Krishnamurti Bhadriraju. The Dravidian Languages

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8.3 Adverbs 411

cited certain onomatopoetic words like ga

t-ga

t ‘drinking quickly’, than-than ‘rapidly’ as

manner adverbials; also reduplicated ones occur, e.g. dis¯a-mis¯a ‘approximately’, gh¯ay-

gh¯ay ‘soon’, etc. In Naiki (Chanda) (Bhattacharya 1961: 95), -el occurs as place sufﬁx,

e.g. ay-el ‘in that direction’, iy-el ‘in this direction’, ¯el ‘which way, where’. The time

adverbs include some unanalysable ones, e.g. ine(n) ‘today’, indi ‘now’, v¯egen ‘tomor-

row’, pinne ‘day after tomorrow’. The manner adverbials are is-en ‘in this manner’,

es-en ‘how’. One example of a reduplicated adverbial is available, haru-haru ‘slowly’.

Parji (Burrow and Bhattacharya 1953: 68) has both deictic and non-deictic adverbs.

The manner adverbs are at-ni ‘that way’, it-ni ‘this way’, and et-ni ‘in what way’. There

are several non-deictic ones, e.g. ine ‘today’, ori ‘yesterday’, tolli ‘tomorrow’, pi

ge,

pidne (dial) ‘the day after tomorrow’, ki

ri ‘below’, mari ‘again’, etc. Non-productive

morphological complexes functioning as adverbs include nir

di ‘last year’ (cf. Te. niru

du),

pira

d ‘next year’, okec ‘once’ etc. The ones borrowed from Halbi, an Indo-Aryan lang-

uage, are murle ‘completely’, ja

tke ‘quickly’ etc.

Ollari (Bhattacharya 1957: 29) has a place sufﬁx -el (cf. -el in Naiki, Chanda above)

occurring in dig-el ‘in the direction of’ (< Skt. dik-), pak-el ‘near’ (< Oll. pak- ‘side’

< Skt. pak

sa-); -ken is a quantiﬁer sufﬁx found in sane-ken ‘after a little while’, olo-ken

[ɔlɔken] ‘a little’, mul-ken ‘much, many’, apparently borrowed from O

riya.

Gadaba (Bhaskararao 1980: 60–8, under different headings) place adverbs have suf-

ﬁxes -el,-an/-un, e.g. kak-el ‘near’, mund-el ‘in front of’, ta

dr-el ‘inside’, pak-an ‘near’,

dg-un ‘below’, kos-an ‘at the end of’, etc. A number of heads of adverbial phrases are

listed by Bhaskararao (1980: 60), who calls them adverbial postpositions, e.g.

d¯a

‘till’ (OTe. d

ak-an > Mdn Te. d¯ak-¯a), and case sufﬁxes like -kanna ‘than’ (< Te), -nu

‘because of’: s¯epal nu

di ‘because of children’ (< Te. - nu

di ‘from’). Manner adver-

bials from demonstrative and interrogative bases are i-pa

d ‘in this fashion’, a-pa

d ‘in

that fashion’, e-

ten ‘in which fashion’; the forms iy-nes ‘this day’, ay-nes ‘that day’ and

ey-nes ‘which day’.

Reduplicated numerals and non-ﬁnite verbs function as manner

adverbials, e.g. i

dig-i

dig ‘in twos’, apu

d-apu

d ‘then itself ’, senji-ginji ‘having gone a

long distance’. Onomatopoetic adverbs are also reduplicated: kis-kis ‘monkey’s sound’,

par-par ‘sound of tearing’, etc.

8.3.1.4 North Dravidian

rux has a number of adverbs of time, place, quantity and manner, some native, but most

of them borrowed from Indo-Aryan or Munda. The sufﬁxes -t¯a/-nt¯a are added to time or

place adverbs meaning ‘at, of’, and -t¯ı is added to denote ‘from’, e.g. akkun ‘just now’:

akkun-t¯a ‘at the present moment’, akkun-t¯ı ‘from this moment’, mund ‘before’: mund-t¯ı

The y-element in the demonstrative roots is most likely traceable to an older laryngeal

∗

H. Such

relics are attested in Toda–Kota, Ollari, Ko

da and Ku

rux–Malto.

