A02111 சொல்லின் பொது இலக்கணம்

This lesson explains the general grammar of Tamil words. Different terms such as சொல், கிளவி, மொழி, and பதம் are used in Tamil grammar. All of them indicate the term ‘word’ composed of one or more letters.

Tamil words can be classified into four kinds; They are words based on meaning, words based on their analytical structure, grammatical terms and literary terms.

Meaning-based words are of three types. They are individual words, continuous expressions and single-word expressions. For example, வா, நில், and படித்தான் are individual words. அறம் செய விரும்பு is a continuous expression. தாமரை is both a word and a continuous expression. As a word it means the flower, lotus.

Analytically, words of two types. They are analysable and non-analysable. The Tamil words அறிஞன் and செய்தான் are analysable into different elements such as அறி+ஞ்+அன் and செய்+த்+ஆன் respectively. On the other hand, மரம், தேன், சால and பல cannot be analysed into such parts.

Analytical elements are six in number called பகுதி, விகுதி, இடைநிலை, சாரியை, சந்தி and விகாரம். These elements occur in this order in a word. Not all the parts are available in each word. But the first element பகுதி and the last element விகுதி are invariably present in each word. They are like the stem and the suffix in English words.

In a word like வந்தனன் all the six parts are there. It can be split into வா+த்+(ந்)+த்+அன்+அன். The first element வா is the stem called பகுதி here. The last element ’அன்’ is the suffix called விகுதி here. The other three intervening elements are இடைநிலை (த்), சாரியை (த்), and சந்தி (த்). The change of த் into ந் is called விகாரம். Words can also be classified as grammatical terms as in பெயர்ச்சொல்(nouns). வினைச்சொல் (verbs), இடைச்சொல் (prepositions) and உரிச்சொல் (poetic qualifiers).

Literary terms are natural, modified, directional or northern. They can be nouns or verbal expressions.

All these words and word parts or elements are explained and illustrated in this lesson.

முன்