LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 9 : 2 February 2009
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
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         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         K. Karunakaran, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.

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AGREEMENT IN TAMIL AND TELUGU

A. Boologarambai, Ph.D.

INTRODUCTION

The system of agreement in any language is a vital grammatical phenomenon. Earlier both the terms agreement and concord were used as if they are synonyms.

John Lyons 1968: p.239 describes concord as a kind of inflection. Agreement may be studied with reference to morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic levels of the language.

Moravcsik 1978: p.333 defines agreement as "a grammatical constituent A will be said to agree with a grammatical constituent B in properties C in language L, if C is a set of meaning-related properties of constituent B across some subset of the sentences of language L, where constituent B1 is adjacent to B and the meaning related non-categorical properties of constituent B1 are the properties of C".

The present paper highlights the variations in the agreement system between Tamil and Telugu, two genetically related languages of the family of Dravidian languages. Though Tamil and Telugu belong to the same language family, they show variations in agreement system in addition to the similarities between these two languages.

The following table shows the agreement markers of Tamil and Telugu briefly.

AGREEMENT MARKERS IN TAMIL AND TELUGU

Tamil Telugu
Person Singular Plural Singular Plural
I een oom nu mu
II aay iir/iirkaL vu ru
III aan/aaL/tu aar/aarkaL/na Du/di ru

Examples from Tamil and Telugu

avarkaL vantaarkaL waaru vacceeru "They (Human) came"
TamilTelugu
naan vanteen neenu vacceenu "I came"
naam vantoom manamu vacceemu "We (inclu.) came"
naankaL vantoom meemu vacceemu "We (Exclu.) came"
nii vantaay nuvvu vacceevu "You came"
niinkaL vantiirkaL miiru vacceeru "You (pl.) came"
avan vantaan waaDu vacceeDu "He came"
avaL vantaaL adi vaccindi "She came"
adu vantatu adi vaccindi "It came"
avar vantaar waaru vacceeru "He (Hon.) came"
avai vantana avi vaccaayi "They (Non-Human) came"

Third Person and Agreement

There are two more forms for third person Masculine and Feminine 'atanu/aayana', 'aame/aawiDa' in Telugu to indicate the degree of respect. These forms have the agreement marker -ru and have the variants -Du and -di in spoken language.

Examples from Telugu

Atanu/aayana vacceeDu/vacceeru "He came"
Aamee/aawiDa vaccindi/vacceeru "She came"
Prestigious Forms and Agreement

In Tamil and Telugu the most prestigious forms are 'taankaL' and 'tamaru' which mean "You (Hon.)". These forms have the agreement markers -iirkaL and -ru.

Examples from Tamil and Telugu

Tamil
taankaL vantiirkaL "You (Hon.) came"

Telugu
tamaru vacceeru "You (Hon.) came"

Plural Marker in Agreement

In Tamil the plural marker -kaL not only functions as plural marker but also functions as an agreement marker. But in Telugu the plural marker -lu cannot function as an agreement marker.

Examples from Tamil and Telugu

Tamil
mantirikaL vantarkaL "The Ministers came"

Telugu
mantrulu vacceeru "The Ministers came"

In the sentence 'intira kaanti vantaarkaL "Indira Gandhi came" The third person singular noun Indira Gandhi takes the plural agreement marker -aarkaL (Plural agreement marker -ar+ the plural marker -kaL) due to socio-cultural reasons. But in Telugu the above sentence takes the honorific marker gaaru after the proper noun intira kaanti and takes the honorific agreement marker -ru but it does not take the plural marker -lu as in the sentence 'intira kaanti gaaru vacceeru' (Te.).

Conjoined and Collective Nominals and Agreement

Like this the conjoined nominal and collective nominal take the plural agreement + the plural marker -kaL in Tamil. But in Telugu the above-said two nominal take the plural agreement but not the plural marker -lu.

Example from Tamil and Telugu

Tamil
avanum avaLum vantaarkaL "He and she came"

Telugu
waaDu aame vacceeru "He and she came"
Tamil
makkaL vantaarkaL "People came."

Telugu
manishulu vacceru "People came."

Titles and Agreement

In Tamil, popular persons like 'amaiccar' "Minister", 'tuNai veentar' "Vice-Chancellor", 'janaadipathi' "President" etc., have the plural form 'avarkaL.' This form means "They." It also functions as honorific form. It has the plural agreement marker -kaL. This third person pronoun avarkaL is morphologically segmental. But in Telugu 'mantri' - "Minister" 'upaadiyakshulu' - "Vice-Chancellor" 'raastrapathi' - "President" etc., have the honorific form -waaru/-gaaru. These forms are the honorific forms and not the plural forms.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Development of Stroop Effect in Bilinguals | Subtlety, Mockery and Dharma in Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel | Language Alternation Strategies in Nigerian Hip Hop and Rap Texts | Faithfulness and Adequacy in Translation - A Case Study of the Translation of a Poem Written by Bharathiar | Indianized English in Shashi Deshpande's That Long Silence | Naipaul's Perception of India | Teaching English Word Formation in Academic Writing - Analysis and Remedy | Sabotaged Submission - Interpreting the Role of Women in Scriptures | Socio-economic Profile of Women Prisoners | Study on the Levels of Living of Self-help Groups in Coimbatore District, with Particular Reference to Thondamuthur and Perianaicken Palayam Blocks | Agreement in Tamil and Telugu | Etymological Analysis for Some Words of Body Parts in Semitic Languages (Especially in Arabic & Hebrew) | HOME PAGE of February 2009 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR

Arpudha Boologarambai, Ph.D.
Department of Tamil and Translation Studies
Dravidian University
Kuppam 517 425
Andhra Pradesh, India
arpudha_1@yahoo.co.in

 
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