412 Adjectives,

adverbs and

clitics

‘beforehand’; -m is added as an adverbial sufﬁx, nel¯a ‘tomorrow’: nel-am id. Another

native adverb is inn¯a ‘today’. Adverbs of place: isan/hisan ‘here’, asan/hasan/husan

‘there’, eksan ‘where’, iyy¯a/hiyy¯a ‘in this place’, ayy¯a/hayy¯a

‘in that place’, ekayy¯a

‘in what place’. Adverbs of manner include morphological inﬁnitives and gerundives,

beside some onomatopoetic words, e.g. hu

rhu

‘din¯at¯oknar ‘they stamp the ground

violently

(in dancing)’. Quantitative adverbs include jokk-jokk, batre-batre ‘to a certain

extent’, ongh-on ‘once’, p¯ar-

r ‘twice’, p¯ar-mund ‘three times’, p¯ar-n¯ax ‘four times’

with native numerals coming in the second position; but in p

ac dh

o ‘ﬁve times’ the

numeral occurs as the ﬁrst member.

or Malto Droese (1884: 88

–100)

cites several time, place and

manner adverbs:

¯a

dine ‘on that day’, ¯ı dine ‘in these days’ (¯a and ¯ı are demonstrative adjectives), akohi

‘recently’, aneke ‘now’, mundi ‘formerly’, ¯a baje ‘on that side’, ano ‘there’, ino ‘here’,

ikeno ‘where’, pisi ‘below’, aneke ‘now’, ik-onno ‘when’, ine ‘today’, ine-tente ‘from

today’, ule ‘inside’, ¯anki ‘that way’, ik-ni ‘how’, ¯ınki ‘this way’.

Mahapatra (1979: 192–5) illustrates simple, complex and compound adverbs with

examples. Simple: ina ‘today’, inor ‘now’, ikni ‘how’ etc.; complex: dina + ond →

din-ond ‘one day’, ¯ı-no ‘this side’, ¯a-no ‘that side’ etc.; compound stems: ¯ıka

ra ‘this

time’, ¯aka

ra ‘at that time’, ¯ıb¯er ‘this day’, ¯ab¯er ‘that day’ etc. The manner adverbs

include b¯ag ‘fortunately’, c¯ıg ‘silently’, sewre ‘completely’ etc. Onomatopoetic ones

include gi

r-gi

r-re ‘hurriedly’, bor-bor-re ‘noisily’ etc.

In Brahui (Bray 1909: 21–19) time, place and manner adverbials are nominals, de-

rived from demonstrative and interrogative bases, but most of them are loanwords from

Balochi and Indo-Aryan. A few native items are detected in dar¯o ‘yesterday’, mul

xudo

‘the day before yesterday’ (Dravidian part is underlined), ¯el¯o-d¯e

‘the next day’ (¯el¯o ‘the

other’), ann¯a

‘still’, d¯a-hun ‘thus’, o-hun ‘that manner (mediate)’, ¯e-hun ‘that man-

ner’ (remote), o-ng(¯ı)

‘that direction (mediate)’, ¯e-ng¯ı ‘that direction’ (remote), ar¯a-ng¯ı

‘which direction’.

8.4 Clitics

Clitics are a class of syntactic afﬁxes, which can be attached to any autonomous con-

stituent of a sentence – word, phrase or clause. Clitics are not added to adjectival phrases

or clauses. The meaning of a clitic depends

on the unit of the sentence to which it is

attached. A sentence can be grammatical without any clitic. Clitics are not bound to a

Here, the optional h- element is a reﬂex of the Proto-Dravidian laryngeal

∗

H lost in other

languages.

Andronov (1980: 90 fn43) compares this with Ta. innum ‘yet, still, more’, Ma. ini, Kota in,To.

¯ınm, Ka. inu, innu, innum,Ko

dagu inn¯u ‘still other’, Te. inka ‘now, hereafter’, Kolami in. DEDR

410 derives all these forms from the deictic root

∗

i-/

∗

¯ı-. The proximate base in Brahui is d¯a-, a

loanword from Pashto.

