Typology of Word Formation in Malayalam

Compounding in an important process in the word-building mechanism in Tamil. It raises many issues relating to morphology, syntax and lexicon. A prototypical compound is a word made up of at least two bases which can occur elsewhere as independent words. Compounding represents the interface between morphology and syntax par excellence. Compounds have two sets of characteristic properties. The first set makes compounding resemble syntax and the second set brings compounding closer to word formation. The head-modifier, predicate-argument, and oppositional relations together with constituent structure all tend to align compounding with syntax. However, compounds also have a number of features which make them resemble words. First compounds are lexicalized. They are then often subject to semantic shift of a kind associated with stored words, which means that their meaning becomes non-compositional or even totally idiosyncratic. This type of drift is characteristic of all types of compounding. In a related fashion, there are often lexical restrictions on which compounds are permitted, resulting in paradigmatic gaps which resemble those found in derivational or inflectional affixation. A further property which links compounds with the words is that of non-referentiality. If we look at the non-heads of the compounds, we find that they never refer to specific objects. The constituents of compounds differ from constituents of sentences. Related to this is the fact that non-heads of compounds typically fail to be inflected. One property of words which distinguishes them from phrase is morphological integrity: their elements can not be split up by other words or phrases. This is generally true of constituents of compounds. It is not uncommon for the compounds they form to become so lexicalized that the element loses its status as an independent word and becomes a clitic or an affix. Finally, there are often phonological processes that apply to compounds but not to phrases. The compound verbs are formed from a base by the addition of a verb which function as the verbalizer or whose function is to verbalize the base. The bases are generally nouns. Even a verb can be compounded with a verbalizing verb to form another verb. It can be stated that there is no productive verbalizing suffix in Tamil. The verbalizing suffix -i which was in use to form verbs from Sanskrit noun stems is no longer in use. Only compounding is extensively used in the formation of verbs in Tamil. There are a number of verbs which are used to form verbs from nouns. Not all nouns will be added to a verbalizer and conversely not all verbalizers can be added to a noun; only a closed set of nouns can be collocated with a particular verbalizer. The compounds could be overlapping in their meaning as same nouns can be collocated with overlapping group of verbs. This leads to synonymy among compound verbs. Though the formation of verbs from N + V combination is a productive process, the nouns involved in the formation of compound verbs with reference to a particular verbalizer appears to be a closed set rather than an open set. But it is possible to recruit new members to a closed set which makes the process productive. Because of the closed nature of the nouns participating in the compound formation which results in the idiosyncratic nature of the resultant meanings, there need to be the listing of the compounds in the dictionary as soon as the compounds come into vogue. Instead of talking in terms of sets of nouns it is possible to talk in terms of semantic area or domain to which the nouns belong. Rajendran (1978), Agesthialingom (1981:15-60), and Karthikeyan (1983) can be considered as important works on compound verbs in Tamil. Compound verbs listed in kriyavin tarkalat tamir akarati (KTTA) (Dictionary of Contemporary Tamil) have also been taken into consideration while dealing about the compound verb formation in Tamil. The strategies used in the formation of compound verbs in Tamil will be investigated here.

processes on formal grounds. Bauer (1983) classifies the word-formation in English as follows: 1. Compounding 2. Prefixation 3. Suffixation 4. Conversion 5. Backformation 6. Clipping 7. Formation of blends 8. Formation of acronyms 9. Word manufacturing Tamil makes use of compounding and suffixation extensively for the formation of words. Though the present paper attempts to give the types of word formation in Tamil (Rajendran, 1993) based on typology, explanations will be given by raising certain problematic issues.

Tamil, morphologically speaking, is primarily agglutinating, and suffixal. In other words, inflections are marked by suffixes attached to a lexical base, which may be augmented by derivational suffixes. The traditional treaties on Tamil grammar define a distinction through free forms (the major grammatical classes), and bound forms (items like particles, and clitics). Tolkappiyam recognizes Tamil as constituting two major word classes: nouns, termed peyarccol and verbs, termed vinaiccol. As per the classical grammatical treatises, and as recorded in Pope (1985), each of these are characterized by a narrow set of features, all of which are necessarily morphological. The characterization of the major grammatical categories of Tamil by Pope (1985) is worth mentioned here. According to Pope nouns are characterized by four features: class, division, person and case. There are two kinds of classes, rational and irrational. There are five divisions, masculine, feminine, rational-plural, irrational-singular, and irrational-plural; the three divisions, masculine and feminine and irrational-singular are called singular number; the two other divisions are called plural number. There are three persons: the first, second, and the third. Cases are eight in number: nominative, accusative, sociative, dative, ablative, instrumental and locative. According to Pope the verb consists of the following things: root, personal terminations, three persons, five divisions, tenses, imperative mood, optative mood, two particles, negative form, and verbal noun. The root of a verb is the indivisible part which stands first. That part of a verb which stands at the end and shows the class, division, and person of its subject is its personal termination. There are three tenses: past, present, and future. These are generally indicated by a medial particle between the root and the personal termination. The imperative is used only in the second person, and in the singualr its form is that of the simple verbal root. By the addition of um alone, or of um with kaL, the plural is formed. The optative is that form of the verb, which is used with a subject of any of the two classes, five divisions, and three persons, to express a 'wish' or 'polite command'. A participle is a defective (or dependent) verbal form. There are two kinds of participles: adverbial participle and adjectival participles. A negative mood is recognized as indicated by those forms of the verb which deny an action. Combining the personal ending and the root without any medial particle forms the negative finite verb common to the three tenses. A verbal noun is a noun formed by adding tal, al or kai to the root of a verb. Adjectives and adverb in Tamil are syntactically recognized category. They are not decided by the type of inflection they receive; rather they are identified by their function in the sentential construction.

