Tamil Language Through the Ages-(Early Period to Later Sangam Period).

Courtesy: Published in the proceedings of International Conference on Recent Advances in Linguistics (ICRAL), held in the Department of Linguistics, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore.

TAMIL LANGUAGE THROUGH THE AGES

(Early Period to Later Sangam Period)

Dr. A. Kamatchi

Assistant Professor

CAS in Linguistics

Annamalai University

kamatchi_au@yahoo.co.in

Introduction

In the world, there was/is no language without changes.  There have been changes being taken place automatically in every language time to time, of course.  In the same way, Tamil, too, faced many changes through the ages from early period to contemporary period.  Historically speaking, there are languages which have gone not to exist in the world only because of not accepting the changes.  There were changes in writing system of Tamil, phonology, Morphology, syntax and semantics.  Thus the present paper attempts to highlight the categories which had gotten the changes in the components of the language through the ages from early period to the later Sangam period.

Changing in Writing System

There were many changes taken place in the writing system from the early stage to present day language.  Accordingly, for instance, there were no symbols for short vowels, e and o.  Only after four or five centuries later than the early period, the symbols of short vowels of them were distinguished by getting dot on their respective symbols of long vowels to differentiate from the long to the short vowels, according to Brahmi Tamil.  

While we are talking about the Brahmi scripts, it is important to note that they are divided into two kinds of Brahmi – Northern Brahmi and Southern Brahmi.  The latter kind is further subdivided into two – early Tamil Brahmi and later Tamil Brahmi.  

Short and Long Vowels of e and o

It is noticed that there has been no primary symbol for the short vowel o throughout the period of Brahmi Tamil and however, there has been dot on the symbol to represent the secondary vowel of o in the later Brahmi Tamil period of 3^rd century A.D.  As far as the symbol of short vowel e is concerned, the symbol for the e is not attested in the early Brahmi Tamil period and also until the period of 3^rd century A.D.  Its attestation is noticed only in the 4^th century A.D.  Coming to primary and secondary symbols, the former one is attested only in the period of 4the century A.D.  whereas the latter one occurred in the period of 5^th century A.D.  However, in the medieval period, the system of putting the dot on the symbol to distinguish the long versus short was missing, of course.  However, the context alone determines the long and the short vowels of e and o. 

Dipthong au and ai

Linguistically speaking, in both the early and later Tamil Brahmi, there was no symbol for the dipthong au.   In the same way, there has been no primary symbol for dipthong ai until the period of 6^th century A. D., according to the paleography evidences although its secondary symbol is attested even in the early Brahmi period of 3^rd century B.C. 

Consonants   

No language in the world gets dot on the symbols to represent consonant category in the writing system.  But such system is available only in Tamil.  Putting the dot on the symbols was developed only after the period of 2^nd century A.D. in Tamil language.  Though such type of system had existed in the language of Tamil in the early inscriptional Tamil, this system has not prevailed in mediaeval period as well as until the nineteenth century A.D. The reason why this system is missing in these periods may be only because the palm leaves might have damaged when one could put the dot on it.  Therefore in these periods, the representation of consonant was determined according to the context identified by the word which means its meaning.

Phonology

Phonemes and Combination of Consonant and Vowel in Distribution

            The consonant y occurs only with the vowel aa in initial position in Tolkaappiyam period , according to Tolkaappiyam sutras.  But, in addition to this vowel, the vowels such as a and uu also began to occur in Sangam Tamil, as in the examples like yavanar and yuukam, respectively.  Considering the later Sangam period, the vowel oo also occurs with the consonant y in this period, as in the case of yookam. 

            As far as the distribution of c is concerned, the phoneme c occurs with all the vowels except the vowels such as a, ai and au in the initial position.  Nonetheless, in Sangam period, its occurrence was also with the vowels a and ai.  In other words, the vowel au alone did not occur with the consonant, c, in the initial position.  Concerning the distribution of ñ, in the initial position, this consonant occurs only with the vowels aa, e and o in Tolkaappiyam period.  In Sangam period, however, the consonant ñ occurs also with the vowels a and i in addition to the vowels which have been mentioned earlier. 

            Until the Sangam stage, there had been no word with initial consonant r.  From the later Sangam period onwards, the word with initial r started to occur in Tamil, as in iraaman and iraavaNan.  Actually, such type of words was borrowed from other languages and tamilized in the language. Nonetheless, this type of words always occurs with the vowel, i, in initial. The reason why these words are getting this vowel in the initial position is that as pointed out earlier, the structure of early Tamil did not allow the consonant r in the initial position of the word and also it should maintain the language structure.  At the same time, the language should fulfill its needs so that the language should accept the words borrowed from the other languages as well.         

In the same way, the lateral consonant l is not allowed to enter into the initial position until the period of Sangam age.  From the later Sangam period onwards, its initial position was gradually permitted to use it in the initial position.  As a result, we see the words like lookam in the later Sangam texts. 