8.4 Clitics 413

particular morphological class of words or part of speech, and that distinguishes them

from morphologically bound sufﬁxes.

Only four clitics can be reconstructed for Proto-Dravidian:

∗

-um conjunctive,

∗

-¯e

emphatic,

∗

-¯a interrogative and

∗

-¯o dubitative–alternative. Different modern lang-

uages have evolved other clitics, between ﬁve and twelve, which are not discussed

below.

8.4.1

∗

-um co-ordinating

Modern Tamil (Lehmann 1989: 150–63) uses -um in several meanings depending on

the items with which it co-occurs: (a) ‘also’, (b) ‘totality’, (c) ‘any/none’, when added

to interrogative words, depending on the positive or negative governing verb, (d) ‘and’,

when added to each

of the coordinating phrases, (e)

‘even, although’, when added to a

conditional phrase. Examples:

(a) r¯aj¯an¯err-um

va-nt-¯an ‘Raja came yesterday also’; kum¯ar-um va-nt-¯an

‘Kumar also

came’

(b) m¯u

nru pe

npi

lai-ka

l-um

va-nt-¯ar-ka

l ‘all the three girls came’

p¯ok-a.v-illai ‘Kumar didn’t go anywhere’(e˙nke ‘where’)

y¯ar-um

varu-v-¯ar-ka

l ‘Everyone will come’ ( y¯ar ‘who’ 3hum pl)

(d) kum¯ar-um

r¯aj¯av-um va-nt-¯ar-ka

l ‘Kumar and Raja came’

(e) kum¯ar

va-nt-¯al-um

, n¯an

avan-i

tam

p¯ec-am¯a

t-¯en

‘Even if

Kumar

comes

won’t talk

with him

’

Malay¯a

lam (Asher and Kumari 1997:

§1.3) is expected to have all the usages of -um

found in Tamil, but the available descriptions do not treat all the details. Some of them

are illustrated: the usage of ‘also’: avan ro

ti tinnu; ve

lavum

ticcu ‘he ate the bread; he

drank water also

’; the usage of ‘and’ in r¯aghavan-um kum¯ar-um vannu ‘Raghavan and

Kumar came’; the usage of question word ‘when’ + -um = ‘always’ in avar epp¯o

z-um

v¯ayiccu-ko

t-irukk-unnu [they always read-prog-pres] ‘they are always reading’.

dagu (Balakrishnan 1977: 207–10, Ebert 1996: 37–8) uses -u/-¯u in different mean-

ings, ‘also’, ‘and’ (added to coordinated constituents), ‘even though’, e.g. m¯ova

l-¯u

b¯at¨ı

‘the daughter also

came’, n¯an-¯u n¯a-

da akk¨e-n¯u ...‘I and my elder sister’, av¨en band-¯u

pray¯ojna ille ‘although he came, there was no use at all’, alli ava

l-¯u p¯a

dici ‘she also

sang there’.

Old Kanna

da uses -um (variant -am) with the meaning ‘and’ added to coordinated

noun or verb phrases, i

d-ut-um...¯ar-ut-um . . . nung-ut-um ‘hitting, shouting and swal-

lowing’, t¯ay-um tande.y-um ‘mother and father’; -um added to a single phrase/word,

meaning ‘even, also’, e.g. nu

diyey-um ‘even after saying’, ad-um ‘that also’; a complex

clitic -¯an-um ‘even’, e.g. ¯ar- ‘who’: ¯ar-¯anum ‘whosoever’, ¯enu ‘what’: ¯en-¯anum ‘what-

soever’ (usages from Pampa Bh¯arata of the tenth century; B. Ramachandra Rao 1972:

182–9).

414 Adjectives,

adverbs and

clitics

Modern Kanna

da -¯u /-n¯u correspond to OKa. -um; for the usage meaning ‘and’, e.g.

narahari.y-¯u

s¯omas¯ekhara-n¯u p¯e

tege h¯odaru ‘Narahari and Somasekhar went to the

market’; for the usage of a question word like ¯enu ‘what’ + ¯u = ‘anything’, e.g. viji ¯en-¯u

lal-illa ‘Viji has not bought anything’ (Sridhar 1990: 102, 104).

