of the morphology, since these reductions (e.g. v-deletion) cannot occur across word boundaries.

8. References

[1] Annamalai, E. 1985 The Dynamics of Verbal Extension in Tamil. Trivandrum: Dravidian Linguistics Association.

[2] Arden, A. H. 1942. a Progressive Grammar of Tamil. Madras: Christian Literature Society.

[3] Boroditsky, Lera. 2002. ‘Metaphoric structuring: understanding time through spatial metaphors.’ In Cognition 75:1-28.

[4] Dale, Ian. 1975. Tamil Auxiliary Verbs. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

[5] Emeneau, M. B. 1956. "India as a Linguistic Area." Language.

[6] Hopper, Paul, and Elizabeth Traugott. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[7] Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[8] Schiffman, Harold F. 1969. A Transformational Grammar of the Tamil Aspectual System studies in Linguistics and Language Learning, Vol. 8, Dept. of Linguistics, U. of Washington, Seattle.

[9]. __________________. 1993: ``Intervocalic V-deletion in Tamil: Its Domains and its Constraints. " Journal of the American Oriental Society 113(4):513-528.

[10] ___________________ 1972 "The aspectual marker iru." Journal of Tamil Studies 6,2:31-43.

[11] ___________________ 1999. A Reference Grammar of Spoken Tamil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[12] Steever, Sanford B. 1983. A Study in Auxiliation: the Grammar of the Indicative Auxiliary Verb System of Tamil. Unpublished University of Chicago Ph.D. Dissertation.