Among the eighteen consonants in Tamil, ten consonants – N, n, m, ṉ, y, r, l, v, l,  and L  - occur in final position of the word, according to Tolkaappiyam.  All the same, in Sangam period, one more consonant, ñ, not occurring in the final position in Tolkaappiyam period, started to occur in this position in Sangam period.

Morphology

Tense

In Tolkaappiyam period, there are three tenses – past, present and future – according to Tolkaappiyam sutras.  Though it mentions three tenses, it does not point out what are the tense markers in Tamil in Tolkaappiyam period.   But, in contrast to this statement made by Tolkaappiyar, there are only two tenses – past and nonpast – in Sangam period, according to the findings by modern linguists working in the field of classical Tamil.  When we go to Brahmi Tamil, it is evidently pointed out that the past tense markers are elaborately attested in the Brahmi Tamil but only one occurrence with future marker is attested in this corpus.  Although modern linguists pointed out that only two tenses – past and nonpast – occur in Sangam period, the very rare occurrence of present tense marker is, however, attested in three times in Narrinai.  Though the number of occurrence in NaRRinai is three, its finite verb form is only one, i.e. aakinRatu, ‘becomes it’.  But in ParipaaTal text, this marker comes along with other verb root, ceer, like ceerkinRa ‘which joins’, the occurrence of which is the adjectival participle as far as its structure is concerned.   There are two markers – kiR and kinR – to denote the present time in the later Sangam period.  Nevertheless, both the markers occur in Manimekalai text whereas the form -kinR- alone is attested in cilappatikaaram text, but there is an absence of -kiR- marker in this text.  It is peculiar to be noted that the form –kuv-, which was not mentioned by Tolkaappiyam and not attested in the later Sangam period, existed in Sangam period to denote the concept of nonpast in general and future in particular.   

Case and Postposition

            As far as the case markers are concerned, the marker –aal was developed to represent the instrumental case in the later Sangam period. Furthermore, another case marker –uTaya is also developed to denote the meaning of the genitive case in this period.  In the same way, from this period onwards, the new concept of postposition began to develop in the language and the postposition markers, such as koNTu to denote the meaning of instrumental case and uTan  to mean the sociative case, started to exist in the first time in the language in this period. 

Pronoun

The absence of the first person is noticed in the period of Brahmi Tamil.  The form yaam is pointed out by Tolkaappiyam.  This is also attested in Sangam and later Sangam periods.  But the form naan, the equalent form of yaan, is attested only one time in ParipaaTal of Sangam texts and later it was well developed in the period of later Sangam.  As far as the second person plural is concerned, the forms niir and niivir are clearly pointed out by Tolkaappiyam.  But in Sangam period niir and niiyir are attested.  As far as the oblique form of second person plural is concerned, the form num, but not um, is attested in Sangam Tamil.  The form um, which is derived from num after loosing the initial phoneme in num, started to occur in ParipaaTal where it is available in only one place.  Nevertheless, its occurrences have increased in the later Sangam period.  In the same manner, there was a form nin for representing the second person singular in Sangam period and however, instead of nin, the form un started to enter into the texts of the later Sangam period.  

Place Adverb

            The interrogative place adverb yaaŋku started to become eŋku only in the later Sangam period.  In other words, it can be explained that the long vowel in the initial syllable started to get shortening from this period.  From this period onwards, the initial long vowels of demonstrative place adverbs such as aaŋku and iiŋku become shortened like aŋku and iŋku, respectively. 

Demonstrative

            There are three demonstratives – a, i, and u – enumerated by Tolkaappiyam.  The same forms are attested in Sangam period.  But in the later sangam period, in addition to these demonstratives, they were developed to demonstrative pronoun status like anta and inta.  Nonetheless, though the remote and proximate demonstrative pronouns were attested, we are not able to find out the intermediate demonstrative pronoun in the later Sangam period.  Further, it is to be notably pointed out that the form anta and inta ate attested in Manimeekalai, but the latter form only occurs in Cilappatikaaram.

Lexicon

Many words with initial y plus aa which existed in Tolkaappiyam period began to lose the initial consonant y from these words, rarely in Sangam period and widely in the later Sangam Period.  For instance, one can exemplify the words such as yaaTu >aaTu, yaamai>aamai, yaaRu>aaRu and so on.  The form ellaam, which occurs only with nonhuman noun in Tolkaappiyam period and in Sangam period, started to go with the human noun as well from the later Sangam period.  It is evident to say example like antaNar ellaam, that is the only one example (attested in the later Sangam period) which started to violate the rules of the language structure that prevailed in the early periods.   

