Krishnamurti Bhadriraju. The Dravidian Languages

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9.3 Complex

sentences

441

d. Ka. mantriga

lu [m¯eja-nnu ku

ti ku

] bh¯a

na m¯a

didaru

[minister-hon table-acc pound-ppl pound-ppl speech

make-past-3hon]

‘the Minister spoke, frequently pounding

on the desk’ [lit. having

pounded, having pounded]

e. [g¯aliw¯ana wacc-i] illu pa

dip¯o-in-di

[storm come-ppl house fall-past-3neu-sg]

‘Because of the rain the house fell down’

These usages show a variety of meanings, all of which go back to the reconstructed

stage, i.e. sequencing two or more actions in time (25a,b,c); denoting manner of the

action denoted by the main verb (25d); the subordinate clause in (25e) stands in a

causal relationship to the action expressed by the main clause. In the case of (25a–d) the

subject NPs of the main clause and the subordinate clause, marked [+ human], have to be

coreferential and identical, but not in (25e), where the semantic relationship is different;

‘storm’ is the subject of the subordinate

clause and

‘the house’ is the subject of the

main clause. There are other time-related symmetrical clauses, where the constraint of

coreferential subject is not applicable, as in (21f, g). All these are shared by all Dravidian

languages and the type is reconstructible for Proto-Dravidian. There are still other uses

of the clause headed by a perfective participle (some idiosyncratic to some languages),

details of which can be found in Krishnamurti and Gwynn (1985: 188–95, 340–2) and

Lehmann (1989: 265–78), e.g.

f. Te. r¯atri we

l-ip¯oy-i pagalu wacc-in-di

[night go-ppl, day come-past-3neu-sg]

‘the night having passed, day broke’

g. ma

zai pey-tu, veyil a

ti-ttu, v¯a

navil t¯onr-i.y-atu

[rain-nom pour-ppl, sunshine-nom beat-ppl, rainbow-nom

appear-past-3neu-sg]

‘it rained, the sun shone, and a rainbow appeared’

9.3.1.2 Conditional and concessive clause

The formation of the conditional verb ‘if ...verb’ is discussed in section 7.7.3. The con-

ditional clause, in some contexts, may focus on the time of action, i.e. ‘when I opened the

letter ...’, instead of ‘if I opened the letter ...’ The concessive is derived by adding the

derivatives of the conjunctive particle

∗

-um/

∗

-am to the conditional verb (section 8.4.1).

(26) a. Ta. [kum¯ar va-nt-¯al] n¯a

nunnai k¯uppi

tu-v-¯en

[Kumar-come-past-cond

I he-acc call-fut-1sg]

‘if Kumar comes, I will call him’ (conditional)

442 Syntax

b. Ta. [kum¯ar i

nk¯eva-ntu iru-nt-¯al] n¯a

nunnai k¯uppi

tu iru-pp-¯en

[Kumar here come-ppl be-past-cond I he-acc call-past-ppl be-fut-1sg]

‘if Kumar had come, I would have called you’ (contra-factual)

c. Ta. [n¯a

nenna con-n-¯al-um] kum¯arukku ¯a

tc¯epam (concessive)

[I what(ever) say-past-cond-conc Kumar-dat objection]

‘whatever I say, Kumar (has) objections’

d. Ma. [n¯ı vann-¯al-¯e] ˜n¯an p¯ok¯u

[you come-cond-emph I go-fut]

‘I go only if you come’

e. Ma. ˜n¯an [pa

ticc-¯al-um] pass ¯a-v-illa

[I read-past-cond-conc pass be-fut-neg]

‘even if I study, I will not pass’

f. Ka. m¯ına [l¯a

tari.y-alli gedd-are] nin-a-ge sw¯ı

tko

d-is-utt-¯ene

[Meena lottery-in win-past-cond you-dat sweets give-caus-fut-1sg]

