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Next: Pronoun Deletion Up: Pronouns and Agreement Previous: Neuter forms.

Sandhi

The consonants in parentheses are deleted when in word-final position, e.g., Ç ؽÔÅÔ ava pooraa `she goes', but are present if suffixes are added, e.g., ÇÂë¡Þ avalukku `to her' or Ç ؽÔÅÔÄÔ? ava pooraalaa? `Does she go?' Inanimate nouns are never marked for plural, but always take the neuter singular---there is no way of referring to more than one such noun without numerals or (optional) plural marker, e.g., Çÿ» ×Àýà ½öÓöú Çõ×´ Ø½Ô«ß anda rentu bassu anke pooccu `Those two buses went there.' Note that the verb `(to) be` Éç iru has a different PNG form than other verbs in the neuter present, i.e., the expected form Éç¡ÞÅâ is usually replaced by irukku `it is' or by Éç¡´â irukk-adu. (In the past the expected form Éçÿ»â irundadu `it was' is unproblematical.)



Harold_F.Schiffman