Conclusion

For this study, only the random samples have been selected and analyzed in this paper.  If this methodology is used to whole texts of composed and published materials produced in time to time in different periods in the language, a lot of things could definitely be unearthed through the study.  Of course, it is the pioneer attempt in this field.  We have a lot of facilities nowadays.  Using these facilities we can easily find out what are the grammatical items available or not available in the texts belonging to a particular period and/or different periods. Further, it is noteworthy to mention that every text in medieval Tamil should be typed and supplied to the computer.  Of course, for this laborious work, definitely it needs not only man power to do the work but also the huge amount of funds.    Otherwise, we cannot achieve this task.  One problem we are going to face is that feeding the texts available in Sangam period or the later Sangam period is not a problem.  However, it is not easy task when we try to feed the texts pertaining to the mediaeval period as well as the modern period texts.  The reason is that there are numerous text materials available in the language and everything should be computerized for this study and then we have to start such work so that this study will achieve the tremendous task in this field, of course. Once we complete such a work, I hope, it will be the pioneer one in this field, no doubt at all.

Bibliography

Agesthialingom, S. 1979. A Grammar of Old Tamil with reference to PatiRRuppattu, Annamalai University Publication : Annamalai Nagar.

Anjali Annabai. 1980. Tolkappiyam and the Language of Manimekalai, Ph. D. Thesis, Madurai Kamaraj University.

Israel, M. 1973.  The Treatement of Morphology in Tolkappiyam.  Madurai : Madurai University Publications.

Mahadevan, I. 1970.  Tamil-Brāhmi  Inscriptions.  Madras : Tamilnadu State Development of Archaeology. 

Mahadevan, I.  2003.  Early Tamil Epigraphy (from the earliest times to the Sixth century A.D.).  Chennai : Cre-A & Cambridge : Harvard University.

Meenakshisundaran, T. P.1965.  A History of the Tamil Language. Poona : Deccan College Post Graduate and Research institute.

Sakthivel, S. 1984. Tamil moli varalaaRu, Manivasakar patippakam, Chennai.

Subramanya Sastri, P.S.S. 1979. Tolkappiyam – Collatikāram with An English Commentary.  Annaalai Nagar : Annamalai University. (First published in 1945)

------------- 1955.  Tolkappiyam-eluttatikāram.   Commentary by Naccinārkkiniyar.  Madras : Kalakam Edition.

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Some of the Paper Presenters in the ICRL, held in Bharathiar University

Some of the Paper Presenters in the ICRL, held in Bharathiar University

Prof. C. Shanmugom chairing a session in the conference

Dr.A.Kamatchi presenting a paper on Tamil language through the Ages (Early Period to Later Sangam Period) 

Dr.R.R.Thampuran presenting a paper on  Language Endangerment: Tribal Situation in South India. 

Dr.Vasanthi presenting the Paper while Dr.K.Pasumpon chairing the session.


 

Dr.A.Rose Mary presenting a paper on   Reconstruction of the 

Past Tense Markers in the Tribal Languges of Kerala. 

Dr.P.Rajendran presenting a paper on Tolkapiyarin moli cintanaikaL 

Dr.Viswanathan presenting the paper.

 

Dr.R.Saranya presenting a paper on  Multiple meanings of Morphemes in Thirukkural: A Linguistic Study. 

Dr.P.Manimaran presenting a paper on  A Comparative Study of English Translation of the Tamil Classical Language  - A Review. 

Mr.Dhanasekaran presenting a paper on   Ulakac cevviyal molikal: kireekkam-Tamil. 

Dr.Selvadurai presenting a paper on Koraga: A Dravidian Tribal Community.

International Conference on Recent Advances in Linguistics

Dignitaries in the Inaugural Functional

In the International Conference on Recent Advances in Linguistics held at the Department of Linguistics, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India on15^th & 16^th December 2010.

Honorable Vice-Chancellor, Bharathiar University, delivering the inaugural address. 

Dr.L.Ramamoorthy delivering the felicitation address.

Prof.K.Karunakaran delivering the keynote address.

All the Alumni of the Department of Linguistics, Bharathiar University being honored in the function. 

 Dr. S.Raja, one among them.

Dr.A.Kamatchi presenting the research paper 

on 

"Tamil Language through the Ages (Early period to later Sangam period)". 

Book published in 2007

Book published in 2007

The book attempts to provide a comprehensive description of the temporal elements and structures attested in the two major Dravidian languages – Tamil and Malayalam. As these two languages are closely related to each other, the work also envisages evolving a common strategy of identification and analysis with a view to register both theoretical and contrastive insights.

This study, of course, is the first of its kind for Tamil and Malayalam among the Indian Languages.  The objective of this study is to provide a semantic realization of the sentences involving the different tense forms in Tamil and Malayalam from the syntactico semantic point of view. The sentences of Tamil consisting of temporal elements have widely been compared with those of Malayalam.  The study prominently deals with the combination of tense and temporal adverbs and temporal dependency.

          An attempt has also been made to account for the compatibility and the non-compatibility of tense with certain verbs in sentences in which some nouns/pronouns function as subject/object.

While we are talking about morphology, the tense marker determines the time notion for the sentence; but not all the tense markers predict their own time, as far as the syntactic and semantic perspective is concerned.  In many cases, the temporal adverbs in the utterance are endorsed to presuppose the actual temporality in a sentence.