‘if Meena wins the lottery, I will buy you sweets’

g. Te. [w¯ana-lu kuris-t¯e] pa

talu pa

du-t-¯ayi

[rain-pl rain-past-cond crop-pl grow-hab-3neu-pl]

‘if rains fall (rain), crops will grow’

h. Te. [n¯enu wacc-in¯a] ¯ayana r¯a

[I come-past-conc

he come-neg-3m-sg]

‘even if I come, he

will not come

’

In the abo

ve usages, although the conditional

form is built on the past

stem of the

verb, there is no speciﬁc reference to the past time in any of the languages. The

conditional and concessive forms are morphologically related in Tamil, Malay¯a

lam

and Kanna

da, but not in Telugu. The history of this problem has been discussed in

section 7.7.3.

9.3.1.3 Inﬁnitive clauses

A comparative study of the morphology of the inﬁnitive is discussed in section 7.9.1.

Inﬁnitive clauses serve as complements to noun phrases,

verbs representing speech

acts and modal, aspectual and desiderative meanings. The major languages of South

Dravidian I preserve several of the usages at the syntactic level, which got grammatical-

ized as compound verbs in Telugu (see section 7.15.2 (9)). Only a few typical usages are

cited below. For further details, see Krishnamurti and Gwynn (1985: 211–29), Lehmann

(1989: 257–65), David (1999).

(27) a. Ta. r¯aj¯a [kum¯ar-ai.kku

ti-kk-a] ka

tayapa

t-¯a

[Raja-nom Kumar-acc

drink-inf force-past-3m-sg]

‘Raja forced Kumar to drink’

9.3 Complex

sentences

443

b. Ta. [[kum¯ar varu-ki

r-¯en] en-ru coll-a] n¯an k¯e

t-¯en

[Kumar come-pres-1sg say-ppl tell-inf I hear-past-1sg]

‘I heard Kumar say, “I am coming”’

c. Ta. [kum¯ar coll-a] n¯an

cey-t-¯en

[Kumar say-inf I do-past-1sg]

‘I did what Kumar said’

d. Ta. [¯o

t-a¯o

t-a] n¯a

n avan-ai vira

t-in-¯en

[run-inf run-inf I he-acc scare-past-1sg]

‘I scared

him (so that) he ran awa

’

e. Ma. avan [u

n-¯an] p¯oyi

[he eat-inf go-past]

‘he went to eat’

f. Ma. enikk

[cila s¯adhana

ŋŋ

lv¯a

ŋŋ

¯an] u

tε

[I-dat some thing-pl buy-inf be-pres]

‘I have some things to buy’

g. Ka. m¯ına vy¯ay¯ama kalasal-ikke basavannagu

di-ge h¯og-utt-¯a

[Meena exercise-acc teach-inf-dat Basavannagudi-dat go-pres-3f-sg]

‘Meena goes to Basavannagudi to teach (for teaching) exercise’

h. Te. [m¯ıru ¯a sangati n¯at-¯o ceppan] akkara l¯e-du

[you-hon that matter-Øacc I-com tell-inf need be-not-3neu-sg]

‘there is no need for you to tell me this matter’

i. Te. ¯ayana

eppu

d¯u

m¯a¯uru

r¯a-n-¯e

r¯a-

[he never our-town come-inf-emph come-not-3m-sg]

‘he

is sure not to come

4,5

to our town

anytime

’

In Kanna

da the inﬁnitive is a nominal formed by adding -al and the resultant form takes

case sufﬁxes as in (27g). Telugu also uses a nominalized verb n¯erp-a

dam ‘teaching’ =

Ka. kalas(u)-al and not an inﬁnitive n¯erp-an (inf) ‘to teach’, corresponding to (27g):

j. Te. m¯ına wy¯ay¯amam n¯erpa

d¯a-ni-ki basavannagu

di we

l-tun-di

[Meena exercise teach-noml-obl-dat Basavannagudi-dat go-non-past-

3f-sg]

‘Meena goes to Basavannagudi to teach exercise’

