A Reference Grammar of Spoken Tamil (review)

With 2,000 years of literature behind it, written Tamil (WT) is far better known than spoken Tamil (ST). To redress this imbalance, Harold Schiffman presents A reference grammar of spoken Tamil (RGST) for language students as well as linguists and other specialists (i). RGST treats phonology (1–24), the nominal system (25–44), the Tamil verb phrase (45–114), pronouns and pro-forms(115–22), adjectives(123–38), introductory syntax (139–68), and complex syntax (169–96). An appendix provides written equivalents to spoken paradigms. The result, however, proves to be a disappointing reworking of S’s 1979 A grammar of spoken Tamil.

Some minor variations aside, the two books share much the same outline and content so that the 1999 version inherits some of its predecessor’s deficiencies. Sections 3.2 in 1999 and 3.1 in 1979, for example, are both labeled ‘Imperatives and infinitives’; neither, in fact, discusses the infinitive. The major difference between the two versions, and the one primarily responsible for the lengthier RGST, lies in the use of Tamil orthography alongside roman transcription of the examples. This may accustom students to reading tokens of ST in Tamil script, but with no introduction to the writing system, it renders some analysis inaccessible to others. The discussion of phonology (17ff.), for example, mixes Tamil graphs with roman characters: The statement ‘[h]ere the i element triggers palatalization of the [Tamil symbols for -tt-] to produce cc’ is opaque to those who cannot read Tamil. The use of ‘spelled’ ST alongside the transcription introduces some confusion because it utilizes spelling conventions for representing ST in WT which reflect neither pronunciation nor writing: In table 3.12 (66), for example, the Tamil script includes a symbol for u that is omitted in the romanization of ST whereas no u appears in that position in WT.

The first of many substantive problems begins with the putative object of study, ST. The Tamil examples in RGST come from films, plays, and the media (i); these sources are scripted, edited, rehearsed, and performed, leading one to question whether, how well, or to what extent they represent the spoken language. Because no large corpus has yet been transcribed on which such a grammar might be based, Tamil scholars have often relied on the fiction that when they speak of ST, what they are really discussing is ‘pronounced’ Tamil, i.e. how an expression of the literary language would sound coming from the mouths of ordinary speakers. Because WT and ST share more similarities than not, this convention has proved relatively innocuous in analyzing much of Tamil grammar. But in a reference work which asserts that WT and ST are ‘radically different’ (i), reliance on primary data from literary sources, some more naturalistic than others, tends to compromise its claim to represent the spoken language.

While the 20 years between the two versions have witnessed noteworthy research on Tamil grammar, RGST largely neglects the fruits of that progress. For example, Paramasivam 1979 definitively analyzes pairs of ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ verbs in Tamil as ‘affective’ and ‘effective’. He demonstrates the opposition is not one of transitivity: In numerous pairs, both the affective and effective members take direct objects in the accusative case; both are therefore plainly transitive. The subsequent literature has shown the opposition marks voice, not valency. By ignoring these advances, S persists in treating the opposition between such paired verbs as intransitive vs transitive (74–9), thereby perpetuating an empirically flawed analysis that forces him to label as intransitive verbs which are in fact transitive while ignoring the pertinent category of voice expressed in this opposition.

Four books and theses on auxiliary verbs (77–102) have appeared since S’s own 1969 dissertation on the subject; however, aside from some citations of Annamalai 1981, RGST largely dispenses their results and suggests an uneven grasp of their contents. The justification for disregarding the scholarly literature would seem to rest on S’s belief (104) that Dale 1975, Annamalai 1981...