In South Dravidian I, Toda has all the usages found in Tamil. Kota has most of them

but in one usage it replaces -m by -dan (cf. Ta. t¯a

n ‘self’).

Telugu has all the ﬁve usages with -um > ¯u for u-ending words; for others lengthening

of any word-ﬁnal vowel, e.g. ‘also’: w¯a

dik¯ı

¯ı sangati

telusu

[he-dat-cl this-matter

be-known-3neu sg] ‘he also

knows

this matter

’, ‘and’: ill-¯u w¯akil-¯ı ‘the house and

the gate’, non-ﬁnite verb win-i ‘having heard’ + cl = ‘even after listening (to what is

said) ...’: w¯a

du win-¯ı

m¯a

l-¯a

d-al¯edu ‘he didn’t speak,

even having heard

...’, question

word ewaru ‘who’ + cl → ewar-¯u with a negative verb ‘nobody’: n¯a

liki

ewar- ¯u

r¯al¯edu

‘nobody came

3, 4

[anyone

did not come

]to

wedding

’, numeral + cl:

iddar-¯u

debba tinn¯aru ‘they both got hurt’,

Among North Dravidian, Ku

rux has -im/-um∼-m in usage (c), e.g. eksa’ ¯anum/¯anim

‘anywhere, everywhere, somewhere’ (see section 8.4.4.1). Brahui has -(h)um in two

meanings ‘also, and’ following nominals, e.g. ¯ı hum

duzz¯ı kattanu

t ‘I too have committed

theft’ (Bray 1909: 229, Emeneau 1980b: 213).

Among the remaining languages of South Dravidian II and Central Dravidian, several

of the usages occur in different combinations but with different morphological markers

(for details, see Emeneau 1980b: 213–16).

8.4.1.1 Convergence between Indo-Aryan and Dravidian

Emeneau (1980b: 197–249) gives a detailed account of the usage of

∗

-um in Dravidian

and compares it with Sanskrit -api (< IE

∗

epi) which has parallels in Indo-European

as a verbal preﬁx. Its usage as an enclitic particle in Sanskrit, from Old Indic to the

classical period, reﬂects transfer of the usages of the derivatives of

∗

-um in Dravidian

to -api; this phenomenon heralds a new aspect

of convergence between Indo-Aryan

and Dravidian. He attributes ﬁve meanings to -api, which were progressively ac-

quired by Sanskrit and transmitted to Middle and New Indo-Aryan. The meanings are:

(a) ‘also’, (b) ‘and’, (c) ‘even if, even though’ (Skt. yady-api ...tath¯a ‘pi), (d) ‘totalizing’

or ‘summing’ following a numeral

of members of a numbered group, (e) added to an

interrogative pronoun, an indeﬁnite meaning results, ‘whoever, someone, anyone’, e.g.

katham ‘how’: katham api ‘anyway, by any means’. He says usages (a) and (b) were Vedic;

Indic and New Indic with different markers and with some disintegration of the original

semantic structure (1980b: 197–200). Emeneau surveys in detail the usages of

∗

-um

(its derivativ

es as well as substitutes) in different Dravidian languages and concludes,

‘None of the Sanskrit structure is inherited straightforwardly from Indo-European or

8.4 Clitics 415

from Indo-Iranian ...The Sanskrit usages are essentially a calque of Dravidian

∗

-um by

Sanskrit api’ (1980b: 217–18).

8.4.2

∗

-¯e emphatic

This clitic adds emphasis to the meaning of any constituent of a clause to which it is

attached, broadly meaning ‘only’.