Corresponding to Tamil and Malay¯a

lam usages (27a–f), Old Telugu used inﬁnitives, but

in Modern Telugu, some of these (27a, c, e, f) can be rendered by nominalized verbs,

and some others by an extended inﬁnitive, i.e. inﬁnitive followed by the adverbial sufﬁx

-g¯a, e.g. ceppa-g¯a ‘as one says/said’ with focus on the time of action. Thus for (27b):

k. [

INF

[

kum¯ar was-t¯a-nu

] ani ceppa-g¯a

INF

] n¯enu win-n-¯anu

[Kumar come-fut-3m-sg

say-ppl tell-ing-advl I hear-past-1sg]

‘I heard Kumar saying, “I will come”’

444 Syntax

9.3.2 Noun clauses

The noun clause is the most versatile in its occurrence and frequency in the Dravidian

languages, because many other clauses feed into the structure of a noun clause. They are:

(i) a postpositional clause has an underlying noun clause plus case/postposition added

to the head noun; (ii) adverbial clauses of time and place have almost the same kind of

internal structure as the noun clause, except for change in the head nominals; (iii) any

ﬁnite clause (= a clause with a ﬁnite verb) can be embedded as NP in another clause, by

means of a clitic or a participle derived from the verb meaning ‘say’, i.e. Ta. e

n-ru, Ka.

en-du,Te.an-i ‘having said, so’, Ta. enn-um, Ka. ennu-v-a/em-ba,Te.an-¯e (non-past

relative participle) ‘said, called, such’, used as a complementizer; (iv) relative clauses

(participial and

co-relative) modify NPs in creating

noun clauses; (v) action

noun clauses

are formed by nominalizing the verb with or without tense marking. All these types are

present in all the literary languages. First we start with noun clauses built on the relative

clause.

9.3.2.1 Relative

clauses

In the place

of correlative pronouns,

all Dravidian languages change tensed

ﬁnite verbs

into adjectivals (relative participles) by replacing the personal sufﬁxes with adjectival

markers -a or -i (section 7.7.2). ‘A simple sentence can be changed into a relative clause

by replacing its ﬁnite verb by a relative participle (or verbal adjective) in the correspond-

ing tense-mode and shifting the noun that it qualiﬁes as head of the construction. The

whole clause with the noun head then becomes a noun clause and can be embedded in

the place of a noun phrase (NP) in the matrix sentence as its subject, direct object of

the ﬁnite verb, predicate complement, or as an adverbial of Time/Place’ (Krishnamurti

and Gwynn 1985: 343). All relative clauses occur as complements to NPs to their left.

The relativized VP is shifted to the left of the NP that it modiﬁes and the resulting noun

clause is then embedded in the matrix sentence. Not all NPs can be head of relative

clauses. Those that occur in nominative, accusative and instrumental cases, with respect

to their predicates, can be shifted as heads of relative clauses. A noun related to the verb

in dative as goal can be relativized and not the one as ‘purpose’; the NP in comitative

case cannot be relativized. Let us examine the following sentences:

(28) a. Ta. [

[

AdjP

n¯erru i

nk¯eva-nt-a

AdjP

][

anta paiyan

]

]-ai

]

(subordinate clause) [yesterday here come-past-adj that boy-acc]

n¯a

ninru p¯ar-tt-¯en (main clause) [I-nom today see-past-1sg]

‘today I saw the boy (acc), who came here yesterday...’

b. Ta. [

[

AdjP

kum¯ar-ai ka

titta

AdjP

] n¯ay

] ...

[Kumar-acc bite-past-adj dog]

‘the dog which bit Kumar ...’

9.3 Complex

sentences

445

c. Ma. avane kuttiya katti

[he-acc stab-past-adj knife]

‘the knife that someone stabbed him with’

d. Ma. p¯ucca ki

takunna c¯ak

[cat lie-pres-adj sack ...]

