South-Indian Horizons
by Jean-Luc Chevillard | 2004 | 309,297 words
This volume, a tribute to François Gros and a celebration of the field of Tamil studies, demonstrates the international nature of this area and its wide range of topics. The contributors stem from sixteen different countries. They are literary historians and critics, philologists, linguists, cultural anthropologists, political and social historians...
Chapter 2 - A Note on the -āre person number marking suffix in Gundert́s writing
Hermann Gundert in his ’Kēraḷa paḻama’, which is a "History of Malabar" from AD 1496-1531, published in 1868 and reprinted with spelling corrections, provides finite verb endings in Malayalam. About 125 occurrences were listed and the nature of the endings is analyzed so that the disappearance of the PNG (person number and gender) suffixes in Malayalam finite verbs can be gauged.1
The use of the suffix -āre in finite verbs is found mostly in this work which appears to be based on the diary of the Portuguese in Malabar. The following classes of occurrences are available in this text:
A) Subject epicene plural third person finite verb ending in -āre, third person epicene plural
(1) avar aṟiyiccāre
B) Subject third person singular while referring to the King or to a noble and the finite verb in third person epicene plural
(2) avan (tāmudri) kalppiccāre2
Incidentally the reference to a King with a third person singular pronoun is a practice found in the Sangam Classics and in their colophons. The Portuguese captains like Vasco da Gama, Albuquerque, etc., are included in this category.
C) Subject third person singular and finite verb with -āre.
(3) Mukkuvan aṟiyiccāre (mostly servants and low caste people)
In this example the masculine singular subject takes -āre, third epicene plural finite verb.
Pattern A is predominant (60 occ.), pattern B is less frequent (48 occ.) and C is the least frequent (8 occ.)
avar (respectful) and avan (third masculine singular ordinary) though less in frequency indicate the free use of -āre with singular subject leading finally, to its zeroing.
In finite verbal nouns like ’vannavar’ the reference to the subject with person number marking is found even today without any confusion in the subject in modern Malayalam writing. In poetry, first and second person finite verbs with PNG are found infrequently. These are survivals of an earlier stage of finite verbs ending in PNG in Malayalam.3
Classical Tamil also at least has one finite verb ending in -um taking all person number and gender subjects.
|
• (4 a) |
avaṉ (he) / avaḷ (she) / avar (they) |
varum (come) |
|
• (4 b) |
nī (you) / nīṅkaḷ (you all) |
" |
|
• (4 c) |
nāṉ (I) / nāṅkaḷ (we) |
" |
The other finite verbs will have PNG according to the subject. Modern Tamil mixes plural subject with the singular finite verb, which is not resented by hearers. Television or radio announcers say
(5) avai vantatu "They (neuter-plural) came-it (neuter-singular)"
The sequences of disappearance of PNG in Malayalam may be:
-
First Stage: subject and finite verbs have concord in PNG.
-
Second Stage: no concord in PNG between subject and finite verb.
-
Third Stage: dropping of finite verb PNG suffixes.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Gundert, Hermann, Kēraḷa paḻama, or the History of Malabar A.D. 1498-1631, Mangalore 1868, 195 p.; 1869; Kottayam 1983; Kozhikode 1988 (with critical introduction by N.M. Namputiri); Paschimodayam 1847, Vol. 1, Nr. 1 ff.). HGS Vol II Kottayam 1992.4
V. I. Subramoniam, ´A short note on c/s > t change´, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, vol. xxxii, no. 2 (June 2003), pp. 185-6.
Footnotes
1 In a quote by T. Madhava Menon the suffix -āre is found which led me to scan the whole of Kēraḷa paḻama of Gundert. Now T.M. Menon is translating the book into English on my advice.
2 The regular change of s>t in sāmudri/tāmudri (’the King of Calicut’) will confirm my early statement on the change of s to t in late middle Malayalam. See V.I. Subramoniam [2003].
3 In colloquial Malayalam nī vannēre "You (singular) come" is heard in conversation. Reconstructed form will be nīr vannīre to nī vānīrē. Since nīr is replaced by *niṅkaḷ > niṅṅaḷ ("you pl.") and nīr > nī ("you singular"), the finite verb still retains -īre the plural PNG ending for a singular subject.
4 Item slightly adapted from the bibliography on p. 233 of the book Dr Hermann Gundert and the Malayalam Language. Hermann Gundert Series [= HGS]. Editors: Dr Albrecht Frenz & Dr Scaria Zacharia. 1993. ISBN 81-240-0075-1. The entry reads: Keraḷa pazhama, or the History of Malabar A.D. 1498-1631, Mangalore 1868, 195 S.; 1869; Kottayam 1983; Kozhikode 1988 (with critical introduction by N.M. Namputiri); Paschimodayam 1847, Vol. 1, Nr. 1 ff.). HGS Vol II Kottayam 1992 (Editor’s Note).
Endnotes
Author
V.I. Subramoniam (Vadasery Iyemperumal Subramoniam) (b. 1926) is emeritus professor of Tamil Language and Literature and later of Linguistics, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, and is currently Honorary Director and founding member of the International School of Dravidian Linguistics, Thiruvananthapuram. He is also Honorary Editor of the International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics. He received his M.A. in Tamil Language and Literature from the Annamalai University and his Ph.D. from the Indiana University, U.S.A. The Jaffna University, Sri Lanka and the Tamil University, Tanjavur conferred on him Honorary D.Litt. degrees. He was the first Vice-Chancellor of the Tamil University, Tanjavur. His efforts to establish a Dravidian University in Kuppam, Andhra Pradesh resulted in the creation of a university there, and he was its first Pro-Chancellor. He has guided a number of important dissertations on the language of the Tamil Caṅkam and medieval texts and on Malayalam, apart from history and folklore. His own publications cover a wide range of subjects such as literary theories, periodization of literature, descriptive, historical and comparative linguistics and of recently brain and language. His Index of Puranāṉūṟu (1962), Dialect Survey of Malayalam (1974) and A Descriptive Analysis of a dialect of Tamil (2003) belong to a long list of publications (16 books and a hundred and two articles in professional journals). He was one of the editors of some of the Proceedings of the International Conference-Seminar of Tamil Studies organised by the International Association of Tamil Research. He has edited the three volume Dravidian Encyclopaedia.