In Modern Tamil it is used in addition to t¯a

n ‘self’ which is an innovation in Proto-

South Dravidian I. Modern Tamil usages include the following: avarka

enn-ai.y-¯e

k¯uppi

tu-kir-¯arka

‘they

are calling

me only/just me

’, kum¯ar n¯erru i˙nk¯e va-nt-¯an-¯e

‘Kumar did come here yesterday’. A special usage is the addition of -¯e to an inﬁnitive

before a negative ﬁnite verb, e.g. kum¯ar

var-a.v-¯e

var-a-m¯a

t-¯an

[Kumar come-inf

come-inf-not 3m sg] ‘Kumar

will

deﬁnitely

not come

’. It also relativizes a clause

and

embeds it in the matrix clause, e.g. n¯a

n¯erru

p¯ar-tt-¯en-¯e

anta.ppa

tam

nanr-¯aka

iru-nt-atu

‘(the one

) I

saw

yesterday

, that movie

was

nice

’.

Malay¯a

lam (Asher and Kumari 1997:

§1.11) adds -¯e and -tanne to any major con-

stituent of a sentence as emphatic particles, e.g. r¯aman ipp¯o

z-¯e

var-unnu

l¯u ‘Raman

is coming only

now’, ˜n¯an-¯e var-¯am ‘I shall come’, avan kara

ŋŋ

u-ko

t-¯e irunnu [he

cry-prog-emph be-past] ‘he was continuously crying

’.

dagu expresses emphasis by adding -¯e to any autonomous constituent of a sentence,

e.g. ava

l-¯e

b¯at¨ı ‘she came herself’, n¯an¨ın¯a

le.y-¯e p¯opi ‘I will go only tomorrow’.

In Classical Kanna

da, -e/-¯e can be added to nouns, verbs or adverbs, e.g. namb-

en ‘I will not believe’: namb-en-

e ‘I will certainly not believe’, en-ge.y-e [I-to-emph]

‘for me only

’, ¯adam-e ‘only excessively’. Modern Kanna

da (Sridhar 1990: §1.11) con-

tinues the usage of -¯e in addition to t¯an-¯e as emphatic clitics, e.g. r¯aman-¯e

banda

‘Rama himself

came’, avanu kared-¯e kar¯ı-t -¯ane [he call-ppl-emph call-non-past-3m sg]

‘he will deﬁnitely

call’. Adding the clitic to the ﬁrst member of a reduplicated verb is an

idiomatic usage of emphasis in Dravidian, which is not easily translatable into English.

Also cf. Te. w¯a

du pilw-an-¯e pilus-t¯a-

[he call-inf-emph call-future-3m-sg] ‘he will

certainly call

’. Note that in Kanna

da the ﬁrst repeated verb is the perfective participle

and not inﬁnitive as in Telugu.

Telugu (Krishnamurti and Gwynn 1985: 280–3) uses -¯e as an emphatic marker both

at the sentence level and at the constituent level, e.g. adi n¯a pustakam-¯e

‘that is certainly

my book’, ad-¯e n¯a pustakam ‘that is my book’, ¯ame

n¯a-t¯o

¯a sangati

cepp-an-¯e l¯edu

‘she

did not at all speak

with me

(about) that matter

’; cepp-a-l¯edu [tell-inf be-not-

3neu-sg] is a compound verb meaning ‘(one) did not tell’. (Any subject may occur in

the sentence and the third neuter singular neutralizes all agreement contrasts.) The only

grammatical element which can be inserted within such a compound is a clitic. A more

emphatic way is to repeat the inﬁnitive followed by -¯e before the ﬁnite verb, i.e. cepp-an-¯e

cepp-a-l¯e-du (see the Kanna

da example above).

416 Adjectives,

adverbs and

clitics

Gondi (Abhujmaria dialect; Natarajan 1985: 228) uses -¯e as an emphatic clitic, e.g.

m¯a

t-¯e

t-¯om ‘we only/ourselves drank’, nan¯a pun-¯o-n-¯e ‘I do not know at all’. Ko

also has -e ∼ -ne as an emphatic clitic, e.g.

dokra

n¯a

to-ne

man-zin-an

‘the old man

was staying

in the village only

’, dani

-e o-n-a ‘I will carry that one only’. There is no

evidence of emphatic -e/-

e in Kui, Pengo and Man

da. But in Kuvi (Israel 1979: 224–5)

some examples of the usage of this clitic are cited, e.g. ¯ı kama

¯evasi

-e

ki-n-esi

‘only

will do

this work

’, ¯edi-

e ‘she herself ’, etc.