‘the sack on which the cat lies ...’

e. Ka. hinde g¯o

daun iruva a

[behind warehouse be-non-past-adj shop]

‘the

shop which has a warehouse at

the back

’

f. Te. pulini camp-in-a mani

[tiger-acc kill-past-adj person]

‘the person who killed the tiger’

g. Te. puli camp-in-a mani

[tiger-nom kill-past-adj man]

‘the person whom the tiger killed’

h. Te. annam tin-¯e balla

[food eat-hab-adj table]

‘the table on which one eats’ (dining table)

i. Te. annam tin-¯e kancam

[food eat-hab-adj plate]

‘the plate in which one eats’

j. Te. annam tin-¯e ceyyi

[food eat-hab-adj hand]

‘the hand with which one eats’

The above examples show that clauses in which NPs stand in certain case relationships

with the predicate alone will become heads of relative clauses, namely nominative in

(28a, g), accusative in (28b, f), instrumental in (28c, j), locative in (28d) denoting ‘on’,

(28e) ‘at the back’, (28h) ‘on’, (28i) ‘in’. Dative case qualiﬁes in the meaning of ‘goal’,

‘recipient’, but not ‘purpose’; comitative meaning also blocks relati

vization, e.g.

k. Te. b¯awi-nunci n¯ı

lu t¯o

dut¯aru ⇒ n¯ı

lu t¯o

d-¯eb¯awi

[well-abl water-Øacc draw-hab-3h-pl] ⇒ [water-acc draw-hab-adj well]

‘(they) draw water from the well’ ⇒ ‘the well from which water is drawn’

l. Te. r¯amu kamala-ku appu icc-

du ⇒ r¯amu appu icc-in-a kamala

[Ramu Kamala-to loan give-past-3m-sg] [Ramu loan give-past-adj

Kamala]

‘Ramu gave a loan to Kamala’ ⇒ ‘Kamala to whom Ramu gave a loan’

m. Te. r¯amu manduk¯osam we

du ⇒

∗

r¯amu we

l-in-a mandu

[Ramu medicine-for go-past-m-sg] [Ramu go-past-adj medicine ...]

‘Ramu went for medicine’ ⇒

∗

‘the medicine Ramu went for ...’

446 Syntax

n. Te. r¯amu kamala-t¯o sinim¯ac¯us-

du ⇒

∗

r¯amu sinim¯ac¯us-in-a kamala

[Ramu Kamala-with cinema-acc see-past-3m-sg] [Ramu cinema see-

past-adj Kamala ...]

‘Ramu saw a movie with Kamala’⇒

∗

‘Kamala, Ramu saw a movie

with ...’

Tamil, Malay¯a

lam and Kanna

da also cannot relativize NPs governed by the dative case

meaning ‘purpose’, the instrumental case meaning ‘cause’, and the sociative case with

verbs of ‘motion’ (Krishnamurti and Gwynn 1985: 247–8, Lehmann 1989: section 4.40

citing earlier writers; Asher and Kumari 1997: 58–67, Sridhar 1990: 57–67).

9.3.2.2 Pronominalized relative clauses

(i) A relative clause, instead of taking a NP as head that it modiﬁes, may add to the

relative participle a pronominal sufﬁx, appropriate to the replaced NP in number and

gender, from the third-person demonstratives, and the resultant clause has the privileges

of a NP to be embedded in a matrix clause. (ii) A neutral type of relativization with the

third neuter singular being added to the relative participle is different from the above,

because it is

used when one of the constituents

of a sentence needs to be shifted

to the

predicate position as a focussed element; the resultant sentence becomes the subject NP

in nominal predication. This has been illustrated in section 9.2.4 (10)–(13). Examples

for (i):

(29) a. Ta. n¯a

nn¯erru p¯ar-tt-a paiyan ⇒ n¯ann¯erru p¯ar-tt-avan (see 28a)

[I yesterday see-past adj boy] [I yesterday see-past-adj-he]

‘the boy I saw yesterday’ ⇒ ‘he whom I saw yesterday’

b. Ma. [n¯ı p a ra˜n˜na-t

] ´sari ¯a

[you say-past-noml right be-pres]