International Journal of Sanskrit Research, 2018

In this paper we present an alternative model to the Morpheme and Lexeme based explanation of external predication of the Sanskrit bahuvrīhi compounds. An ‘exocentric head’ is problematic because it leads us to a rather strange geometric analysis in which ́heads ́ are outside the structure they supposed to head (Benveniste, 1977). Also because it is not an explicative concept in Morphology (Bauer 2008, 2016). Hence we depart from a formal criterion that classifies all compounds as endocentric and a semantic criterion according to which external predication can be viewed as metonymic instead of possessive, and can therefore be explained in cognitive terms by means of the notion of reference point. Then, we move to a definition of ‘focus’ as the whole word that percolates its grammatical functions to a tripartite morphological correspondence. The suggestion here in short is that it is better to term possessive compounds as metonymic integrated words and explain them as a kind of tripartite interrelationship according to the Word-based model that takes just the whole word as it unit of analysis.

Noun compounding is a very productive and most commonly used word formation mechanism in Tamil. In Tamil nominal compounds may consists of either a noun plus noun or an adjective plus noun. However a noun invariably dominates the category of the head. Theoretically, though there is no restriction on the number of constituents in a noun compound, the upper limit on the number of constituents depends on the memory limitations of the native speakers of Tamil. For example, the Tamil noun compound like uzhavar munneeRRa cangkat talaivar teertal 'the election for the post of president of the peasant's development association' can be extended further. This word formation mechanism is a very handy technique and frequently used in the areas of journalism, in the translation of scientific and technical texts, and in advertising. The fact that neither of the stems in a noun compound is argument taking, and consequently there will be fewer syntactic restrictions imposed on the combination that accounts for the popularity and frequency of the noun compounds. An attempt is made here to explore the different studies that have been already made on nominal compounds in Tamil as well as different frameworks and approaches by which the problems can be studied. Instead of taking up a particular framework and explaining the formation of compound nouns, it is proposed here to explore the different ways of approaching compound noun formation in Tamil, along with the different studies already made on this topic. It appears that each study contributes to the proper understanding of compound noun formation in Tamil. The major studies on nominal compounds can be broadly classified under the following heading. 1. Traditional Approach 2. Generative Approach 3. Knowledge-based Approach This paper proposes to discuss these three approaches in the formation of compound nouns and explain the strategies in the formation of compound nouns in Tamil.

Tamil morphologically is primarily agglutinating, and suffixal. In other words, inflections are marked by suffixes attached to a lexical base, which may be augmented by derivational suffixes. The traditional treaties on Tamil grammar define a distinction through free forms (the major grammatical classes), and bound forms (items like particles, and clitics). Tolkappiyam recognizes Tamil as constituting two major word classes: nouns, termed peyarccol and verbs, termed vinaiccol. As per the classical grammatical treatises, and as recorded in Pope (1985), each of these are characterized by a narrow set of features, all of which are necessarily morphological. The characterization of the major grammatical categories of Tamil by Pope (1985) is worth mentioned here. According to Pope nouns are characterized by four features: class, division, person and case. There are two kinds of classes, rational and irrational. There are five divisions, masculine, feminine, rational-plural, irrational-singular, and irrational-plural; the three divisions, masculine and feminine and irrational-singular are called singular number; the two other divisions are called plural number. There are three persons: the first, second, and the third. Cases are eight in number: nominative, accusative, sociative, dative, ablative, instrumental and locative. According to Pope the verb consists of the following things: root, personal terminations, three persons, five divisions, tenses, imperative mood, optative mood, two particles, negative form, and verbal noun. The root of a verb is the indivisible part which stands first. That part of a verb which stands at the end and shows the class, division, and person of its subject is its personal termination. There are three tenses: past, present, and future. These are generally indicated by a medial particle between the root and the personal termination. The imperative is used only in the second person, and in the singualr its form is that of the simple verbal root. By the addition of um alone, or of um with kaL, the plural is formed. The optative is that form of the verb, which is used with a subject of any of the two classes, five divisions, and three persons, to express a 'wish' or 'polite command'. A participle is a defective (or dependent) verbal form. There are two kinds of participles: adverbial participle and adjectival participles. A negative mood is recognized as indicated by those forms of the verb which deny an action. Combining the personal ending and the root without any medial particle forms the negative finite verb common to the three tenses. A verbal noun is a noun formed by adding tal, al or kai to the root of a verb. Adjectives and adverb in Tamil are syntactically recognized category. They are not decided by the type of inflection they receive; rather they are identified by their function in the sentential construction.

The paper deals about the formation of nouns in Tamil.

Sanskrit is rich in compound formation. Pān . ini's grammar has more than 400 rules that deal with the semantic conditions governing the compound formation and the grammatical process involved in the compound formation. In this paper we rewrite the grammar as a combination of phrase structure rules and the regular grammar and list various semantic features as constraints governing the formation of compounds in Sanskrit.

Compounds occur very frequently in Indian Languages. There are no strict orthographic conventions for compounds in modern Indian Languages. In this paper, Sanskrit compounding system is examined thoroughly and the insight gained from the Sanskrit grammar is applied for the analysis of compounds in Hindi and Marathi. It is interesting to note that compounding in Hindi deviates from that in Sanskrit in two aspects. The data analysed for Hindi does not contain any instance of Bahuvrīhi (exo-centric) compound. Second, Hindi data presents many cases where quite a lot of compounds require a verb as well as vibhakti(a case marker) for its paraphrasing. Compounds requiring a verb for paraphrasing are termed as madhyama-pada-lopī in Sanskrit, and they are found to be rare in Sanskrit.