Among the Central Dravidian languages Naik

ri (Thomasiah 1986: 156) has -¯ı, called

an emphatic clitic, e.g. ¯an-¯ı

‘I myself’, an-¯u

-¯ı

‘me alone’. The quality of the vowel

makes it a phonological problem. Parji and Ollari grammars do not treat particles

or clitics as a part of speech. Gadaba (Bhaskararao 1980: 61) cites two examples of

-i being an emphatic particle, ¯o

n (= ¯on

vago

t-i

¯ın

v¯a

‘you

come

only if he

comes’.

In Malto -i is cited as a particle

meaning

‘certainly’, e.g. ¯en ¯ek-an-i ‘I shall go

certainly’. There is no evidence of PD

∗

-¯e emphatic in North Dravidian. On the basis

∗

-¯e > -¯e South Dravidian I and South Dravidian II, we can reconstruct

∗

-¯e as an

emphatic clitic for Proto-South Dravidian. Central Dravidian -i and Malto -i (if they

are taken as cognates) would enable us to reconstruct this clitic for Proto-Dravidian.

It is very likely that -i represents Indo-Aryan/Hindi -h¯ı (emphatic) with h-loss. Since

clitics are important elements of discourse, it is quite possible that borrowed ones from

the neighbouring dominant Indo-Aryan languages have replaced the native ones. This

is clearly true of the interrogative clitic below.

8.4.3

∗

-¯a interrogative

This is added to a declarative sentence or to any free constituent of a clause to elicit a

‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. The question marker is underlined. Examples:

Tamil

(1) kum¯ar

n¯erru

r¯aj¯a.v-ai

ti-tt-¯an

‘Kumar

beat

Raja

yesterday

’

a. kum¯ar

n¯erru

r¯aj¯a.v-ai-¯a

ti-tt-¯an

‘was it Raja

(acc Q) that Kumar

beat

yesterday

?’

b. kum¯ar

n¯err-¯a

r¯aj¯a.v-ai

ti-tt-¯an

‘was it yesterday

(Q) that Kumar

beat

Raja

?’

c. kum¯ar-¯a

n¯erru

r¯aj¯a.v-ai

ti-tt-¯an

‘was it Kumar

(Q) that beat

Raja

yesterday

?’

Kanna

da In Classical Kanna

da, in addition to -a/-¯a,-e/-¯e and -o/-¯o were also used

as question markers, e.g. mared-a ‘did you forget?’, ku

duv-¯a ‘will you give?’; ka

dir-e

‘did you see?’ ¯ayt-¯e ‘did it happen?’; illey-¯o ‘does it not exist?’

8.4 Clitics 417

(2)a. nimm-a

t¯ayi

¯aﬁs-ige

h¯og-idd-¯ar-¯a

‘has

your

mother

gone

to the

ofﬁce

?’

The yes–no question clitic has the form -n¯a following a constituent ending in a vowel,

e.g.

b. nenne-n¯a

avanu

pustaka

niddu

? ‘was it yesterday

that he

bought

the book

?’

Toda, Ko

dagu and Tu

lu also use -¯a as a marker of yes–no questions (Emeneau

1984:

132, Balakrishnan 1977: 206, Bhat 1998: 170). Ko

dagu also has variants in -la and -na,

e.g.

dagu

(3) m¯a

da˙nga-na

? ‘shall we do?’

(4) y¯an¨ı baro

d-¯a

‘shall I come?’

Malay¯a

lam uses -¯o (with positive forms) and -¯e (with negative forms) as markers of

neutral yes–no questions. No examples for -¯a as question marker are given.

Telugu

(5)a. idi m¯ı ill-¯a

‘is this your house?’

b. id-

m¯ı illu? ‘is

this

our house?

’

(6) ni

l¯oku

manar-a

sile-na

? [you-to

folks

be-hum pl-Q

be-not-Q

]

‘do

you

have

any folks

or not

?’

Gondi, Kui–Kuvi–Pengo–Man

da use -ki of Indo-Aryan origin to frame questions re-

quiring yes–no answers.

Kolami

(7) amd vatt-en-a ‘has he come?’