‘what you said is right’

c. Te. kamala ninna p¯a

d-in-ap¯a

ta ⇒ kamala ninna p¯a

d-in-adi

[Kamala yesterday sing-past-adj song] [Kamala yesterday sing-past-

adj-it]

‘the song Kamala sang yesterday ...’ ⇒ ‘that which Kamala sang yes-

terday’

The replacement of a relative participle + noun head (more correctly NP) by a nominal-

ized verb is called a ‘headless relative clause’ in Malay¯a

lam (Asher and Kumari 1997:

57–8); vann-avan ‘the man who came’, vann-ava

l ‘the woman who came’, vann-avar

‘the persons who came’ are given as examples. It is safe to consider these as a type of

noun clause, since the other constituents of the clause are not affected by this replacement

as in (29a, b).

9.3 Complex

sentences

447

9.3.2.3 Factive clauses

Another way of forming a noun clause is to use an abstract nominal meaning ‘fact’ as

head under NP, corresponding broadly to English ‘the fact that ...’ In Telugu -a

tu/-a

tlu,

a bound abstract noun meaning ‘that matter, fact, thus’, is added to the tensed verbal

adjective. Correspondingly, in Modern Tamil, ceyti ‘news’, u

n-mai ‘fact’ are used as

NPs, e.g.

(30) a. Te. n¯aku

[

[m¯ı p ¯eru inta-ku mundu win-n-(a)]

-a

tu]

jn¯apakam

l¯edu

[I-dat you-poss name now-dat before hear-past-fact memory be not-3n-

sg]

‘I do not remember having heard your name before’

b. Ta.

[

[mantiri n¯erru va-nt-a]

ceyti]

[minister yesterday come-past-adj news]

‘the news that the minister came yesterday’

The factive noun clause in -a

tu can be changed into a manner adverbial clause by the

addition of -g¯a. Note that -g¯a can be added to adjectives or nouns to adverbialize them

(see section 8.3.1.2), e.g.

c. ¯ame [nidra p¯o-tunn(a)-a

tu(g¯a)] na

tinc-in-di

[she sleep-go-dur

- adj-noml-advl pretend-past-3f-sg]

‘she pretended she was sleeping’

In Modern Telugu, there is another noun clause, which can be treated as a subtype of

the factive noun clause. In this a limited set of abstract nouns meaning ‘thought’, ‘idea’,

‘habit’, ‘intention’, responsibility’, ‘possibility’, ‘necessity’ occurs as head NP of the

relative clause (Krishnamurti and Gwynn 1985: 354–5). I have not come across matching

illustrations

from the other literary languages, e.g.

d. Te. w¯a

d-i-ki [uttaram cadiw-¯e¯alocana] ta

t-al¯edu

[he-dat letter-Øacc read-hab-adj thought occur-inf-be-not-3neu-sg]

‘the thought of reading the letter did not occur to him’

9.3.2.4 Correlative relative clause

Many Dravidian scholars think that correlative relative clauses occur in Dravidian

through diffusion from Indo-Aryan (Krishnamurti and Gwynn 1985: 361, Sridhar 1990:

47, Asher and Kumari 1997: 53). Steever (1988: 33) vehemently rejects this notion, be-

cause all literary Dravidian languages have them from the beginning of literature and this

phenomenon is reconstructible for Proto-Dravidian. Secondly, reduplication of interrog-

ative (correlative) and demonstrative (relative) pronouns (quantiﬁcation) is extensively

448 Syntax

found in Dravidian, which is an indigenous feature and not borrowed from Indo-Aryan.