In some cases, one tense may be incompatible with certain syntactic components in the expressions.  Of course, the sentence may have three types of time – Speech Time, Event Time and Reference Time, as far as semantic analysis is concerned.  Paying attention to these time notions, in certain cases, the event time may be understood by tense form that occurs with the verb form.  In some other cases, it may be realized by the temporal adverbs.  As far as orientation time is concerned, there are two types of tenses – deictic and non-deictic tenses – found in almost all the languages all over the world.  In this way, various categories relating to temporality have been elaborately dealt with in this study. 

Temporal constructions are those which involve temporal elements. The manifestation of the notion of ‘temporality’ is typically effectuated by the tense system and/or the temporal adverb clause in sentences.  They may include the aspects relative to the temporality, modals, etc. The compatibility of the tense form and the temporal specifier involved in a sentence indicates not only the temporal properties but also the aspectual notions like habitual, incompleteness, etc.

Time, which is a universal semantic notion with three divisions – past, present and future – is distinctive from tense, which is grammatical category occurring with the verbal form.  In terms of semantic description, there are two kinds of tense systems in the languages, of which one is deictic (or relative to the speech time) and the other, non-deictic (or relative to the time other than the speech time).

          

Perfect form in Tamil

PERFECT FORM IN TAMIL

                                                                                                                             Dr.A.Kamatchi

Assistant Professor

CAS in Linguistics

Annamalai University

Courtesy:

The paper has been published  in the International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, Vol. 33, No.2, June, 2004 (pp.151- 162).

 

Introduction

            As far as Tamil grammars are concerned, the concept of perfect is not indigenous; but it is said to have entered into the Tamil language by the influence of other languages.  According to the western tradition, as pointed out by Comrie (1976:6), “the perfect has usually, but not always, been considered an aspect, although it is doubtful whether the definition can be interpreted to include the perfect as an aspect.  However, the perfect is equally not just a tense, since it differs in meaning from the various tense forms.  The perfect is rather different from aspects like progressive since it tells us nothing directly about the situation in itself, but preceding situation.  Distinguishing the non-perfect from perfect, Comrie exemplifies the English sentences I have lost (perfect) my penknife and I lost (non-perfect) my penknife.  “One possible difference between these two is that with the perfect, there is an implication that the penknife is still lost, whereas with non-perfect, there is no such implication” (1976:52).

            Sweet (1903:98) clearly indicates that the perfect “expresses an occurrence which began in the past and is connected with present, either by actual continuance up to the present time, or in its results”.  So, in terms of temporality, it can otherwise be interpreted that the present perfect serves to locate an event within a period of time that began in the past and extends up to the present moment, while the simple past specifies that an event occurred at a past time that is separated from the present time by some interval.       

            As far as Tamil is concerned, the perfect is purely aspect, but not tense because the perfect is represented by a separate form iru to denote the aspect, unlike in English where the form which represents the perfect has the inherent feature of tense system like has / have and had, the former of which refers not only to the aspect but also to the present whereas the latter one to the past tense with aspect.  However, in Tamil, structure the perfect form that refers to the aspect is adhered to various tense markers to denote the time.  For example, the form vantirukkiRaan consists ofvaa–nt–iru–kkiR–aan.  There are five forms involved in the above-said finite verb.  Of them the third form –iRu- alone cannot be used to denote the time.  Because of this reason, the perfect is a form which is not used to the tense representation to which a separate forms –(k)kiR- , -nt- and -pp- are used to designate the present, the past and the future, respectively, in Tamil.

            It can be precisely pointed out that Reichenbach’s (1947) famous and popular account of the difference between the simple past and the present perfect would perhaps lie in the distinction between speech time, event time, and reference time.   As Dowty (1972) puts, Reichenbach’s theory, while applying to English situation, “was (roughly) that the present perfect has its reference time (RT) at the same time as speech time (ST), with event time (ET) earlier than these, while the simple past has the reference time at the same time as event time, with both earlier than speech, as in the familiar diagram below:

----------------o----------------------------------o----------------------------

                       ET                                       ST, RT                             With present perfect

------------------o-----------------------------------o---------------------------

                   RT, ET                                        ST                               With simple past”

As we have already said, this diagramme applies only to the perfect form with tense marker as in –iru-kkiR- but not to the perfect alone, as far as Tamil is concerned. It can possibly be derived a semantic interpretation of aspectual notions, apart from the temporality, realized by the perfect form with present tense marker based on the contexts of their occurrence.  Accordingly, there are six meanings unearthed from such a construction in Tamil.  They are current relevance, experiential perfect, quotational perfect, informative, second hand report and non-visual evidential, of which the last three notions can be brought under the category of indirect speech Act.

