Tolkappiyar

“ This chapter defines the lexical corpus of various kinds in Tamil.
Four kinds of words The four kinds of words in Tamil-poetry are: [iyar’ccol] (=standard words) , [thirisol] (=synonyms and homonyms) , [thisaic-col] (=dialectal words) and [vada-sol] (=borrowed words from northern language) 1 Among these four the (primary kind of) standard words are the usage in Tamil land occurring with the semantic core unaffected. 2 The next kind of words is two kinds: synonyms and homonyms. 3 The third kind of words is dialects spoken in twelve regions surrounding Tamil land. ”

“ Examples: [ke’ttai, ke’ttai] (=hear, hear) , [n”intrai, n”intrai] (=stop, stop) , [kaaththaI, kaaththai] (=protect, protect) and [kandai, kandai] (=look, look) . 30 Tense Past, present and future are the tenses used in first, second and third persons being explicit and appellative (finite) verbs. 31 All the finite verbs go in this way. 32 Even if they come one after another, they can end with one subject. ”

“ Words [tham] , [n”am] , [n”um] and [e’m] are core of words. 14 Reduplication Material euphonic compliment, syllabic fillers and sense carriers are the three classes in which the reduplication functions. 15 Compound words Kinds of six compound words are: compounds involving case relations, compounds involving comparisons morphemes, compounds of verbal roots, compounds involving adjectival relations, compounds involving conjunctive morphemes and compounds involving implied heads. 16 Case-compound occurs without case-morpheme but indicating the case. ”