Q: Historical Tamil syntax

[Vidhyanath Rao]

On Thu, 12 Apr 2001 01:08:31 +0100, Venkatraman Iyer
<venkatraman_iyer at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

>"avar nalla uyaramaay iruntaar" sounds real strange;
>Does it not imply? :, "ippOtu avar uyaramaay illai"

It does, if in, say, a biography. But in an exchange like
"oruttar unnai tETi vantAr", "avar pArka eppiTi ituntAr?"
it seems that `iruntAr' is acceptable.


>Using present tense for past occurences is called
>"kAla vazuvamaiti". I think you can find it in na_n_nUl grammar
>some examples. "nA_n iLamaiyil viLaiyATuvatu intap paLLit tiNNai." etc
>tiNai vazuvamaiti eg., calling the daughter: "vATA, vATA! kaTaikkup
>pOkalAm." etc. iTa vazuvamaiti is there too.

With these types of examples, it is clear that the `normal' form
is in fact usual and the variant forms are `affective'. But, as
you point out above, with certain situations,
the verbal forms are not interchangable, at least in modern Tamil.
My questions if the same is true for Sangam Tamil and Medieval Tamil.