Thirdly, a language may have more than one grammatical strategy, i.e. there is nothing

unusual in Dravidian languages having both the correlative and participial construc-

tions. All these grounds, according to Steever, warrant the construction to be native. It is

true that correlative constructions occur in classical texts (Lehmann 1998: 94, see (31a)

below), but they are not favoured in spoken varieties of modern standard languages, ex-

cept for rhetorical purposes. Secondly, there is no speciﬁc set of correlative pronouns in

Dravidian as there is in Indo-Aryan (Hindi jo ...vo, jab ...tab, etc.). This is, however,

not a strong ground to deny the existence of correlative constructions in Dravidian, be-

cause languages like English also use question words in similar contexts, e.g. ‘the man,

who ...’, ‘the book, which ...’

A correlative construction has two related clauses with ﬁnite verbs. The ﬁrst relative

clause has an interrogative word as a correlative pronoun. It is adjoined to the main clause,

which begins with a corresponding demonstrative pronoun, by a complementizer -¯o in

modern languages. Examples:

(31) a. OTa. [e-va

zi nall-avar ¯a

t-avar] a-va

zi nallai ...(PN 183)

[which-place good-3m-pl men-3m-pl that-place good-2sg]

(lit.) ‘at which place men are the good ones, at that place you are good’

b. Ta. [u

nka

l-ukku evva

lavu v¯e

t-um-¯o] avva

luvu n¯a

n taru-kir-¯en.

[you-pl-dat how-much want-fut-3neu-sg-comp that-much I give-pres-

1sg]

‘how much you want, that much I will give you’

c. Ma. [¯et-oruvan dr¯oham ceyy-unnuv¯o] avan p¯api ¯akunnu

[which-one-m-sg evil-acc do-pres he sinner become-pres]

‘he who does evil becomes a sinner’

d. Ka. [y¯ava hu

duga nimm-a kai-kuluk-id-an-¯o] ¯ahu

duga nann-age

leya

[which boy you-gen hand-shake-past-3m-sg-comp that boy I-gen friend]

‘the boy who shook hands with you is my friend’

e. Te. [¯edi k¯aw¯al(i )-¯o] adi pa

tu-ku-p¯o

[what be-wanted-comp that take-reﬂ go-imp 2sg]

‘take away what you want’

9.3.2.5 Action clause

Any simple sentence can be changed into a noun clause by adding a nominal deriva-

tional sufﬁx to the verb stem (simple, complex or compound) replacing tense-mode and

personal morphemes. The resulting clause can be embedded in another clause either

as its subject NP or as a predicate complement (PP) with appropriate case marking.

Unlike the clauses in section 9.3.2.2, these do not carry any tense sign and therefore

9.3 Complex

sentences

449

can be used with any time reference based on pragmatic context. Old Telugu added

ta (c¯eyu-

ta ‘doing’, tinu-

ta ‘eating’, ¯al¯ocincu-

ta ‘thinking’, etc.). Modern Telugu adds

-a

tam/-a

dam (dial), instead. The resulting verb is inﬂected with cases/postpositions like

any neuter noun ending in -m, e.g. cepp-a

tam ‘(the action of) telling’: cepp-a

t¯ani-ki ‘for

telling’, cepp-a

tam-walla ‘because of telling’, cepp-a

tam-l¯o ‘in telling’. In Telugu, this

is a frequently used noun clause denoting action, without any other part of the clause

being disturbed. Its versatility is owing to the fact that the inﬁnitive has lost its nominal

function in Telugu and, therefore, Telugu uses the action clause, where Tamil, Malay¯a

lam

and Kanna

da would prefer to use an inﬁnitive clause, e.g.

(32) a. Te. w¯a

du tin-a

t¯ani-ki we

[he eat-noml-dat go-past-3m-sg]

‘he went to eat (for eating)’

corresponding to (26e) of

Ma. avan [u

n-¯an] p¯oyi

[he eat-inf go-past]

‘he went to eat’