Naik

(8)a. s¯ın¯ar-¯a ‘will we give?’, t¯ıs¯at¯ıy-¯a ‘will you eat?’

Naik

ri also has -k¯ı as an interrogative particle, e.g.

b. v¯an¯av¯as¯ad-k¯ıt¯oy? ‘will the rain come or not?’

418 Adjectives,

adverbs and

clitics

Gadaba

(9) ¯o

ay k¯os-un

c¯edel

si-n-o

d-¯a

‘did

give

a porcupine

to that

king

?’

Since South Dravidian I, South Dravidian II and Central Dravidian have evidence of

interrogative -¯a, it can be reconstructed for Proto-Dravidian. Several languages in central

and north India have replaced it by a borrowed clitic -ki from Indo-Aryan.

8.4.4

∗

-¯o dubitative–alternative

∗

-¯o has several complementar

y functions. As a sentential

clitic it makes the propo-

sition doubtful. Added to two or more coordinating NPs, it means ‘either ...or’. Added

to an interrogative word, it has an indeﬁnite meaning. It also marks the ﬁrst of two

correlative clauses. All these usages are retained in the literary languages.

Tamil (Lehmann 1989: 154–6)

(1)a. kum¯ar

epp¯otu

varuv¯an

-¯o

‘I wonder

when

Kumar

will come

’

b. n¯e

rru

y¯ar-¯o

u˙nka

l-ai

.kk¯uppi

t¯an

‘someone

called

you

yesterday

’

(y¯ar ‘who’)

c. kum¯ar-¯o

r¯aj¯a.v-¯o varu.v-¯arka

l ‘Kumar or Raja will come’

d. eva

n¯erru

va-nt-¯an-¯o

avan

tampi

‘(the one) who

came

yesterday

,he

(was) my

younger brother

’

Malay¯a

lam (Asher and Kumari 1997: 139–41, 146–8)

(2) ˜n¯an

c¯or-¯o

capp¯attiy-¯o

zikk¯am

‘I

’ll take

either rice

or chapatti

’

Kanna

da (Ramachandra Rao 1972: 186, Sridhar 1990: 259–61) Literary Kanna

has the usage of -o/-¯o to express doubt, to convert an interrogative into an indeﬁnite

pronoun, and to express ‘either-or’ coordination (example (3) is from Old Kanna

da and

(4a–c) from Modern Kanna

da):

(3) k¯ar-o

m¯e

k¯a

larakkasan-¯o

‘is it a dark cloud

a black demon

?’

(4)a. y¯ar-¯o

baruttidd¯are

‘somebody

is coming

’(y¯ar ‘who’)

b. sur¯e

sa-n¯o

v¯a

ni-y¯o

barutt¯are

‘either Suresh

or Vani

will come

’

c. ninage

¯enu

b¯ek-¯o

tog¯o

[you-to what be-needed-non-past-clitic take-

2sg] ‘take

whatever

you

want

’

For Ko

dagu only single words are given, e.g. d¯ar-¯o ‘who?’ (in doubt), n¯ın-¯o ‘you?’ (in

doubt).

8.4 Clitics 419

Telugu (Krishnamurti and Gwynn 1985: 289–93) All uses of -¯o in Modern Telugu

were already there in the inscriptional and literary varieties beginning from the seventh

century. Only examples from Modern Telugu are given:

(5)a. ewar- ¯o

wacc-

-ru

‘somebody

has come

’

b. ¯ayana

mana

¯uru

enduku

wacc-

-¯o

! ‘I wonder

why

came

to our

village

!’

c. n¯enu enn-¯od¯e´s¯alu c¯us

-nu ‘I have seen many countries’ (enni ‘how

many?’)

d. ewaru

mundu

wast¯ar-¯o

w¯a

gelust¯aru

‘whoever

come

ﬁrst

, (they

)

will win

’

e. m¯aw¯a

amerk¯a-nunci

r¯ep-¯o

ellu

d (i)-¯o

was-t¯a-

‘our boy

will

come

from America

tomorrow

or the day after tomorrow

’

Gondi Subrahmanyam (1968: 77) gives only one example of -¯o as a clitic of uncertainty,

e.g. b¯or ‘who’: b¯or-¯o ‘somebody’ (Adilabad dialect). There is also another ‘free form’

beh¯e, which expresses uncertainty, e.g. v¯or

v¯at¯or

beh¯e

‘he

came

, didn’t he

?’

da (Krishnamurti 1969a: 329) Examples are available for the addition of the clitic

-¯o with interrogative words to form indeﬁnite pronouns. I treated this as a separate mor-

pheme from -o/-no, which occurs as a coordinating conjunction expressing uncertainty.