Current Relevance

            Current relevance can be defined as a past situation still continues up to the present moment of time, i.e. the moment of speech situation.  Consider   sentence given below:

1.      katavu tiRantirukkiRatu

The door remains open

Sentence (1) describes that the ‘opening of the door’ took place in past with respect to the speech situation and the state of that event extends up to the speech time.  Consider sentence (2), as given below: 

2.      avan varumpootu katavu tiRantatu

THE DOOR OPENED WHEN HE CAME

According to sentence (2), the action of the main clause took place in the past.  However, the state of opening was not necessary to continue up to the moment of the speech situation.  That is, sentence (2) specifies only the event whose time is past.  Therefore, the simple past tense form is used here.  Comparing sentences (1) with (2), there is a notion ofcurrent relevance in the former whereas such a notion cannot be expected from the latter.

            In view of the fact that sentence (1) relates the past event and the state of the present situation, it cannot, in any case, possess the past time adverbs, as shown in (3):

3.      * neeRRu katavu tiRantirukkiRatu

        The door remained open yesterday

However, there would be a compatibility of past time adverb and the perfect referring to the current relevance (as opposed to the experience of perfect or informative one).  Consider sentence (4), the action of which began in the past but the state of action continues to the time at which the utterance is made.   

            4.         neeRRu malai peytirukkiRatu

            The rain occurred yesterday

Sentence (4) would suggest that the speaker of the utterance was absent at the time of ‘raining’.  But, at the time of speech, the state of action ‘raining’ still exists and therefore, he uses the perfect form iru in this sentence¹. In case he (speaker) had earlier seen the activity of ‘raining’, he is not able to use the perfect form, but the simple past, as shown in (5):

5.         neeRRu malai peytatu

The rain occurred yesterday

However, the compatibility of the perfect form referring to current relevance and the time adverb referring to the speech time is very common in the language, as in (6) below. 

            6.         ippootu katavu uTayntirukkiRatu

                        Now the door is under repair

The reason for compatibility is that both the present perfect form and the time adverb contain the speech time.

            Sentence (6), given above, could be used only if the stativity of the ‘breaking of the door’ prevails at the time of the speech situation.  Otherwise it cannot be used.  That is, if it had been repaired earlier, i.e. before the speech time, then the sentence with the perfect plus present tense cannot be employed.  It is important to be pointed out that in the perfect of result, a present state is referred to as being the result of some past situation.  This is one of the clearest manifestations of the present relevance of a past situation.  Thus, sentence (6) shows the persistence of the result of ‘breaking’.  That is, the door still remains unrepaired.

It is to be noted here that the aspectual form –iru- added to the verbal participle, as in vantu, which consists of past tense marker –nt-, signifies an aspectual notion whereas the past tense marker in the participle conveys the past action.  The time of aspectual notion is designated by the tense marker, which occurs after the aspectual form.

Experiential Perfect

            The perfect of experience expresses what happened, one or more than once, within the speaker’s or writer’s experience” (Zandvoort 1957:62).  From the point of view of Comrie, it “indicates that a given situation has held at least once during some time in the past leading up to the present” (1976:58).  Consider the following example:

            7.         oru taTavai naan amrtam caappiTTirukkiReen

                        I have had ambrosia once

Sentence (7) claims that on at least one occasion (though possibly on more than once), the speaker (in this case) has had amrtam, of course.  The activity of consumption of ambrosia by the subject-referent is extremely rare in ordinary life but only possible in a mythical context.  That is why, the native speaker cannot, except in extremely unusual circumstances, utter a sentence like (8), which has water as an object NP.  See below:

8.         *Poona maatam oru taTavai avan taNNiir kuTiccirukkiRaan

            ? Last month he has drunk a cup of water once

The reason for the oddity is obvious.  Water is one of the essential commodities in one’s day-to-day life (or for one’s living), and therefore, in such a type of sentences, when things like water function as an object NP, the sentence becomes peculiar in its use.  However, the sentence would be possible in case the word taNNiir in Tamil is considered to mean liquor.  The reason may be that the liquor, unlike water, is not essential for someone to exist in the world.  In general, there is no separate form to distinguish experiential perfect from resultative perfect.  Hence, sentences like (9), involve two distinguished meaning notions – the experiential perfect and the resultative.

9.         avar neeppaalattukku  pooyirukkiRaar

            He has been/gone to Nepal

Sentence (9) can be interpreted as either he has gone to Nepal or he has been to Nepal.

The former interpretation shows that he is in Nepal now, or is on his way.  But the latter implies that ‘he went to Nepal (at least in one occasion) but now is not there.  On the other hand, when we add the temporal adverbs like individuating specifier, as shown in (10), they denote only the latter meaning:

10.       oru taTavai avar neeppaalattukku  pooyirukkiRaar

He has been to Nepal once

Instead, if the temporal specifier indicating the speech time is added to sentence (10), it indicates the former sense alone.  With the perfect of experience, the requirement of current relevance is still important. 

