LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:7 July 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Structural and Functional Significance of Participles and Finite Verb Forms in
Modern Tamil for Language Teaching-Learning Method

Dr. R. Velmurugan

Abstract

This paper discusses the structural and functional significance of participles and verb forms in Modern Tamil. The focus of this paper is on identifying the structural and semantic aspects of participles and finite verb forms to help teach and learn Tamil. Examples from current usage are provided along with an introduction to participles in traditional Tamil grammars. Occurrence of participles and finite verbs in various forms are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Participles, finite verb forms, modern Tamil, use of participles and finite verb forms in teaching and modern Tamil

Participles in Tamil – an Introduction

Participles are non-infinite verb forms in Tamil and Tamil grammars refer them as ecca?kal? (Tolkappiyam, 1994). Participles are in immediate constituent relationship with the following finite verb in a phrase or sentence except the relative / adjective participle form which has IC relationship with the following noun. Participle expects a finite verb or noun to terminate the sentence in which it occurs. However, in languages like English a relative pronoun (forms like which, that, who, where, etc.) connects the noun and the following participle form as in the song that she sang, the student who answered the questions, etc. Participles have both affirmative and negative distinctions in their occurrences. Moreover, Tamil relative participle forms can take gender-number suffixes (Karunakaran, 1971) as well, and all such forms are tested as participial nouns/conjugated nouns – affirmative or negative. It is also possible to add some of the particles denoting place, time, manner, etc. (po?utu, u?a?e, pa?i, etc.) to the relative forms and expand them. All such forms are termed as temporal participle 1, temporal participle 2, place participle, manner participle, etc.

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

Dr. R. Velmurugan
Senior Lecturer
Asian Languages and Cultures
National Institute of Education
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore 637616
velmurugan.r@nie.edu.sg
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