Tamil grammar
Much of Tamil grammar is extensively described in the oldest available grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam. Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th century grammar Naṉṉūl, which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam with some modifications.
Parts of Tamil grammar
Traditional Tamil grammar consists of five parts, namely eḻuttu, sol, poruḷ, yāppu and aṇi. Of these, the last two are mostly applicable in poetry. The following table gives additional information about these parts.| Tamil name | Meaning | Main grammar books |
| eḻuttu | letter | Tolkāppiyam, Nannūl |
| sol | word | Tolkāppiyam, Nannūl |
| poruḷ | content | Tolkāppiyam |
| yāppu | compilation | Yāpparuṅkalakkārikai |
| aṇi | decoration | Taṇṭiyalaṅkāram |
Eḻuttu defines and describes the letters of the Tamil alphabet and their classification. It describes the nature of phonemes and their changes with respect to different conditions and locations in the text.
Sol defines the types of the words based on their meaning and the origin. It defines the gender, number, cases, tenses, classes, harmony etc. This chapter also provides rules for compounding the words.
Porul defines the contents of poetry. It gives guidance on which topic to choose for poetry based on certain conditions like the nature of the land or time or the people. It gives a distinction between Agam and Puram.
Yāppu defines rules for composing Traditional poetry. It defines the basic building block Asai and describes how asai should be joined to form a sīr, joining sīr for an adi.
Aṇi defines techniques used for comparing, praising and criticizing the taken topics.
Letters
The script of Tamil Language consists of 247 letters. The script falls under the category Abugida, in which consonant-vowel sequences are written as a unit. The grammar classifies the letters into two major categories.- Prime Letters – முதலெழுத்து
- Dependent Letters – சார்பெழுத்து
Prime letters
- The vowels : அ, ஆ, இ, ஈ, உ, ஊ, எ, ஏ, ஐ, ஒ, ஓ, ஔ
- The consonants : க், ங், ச், ஞ், ட், ண், த், ந், ப், ம், ய், ர், ல், வ், ழ், ள், ற், ன்
The vowels are categorized based on the length, as short and long. The short vowels are pronounced for a duration 1 unit, while the long vowels take two units. Based on the duration of the sound, the vowels form 5 pairs. The other two vowels ஐ and ஔ are diphthongs formed by joining the letters அ+இ and அ+உ. Since these two are a combination two short letters, their pronunciation takes 2 units of time, that is they fall under nedil category. ஐ and ஔ can also be spelt அய் and அவ். This form is known as eḻuttuppōli and is generally not recommended.
The consonants are categorised into three groups, வல்லினம் , மெல்லினம் and இடையினம் , based on the nature of the sound.
| valliṉam | melliṉam | iṭaiyiṉam |
| க் k | ங் ṅ | ய் y |
| ச் s | ஞ் ñ | ர் r |
| ட் ṭ | ண் ṇ | ல் l |
| த் t | ந் n | வ் v |
| ப் p | ம் m | ழ் ḻ |
| ற் ṟ | ன் ṉ | ள் ḷ |
From the 30 prime letters, the dependent letters are formed.
Dependent letters
Tamil grammar defines 10 categories of Dependent letters.- Alphasyllabic letters உயிர்மெய் எழுத்து
- Aidam ஆய்த எழுத்து
- Elongated vowel உயிரளபெடை
- Elongated consonant ஒற்றளபெடை
- Shortened u குற்றியலுகரம்
- Shortened i குற்றியலிகரம்
- Shortened ai ஐகாரக் குறுக்கம்
- Shortened au ஔகாரக் குறுக்கம்
- Shortened m மகரக்குறுக்கம்
- Shortened Aidam ஆய்தக்குறுக்கம்
| Combination | Uyirmei form | ISO 15919 | IPA |
| க் + அ | க | ||
| க் + ஆ | கா | ||
| க் + இ | கி | ||
| க் + ஈ | கீ | ||
| க் + உ | கு | , | |
| க் + ஊ | கூ | ||
| க் + எ | கெ | ||
| க் + ஏ | கே | ||
| க் + ஐ | கை | ||
| க் + ஒ | கொ | ||
| க் + ஓ | கோ | ||
| க் + ஔ | கௌ |
Aidam is also known as தனிநிலை . The aidam is always preceded by a single short letter and followed by a hard alphasyllabic letter. It takes half unit time for pronunciation.
and are formed by elongating the duration of pronunciation of a letter to satisfy certain grammatical rules while composing poetry. In Uyiralapetai, the intrinsic vowel of the letter that is elongated is written next to it, to indicate that the letter now is pronounced for 3 units of time.
In Kutriyalukaram, the duration of the short 'u' letters of vallinam category is reduced to half units, when the letter is found at the end of the word, preceded by multiple letters or a single nedil letter.
If a word with kutriyalikaram is followed by a word with 'ய' as the first letter, the u sound is corrupted to i sound and takes a half unit of time for pronunciation.
In Aikarakurukkam and Aukarakurukkam, the duration of the letters ஐ and ஔ are reduced to 1 1/2 units if they are the first letters of the word. If situated elsewhere it is reduced to 1 unit.
Vanjiyar
In Tamil, a single letter standing alone or multiple letters combined form a word. Tamil is an agglutinative language – words consist of a lexical root to which one or more affixes are attached.Most Tamil affixes are suffixes. These can be derivational suffixes, which either change the part of speech of the word or its meaning, or inflectional suffixes, which mark categories such as person, number, mood, tense, etc. There is no absolute limit on the length and extent of agglutination, which can lead to long words with a large number of suffixes, which would require several words or a sentence in English. To give an example, the word means "for the sake of those who cannot go", and consists of the following morphemes:
Words formed as a result of the agglutinative process are often difficult to translate. Today Translations, a British translation service, ranks the Tamil word செல்லாதிருப்பவர் as number 8 in their The Most Untranslatable Word In The World list.
In Tamil, words are classified into four categories namely,
- Nouns Peyarsol
- Verbs Vinaisol
- Particles and Pre-/Postpositions Idaisol
- Adjective and Adverbs Urisol
Nouns
Noun
Nouns are inflected based on number and grammatical case, of which there are 9: nominative case, accusative case, dative case, instrumental case, sociative case, locative case, ablative case, genitive case, and vocative case. If the plural is used, the noun is inflected by suffixing the noun stem with first the plural marker -kaḷ, and then with the case suffix, if any. Otherwise, if the singular is used, the noun is instead inflected by suffixing either the noun stem with the case suffix, or the oblique stem with the case suffix. An optional euphonic increment -iṉ or -aṉ can occur before the case suffix.| case | suffix |
| nominative | -∅ |
| accusative | -ai |
| instrumental | -āl, - koṇṭu |
| sociative | -ōṭu, -uṭaṉ |
| dative | -ku, -iṉ poruṭṭu, -iṉ nimittam |
| benefactive | -kkāka |
| ablative | -il iruntu , -iṭam iruntu , -iṉiṉṟu |
| genitive | -atu, -uṭaiya |
| locative | -il , -iṭam |
| vocative | -ē |
Nominative case
The nominative case is used for the subject of an intransitive verb, the agent of a transitive verb, the predicate of a nominal sentence, and subject and object complements. It is the base form of the noun with no suffix.It can also be used to mark the direct object when it is indefinite and irrational.