Quotational Perfect

Quotational perfect is defined as ‘describing the quotations by eminent ones in the society’ (Kamatchi 1988:58). Consider the example given below:

11.        pulaal uNpaatu paavam enRu tiruvaLLuvar colliyirukkiRaar

Thiruvalluvar says that to eat meat is sin

This may also be considered to be as involving current relevance.  Thus, though the quoted person is no more, his word, of course, is still in existence in the Tamil country, at least².  Moreover, the quoted person may be an eminent one even in a family.  See below:

            12.       pulaal uNpatu paavam enRu enkaL taattaa colliyirukkiRaar

My grand father told me that to eat meat is sin

Despite the fact that my grand father, as in (12), might not have been an eminent person in our society, as far as the speaker of (12) is concerned, he was/is an eminent one in his family, at least.  Therefore, the perfect form is used here.  In effect, it is not necessary condition for the quoted person to be dead at the time of the speech situation.

INDIRECT SPEECH ACT

Informative

            In Tamil, the predominant use of the perfect form with present tense is to express a situation that was informed to the speaker earlier than the time at which the speech was taken place – that is, the form is used when a situation where the speaker has not directly seen the act of subject-referent.  See the sentence below:

13.  neeRRu avan viLayaaTiyirukkiRaan

  He played yesterday (It was informed)

Generally, there is no involvement of current relevance or resultative notion in utterance (13).  However, it has a perfect form.  In fact, the matter was already informed to the speaker before he uttered this sentence.  On the other hand, in general, the sentence with the simple past is used to report the situation, which the speaker saw directly, as shown in (14):

14.   neeRRu avan viLayaaTinaan

   HE PLAYED YESTERDAY

The semantic distinction between (13) and (14) is that the speaker of the former (but not of the latter) might not have seen the event indicated by the sentence, at any cost. 

            In Tamil, the sentence with the perfect form plus present tense is often used to express typically the reported matter.  Nevertheless, it is possible only if it occurs with the third person as the subject of the sentence.  See below:

15.  mattiyaanam avaL kaamuvai paarttirukkiRaaL

  She saw Kamu at noon (It was informed)

Sentence (15) reveals that the intention of the speaker is to convey the matter to the addressee, which was informed to him (speaker) by some other person.  On the other hand, the utterance with the perfect form is not found in the language when the subject is in the first person pronoun.  See the sentence below:

16.  * mattiyaanam naan kaamuvai paarttirukkiReen

      I saw Kamu at noon (It was informed)

The reason for unacceptability is obvious.  What the person referred to by the third person pronoun has done might have been informed to the speaker when it (the speaker) functions as the subject.  But, such a thing has not happened in the case of the first person pronoun that functions as subject.  Since he himself is the speaker of the sentence, there is no need for information from others regarding his past activities except in a few contexts. For instance, in a context where X murmured when he was sleeping, X was informed about his murmuring after he woke up.  Then, X may utter sentences like (17), which involves the first person pronoun as the subject, as below:

17.       naan raatri muNaŋkiyirukkiReen

                        I murmured last night (It was informed)

             Unless the state of the past event extends up to the time of the speech situation³, then the sentence with participle which includes another perfect form /vantiruntu/ is used in Tamil, as shown in (18):

18.       neeRRu avan maturaykku vantiruntirukkiRaan

                        I was informed that he came to Madurai yesterday

The sentence, of course, is an informative one; that is, some one informed the speaker about his (subject) activity earlier to the speech time.  If the speaker had seen ‘his coming’, then he could use either the simple past or the past perfect form.

Second Hand Report

            Whenever the sentence has the simple past form, the action determined by it would generally be a first hand report.  That is, the speaker would directly have perceived what he said.  Take, for example, the sentence below:

19.        eTTu maNikku avan iRantaan

HE DIED AT 8 O’CLOCK                 

Sentence (19) reveals the fact that the speaker was with the ‘subject-referent’ at the time of his death or at least, the speaker was present in the place where the action was taken place.  On the other hand, if the sentence would involve the perfect form, the action denoted by it could be a second hand report.  That is, someone else might have informed about the action done by the subject-referent before the utterance was made.  There are obvious examples to establish the fact that the perfect form in Tamil is used to indicate the matter that was reported to the speaker of the sentence before the speech time:

20.         eTTu maNikku kulantay priRantirukkiRatu

THE CHILD WAS BORN AT EIGHT O’CLOCK

As the person (speaker) who was absent at the time of the child’s birth, she uses the perfect form.  By using it, the speaker implicitly indicates that the matter of ‘child’s birth’ was informed to her.  Nevertheless, if she had been present in the place where the child was born, then she would have used only the simple past form, instead of the perfect one. 

Non-Visual Evidential

            Whenever the action specified by the sentence is considered to be non-visual evidential to the speaker of the sentence, the perfect form together with present tense would be used in Tamil:

21.        atai neeRRu Rajan tiruTiyirukkiRaan

RAJAN HAS STOLEN IT YESTERDAY   

The implication of the sentence above is that the speaker is not an eyewitness to prove the fact that ‘he stole it’. However, someone else had informed the matter to him, and hence he uses the perfect form here.  On the other hand, if the activity is a visual-evidential, then the language attests the simple past tense form here. 