For corresponding untensed action nouns, Tamil uses -al, e.g. cey- ‘do’: cey-al ‘do-

ing’, or -tal/-ttal and Kanna

da uses -al (which represents a merger of the inﬁnitive and

the nominalizing sufﬁx), and Malay¯a

lam uses many derivational

suf

ﬁxes, namely -av

-al,-pp

,-tta,-ttam (Asher and Kumari 1997: 41–2). Apparently these are not much

favoured in usage (Lehmann 1989: 300–1):

b. Ka. [m¯ına bomb¯ayi-ge h¯og-alu] nir¯akaris-id-a

[Meena Bombay-to go-inf/noml refuse-past-3f-sg]

‘Meena refused to go to Bombay’

Corresponding to the Kanna

da inﬁnitive h¯og-alu ‘to go’, Telugu uses an action nominal

with dative p¯ow-a

t¯ani-ki ‘for going’.

c. Ma. [¯ı p ¯a

t-atte koy-tt

] n¯a

le ¯a

[this ﬁeld-loc-adj harvest-noml tomorrow be-pres]

‘harvesting of this ﬁeld is tomorrow’

d. Te. [nuwwu inta ´srama pa

tam] n¯aku i

tam l¯edu

[you such trouble-take-noml I-dat liking be-not-3neu-sg]

‘you – taking so much trouble–Idonotlike’

e. Te. w¯a

lu [mammal-ni pe

dli-ki pilaw-a

t¯ani-ki] wacc-

-ru

[they we-acc mar

riage-dat call-noml-dat come-past-3h-pl]

‘they came to invite us to the wedding.’

450 Syntax

f. Te. [raylu r¯awa

tam-t¯on-¯e ] n¯aku ceppa

[train come-noml-with-emph I-dat tell-imp-pl]

‘please tell me as soon as the train comes (with the coming of the train)’

g. Te. w¯ana kuraw-a

tam ink¯a¯ag-a-l¯edu

[rain rain-noml still cease-inf- be-not-3neu-sg]

‘it has not stopped raining still’

Note that the action nominal refers to habitual tense in (32d), to the past tense in (32e),

to future in (32f

) and to present durative in

(32g).

9.3.3 Finite predicate clauses

Except for correlative relative clauses discussed in section 9.3.2.4, we have mainly dealt

with subordinate clauses with

non-

ﬁnite verbs or verb-deriv

ed nominals, which do not

complete a predication. In all such cases, there is only one ﬁnite verb in a complex

sentence and one or more non-ﬁnite verbs. When a clause with a ﬁnite verb has to be

embedded in another clause, or adjoined to the main clause, a complementizer clitic or

a clitic-like verb is used.

9.3.3.1 Embedding by clitic -¯o

In section 8.4.4 it has been shown that in South Dravidian I and II, the clitic -¯o is added

to a correlative clause to join it to the main clause. All literary languages and some

non-literary languages adopt this strategy. The question-word interrogative clauses add

-¯o to be attached to the matrix clause. The -¯o clitic also embeds a conditional sentence

with a past-tense verb in all the literary languages.

(33) a. Te. [w¯a

du eppu

du was-t¯a-

d-¯o] n¯aku teliyadu

[he when come-hab-3m-sg I-dat know-neg-3neu-sg]

‘I do not know when he will come.’

b. Te. [nuwwu ¯ı sangati ewarik(i)-ann¯a cepp¯aw(u)-¯o], camp¯es-t¯a-nu

[you this matter anybody-dat tell-past-2sg-comp (I) kill-fut-1sg]

‘if you tell this to anybody, I will kill you’

c. Ta. [n¯ı a

zu-t-¯ay-¯o] u

nnai a

tipp¯en

[you cry-past-2sg-comp you-acc beat-fut-1sg]

‘if you cry, I will beat you’

d. Ka. [n¯a

le.y-o

lage b¯a

dige ka

t-id-ir-¯o] sari, illad-idd¯are...

[tomorrow-within rent pay-past-2pl-comp, ﬁne; if not...]

‘if you pay up the rent by tomorrow, OK, if not ...’

Sentence (33a) has a noun clause embedded as the direct object of the verb ‘know’; in

(33b,c,d) the complementizer -¯o converts the ﬁrst ﬁnite clause into a conditional clause