Brahmin Tamil/Lesson4

The verb form szollatum (formed by affixing -tum to the infinitive of a verb) means 'let me (him, her, us, them) say'

When the interrogative particle a is placed after it, it means 'may I say?'

Epo paath aal um is a phrase that means 'always, whenever (you) see', The structure is complex, with epo... and ...um forming a frame meaning 'always, ever', into which a past participle plus aa(l) maning 'when / if (you)...'

The emphatic particle e, placed after the present adverbial participle form of a verb, means 'going on ...ing'.

Avar paduthund e irupar means literally 'he would go on lying down',

The present participle form is obtained by affixing -(ki/hi)ndu to the past participle form of a verb,

To get the present, past or future continuous tenses, the three finite tense forms of the verb iru 'to be' are used :

Naan padichund irundhen 'I was studying'

Nienga naahlei ki Mumbai ki pooynd irupehl 'You will be on your way to Mumbai tomorrow'

Kozhandheihahl innum thuungind irukaa 'The children are still sleeping'.

The particle o has many uses. One of them is 'as for ...'. Eng apaa k o 'as for my father, as far as my father is concerned'.

The perfect tenses could be formed by placing the shortened verb -du (as a suffix in its various tense forms) attached to the refular verb:

Szaapdu 'eat', szaaptudu 'finish eating'. The imperative, present, past and future bases of the suffixal vern -du are”

-du, -dar, -tu, -duv.

While the verb chaapdu, szaapdu 'to eat' is an ordinary transitive verb, chaaptudu, szaaptudu 'finish eating, eat it up' is a perfective verb that implies a definite beginning or definite finishing of an action.

The phrase or e means 'one and the same' or 'innumerable, endless, extreme (and so many other equivalents depending upon the context)':

Or e kahleipu 'extreme fatigue, (being) extremely tired', or e kuutam 'a milling crowd', or e chatei 'a single (one and the same) shirt'.

Words indicating time (as onl the calendar) can be used as adverbs without a postposition: thinga kezhamei 'Monday, on Monday. Also kalambara 'morning, in the morning'.