22.       neeRRu atai Rajan tiruTinaan

      RAJAN STOLE IT YESTERDAY

In a court or a police station where the hearing over the stolen things is taking place, an eyewitness can say (22), but not (21) when he is being enquired regarding the articles, which was earlier stolen by the person referred to by ‘Rajan’.

            Furthermore, sentence (21) suggests that the allegation made on Rajan (subject) may be falsified as far as the speaker is concerned, since someone else should have reported to the speaker of (21) about Rajan’s action.  However, in (22), there is no possibility for such a falsification since the speaker himself is an eyewitness for what the subject-referent did.

Pluperfect (Past Perfect)

            In a non-simple sentence, there would be two events realized by it. The perfect form associated with the past tense marker in Tamil would indicate one of the two events involved in the utterance.  Semantically, that event must be antecedent to the other. In other words, in a sentence that involves two events, one of the two events is the antecedent, which is used by the perfect form together with past tense form.  Though both events are completed before the speech time, one is antecedent to the other. Lyons (1977: 689), specifically, states that the pluperfect “might be classified as a past-in-the-past tense, whose function of it is to express the anteriority of one situation in the past relative to another situation in the past.  Anteriority is not of course a deictic notion; so that ‘earlier-in-the-past’ might be more appropriate than ‘past-in-the-past”.  Thus, for example, the time of situation, ‘he had come’ is the anteriority of another situation, I came here’.  Of course, both the events took place in the past with respect to the speech time. Consider sentence (23), as given below:

23.        enakku munnaaTi avan iŋku vantiruntaan

HE HAD COME HERE BEFORE I

In sentence (23), there are, at least, two clauses in the underlying structure, as shown in (24) below: 

24.        naan varuvataRku munnaaTi avan iŋku vantiruntaan

He had come here before I came

  Pluperfect Vs Simple Past

            In terms of semantic analysis, the distinction between the pluperfect and the simple past is as follow:

25.       neeRRu avan iŋku vantiruntaan (with perfect + past)

HE CAME HERE YESTERDAY

26.       neeRRu avan iŋku vantaan  ( with simple past)

            He came here yesterday

Sentence (25), which has the perfect form with past tense, implies that the subject-referent came here and went back from this place yesterday itself whereas sentence (26), which has the simple past form, means that he (subject) came here, and might or might not be here at the time of the speech situation.  When a temporal clause that comprises the conjunctive pootu is involved in a sentence, the past perfect indicates one action anterior to another whereas the simple past denotes that both actions are simultaneous, in general.  Consider the following sentences:

            27.       naan aŋku pookumpootu avan vantiruntaan

                        He had come before I went there

            28.       naan aŋku pookumpootu avan vantaan

                        He came there when I went

In (27), the event of the main clause had taken place before that of the temporal clause.  But in (28), both the actions, more or less, took place simultaneously.  Furthermore, when the state of event is durative in the past, the sentence involving the perfect form with past tense, rather than simple past, is employed in the language, as illustrated below:

            29.       neeRRu kaTai tiRantiruntatu

                        The shop was open yesterday

Pluperfect Vs Present Perfect

            A very clear-cut distinction between the pluperfect and the present perfect is their respective tenses.  In a subjectless sentence, the verb takes the latter if its time adverb includes the speech time whereas it takes the former if its time adverb does not include the speech time.  Sentence (29), given above, and sentence (30), given below, establish the distinction mentioned earlier:

            30.       inRu kaTai tiRantirukkiRatu

                        Today the shop has opened

Another distinction made by Palmer (1974:41) is that “although the past perfect can be ‘past-past’, the present perfect is never ‘present-past’’.  Similarly, McCawley indicates that ‘the present perfect is not merely the present of a past in the same sense that the past perfect can be the past of a past”(1976:263). 

Perfect Form With Future Tense

            Whenever the perfect form with future tense is involved in a sentence, it expresses the factual or non-factual activity. Moreover, the event might have taken place in the past or may take place in the future on the basis of time adverb involved in the sentence.  If there is no temporal adverb or clause in the utterance, the time of the action is not anchored to the speech  time: that is, it is not deictic.  In this construction, only the time specifiers (if deictic) involved in the sentence designates the deictic notion.  Consider sentence (31) below:

            31.        avan neeRRu anta veelayai ceytiruppaan

                         He might have done the work yesterday

In effect, the perfect form accompanied by the future one reveals the past time because the past time adverb is involved in sentence (31). The activity, however, may be factual or non-factual.  That is, as far as the speaker’s knowledge is concerned, he is not certain whether the activity took place yesterday.  In other words, sentence (31) involves the past time with supposition or with assumption. 