It is clear that they are one and the same.

(6)a. ayer-o

goron

katki-zin-ar

‘some people

were cutting

(the trees in) the

forest

’

b. ri-ne

d-e

soRad-o

mu-ne

d-e

soRad-o

...‘maybe two days

had

passed

or three days

had passed

...’

The remaining South Dravidian II languages, Kui–Kuvi–Pengo–Man

da, do not have

any form that is comparable. Kui -ve ...-ve and Kuvi -va ...-va are coordinating con-

junctions, but they do seem to be related to the clitic -¯o. Their source has to be investi-

gated.

Among the Central Dravidian languages, only Naik

ri has a clitic -¯o, which is illustrated

with ﬁnite verbs meaning ‘doubt’, e.g. sedd¯en-¯o ‘whether he has gone’, vatt¯en-¯o ‘whether

he has come ...’ When added to interrogative words, they become indeﬁnite pronouns,

e.g. ¯er-¯o m pl ‘some one’, ¯ed-¯o neu sg ‘something’ (Thomasiah 1986: 155, 158). Gadaba

uses ¯em-¯o (lw < Te. ¯emi ‘what’ + -¯o) to express doubt, when attached to a ﬁnite verb

(Bhaskararao 1980: 61).

None of the North Dravidian languages has retained this clitic. As in the case of other

clitics, it has been replaced by borrowed substitutes for expressing the same ideas.

Syntax

9.1 Introduction

The unmarked order of constituents

in a sentence is Subject–Object–V

erb (SOV) in

the Dravidian languages. A number of other features seem to ﬂow from this dominant

pattern: adjectives (including possessive nominals) precede noun heads, adverbs precede

the verbs that they modify, complements precede the matrix clauses, auxiliaries follow

the main verb, and postpositions rather than prepositions follow nominals. Dravidian

languages have the nominative–accusative pattern with subject–predicate agreement,

and not the absolutive–ergative.

A sentence in Dravidian may be simple, complex or

compound.

9.2 Simple sentences

A simple sentence is represented by two grammatical constituents, Subject + Predicate.

The subject is either a Noun Phrase (NP) with the head noun in the nominative case,

or a Postpositional Phrase (PP) with the head noun in the dative case (see discussion in

Most of the available descriptions of the non-literary languages do not deal with syntax. Even for

the literary languages, we do not have any study of syntax of the language of the classical texts.

Therefore, it is not easy to make a systematic study of comparative syntax and make statements

applying the comparative method. Secondly, there has not been any signiﬁcant study of com-

parative syntax in Dravidian. Most research during the last century concentrated on comparative

phonology and some aspects of morphology. Steever’s work (1988, 1993) represents the begin-

ning of research on some aspects of comparative morphosyntax in Dravidian. These limitations

have to be borne in mind by readers while studying this chapter. I have, therefore, limited my

illustrations to the four literary languages, representing South Dravidian I and II. Occasionally I

have referred to the other languages, wherever possible. I have also not attempted reconstruction

of Proto-Dravidian patterns, as I did in the other chapters.

‘A language is said to show ergative characteristics if, at some level, S (intransitive subject)

is treated in the same way as O (transitive object), and differently from A (transitive subject)’

(Dixon 1987: 2).

The illustrative sentences are taken from published sources, except for Telugu, from Krishnamurti

(1969a), Bhaskararao (1980), Steever (1988, 1998: including chapters by different authors),

Lehmann (1989), Krishnamurti and Gwynn (1985), Sridhar (1990), Asher and Kumari (1997)

and others cited in appropriate places.