            Due to the involvement of the past time adverb in the sentence, (31) implies the past time notion. However, in case the future time adverb or clause is involved in the utterance, it possibly denotes the future time, as shown in (32) below:

32.        naaLai nii avanai kaaNumpootu anta veelayai ceytiruppaan

When you will meet him tomorrow, he would have completed the work

The temporal clause in (32) indicates the futurity (i.e. deictic) and therefore the time of the main clause also implies the futurity.  Further, the sentence reveals that the event signified by the main clause would have taken place before the event specified by the temporal clause.

Moreover, the sentence that involves the perfect form with future tense reveals that the event referred to by the sentence cannot occur in the place where the speech takes place.  In other words, the event takes place in one place whereas the utterance takes place in another place.  Furthermore, it could be described that the speaker of the sentence could not have seen the event denoted by the sentence. 

33.        inneeram avan aŋku vantiruppaan

He would have come there by this time

However, as for as the temporality is concerned, the event happens before the time to which the time adverb / the temporal clause involved in the sentence refers, as shown in (33) and (32).  If the past time adverb involved in a simple sentence, then the time of the event is anchored to speech time. 

34.        neeRRu avan aŋku vantiruppaan

He would have come there yesterday

However, in terms of their functions, the form iruntiru does not occur in certain cases where the form iru does.  For instance, the use of the latter, rather than the former, is quite natural when the time specified by the sentence is not later than the speech time, as shown in (34) above. 

Pluperfect In Subjunctive Clause

            The past perfect form in a subjunctive clause usually demands unfulfilled or unachieved activity identified in the main clause:

             35.       naan vantiruntaal / vantiruntiruntaal avanai paarttiruppeen

                        Had I come, I could have met him

In (35), none of the activities identified by each clause of the sentence took place.  Thus, the sentence could normally suggest that the speaker did not come, and that he did not meet him (object NP of the main clause).  In general, the past perfect form would indicate the anteriority (of the action) in the past.  But, here the sub-clause, too, shows only the unachieved activity even if the past perfect form is involved.  It is precious to note here that in Tamil, there is no obvious difference between the forms iruntiru and iru.  Thus, for 

instance, the form iruntiru<(iruntu+iru), instead of the single iru, may be added to the sentence without any meaning distinction.

Conclusion

            Much more studies on this area have been done in the languages like English.  However, as far as Tamil is concerned, such a type of work has not developed as much as we need in these days.  We are in the computer world, of course.  It is difficult for the computer scientist to make the computer understand the semantic notions involved in syntactic level in the languages.  If the linguists try to concentrate on this area in our language, the people working in the area of machine-aided translations would be benefited very much.

FOOTNOTES

1.      Almost all the places where the form iru plus present tense marker occur, there is a possibility of replacement of the form ul in the sentence with only the notion of current relevance.

2.      In English, the simple present form is employed to mean this sense.

3.      For instance, the sentence (i), which has the perfect form and the past time adverb, involves at least a couple of interpretations: thus, on one occasion, the person referred to by the subject is still there at the time of speech situation, i.e. current relevance, and on the other, he need not be there when the utterance was made. See below:

     i)           neeRRu avan maturaikku vantirukkiRaan                 

                        Yesterday he came to Madurai (It was informed)

      Sentence (i) does not always mean as having come he (subject) is still there due to the occurrence of the past time adverb in it.  However, sentence (ii), which does not involve the past time adverb, suggests that having come to Madurai, he is still there (unless it means the notion of perfect of experience): 

ii)                  avan ippolutu maturaikku vantirukkiRaan

                        He has come to Madurai

      Thus, sentence (ii) indicates that the state of past action prevails at the time of speech situation, i.e. current relevance.  It also reveals the notion of ‘informative’ with current relevance.  Here, it is pertinent to note that with the former sense, sentence (ii) would suggest that the speaker has seen his coming whereas with the latter sense, it means that he has not seen (but heard, possibly) it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Comrie, B.          (1976)         Aspect (An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems). Combridgy : Cambridge University     Press

Dowty, D.R.        (1972)        Studies in the Logic of Verb Aspect and Time Reference in English, Studies in Linguistics – I, Department of Linguistics, Austin : University of Texas.

Kamatchi, A.    (1988) Tense in Tamil, in the Proceedings of the XV All  India Conference of Linguists, Pune : Linguistic Society of India

Lyons, John   (1977) Semantics (Volume II). Cambridge : Cambridge Uiversity Press.

McCawley, J.D.(1968) The role of Semantics in Grammar. In Bach, E.and Harms, E.T. Eds. Universals in Linguistic Theory.  New  York : Holt, Rinerhart and Winston.

Palmer, F.R. (1974) The English Verb. London : Longman (First published  in 1965).

Richenbach, H. (1947)  Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York : The Free Press.

Sweet, H.            (1903)          A New English Grammar. London : Oxford University   Press (Impression of 1960)

Zandvoort,R.W.(1957)          A Hand Book of English Grammar. London : Longman  

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