1. INTRODUCTION: TRADITIONAL TAMIL GRAMMARS
AND MODERN LINGUISTS ON ADJECTIVES
Linguists differ in their opinions in taking
adjective as a grammatical category. Scholars like Asher, Lehman and
Kothandaraman take adjective as a grammatical category
in Tamil. There is a complete lack of agreement among grammarians whether to
consider adjective as a form class in Tamil. The difficulty
in providing an operational definition for adjective crops up due to this
reason. Lehman takes adjective as a syntactic
category only. According to Lehmann (1989:131), "The lexical category of
adjective is another syntactic category in Modern Tamil which has evolved in a
diachronic process". Adjective can occur as an attribute in pre nominal
position as modifier of a head noun in a noun phrase.
The traditional grammars of
Tamil talks elaborately about nouns and verbs only. It appears that they have not treated adjectives and
adverbs as separate categories in Tamil. They treat adjectives as relative
participial forms of appellative verbs (kuRippup peyareccam) and relative
participial forms of regular verbs (terindilaip peyareccam). The qualitative
adjectives are reconstructed as qualitative nouns.
peeraacai 'extreme eagerness' < perumai 'bigness' + aacai
'desire'
ciRRaamal 'small lily' < ciRumai 'smallness' + aampal
'lilly'
2. THREE TYPES OF CATEGORIZATING ADJECTIVES
There are at least three kinds of opinion
regarding the categorization of adjectives:
- Adjective is a separate
grammatical category.
- Adjective is not a
separate grammatical category but a sub-category of noun or verb.
- Adjective is a mixed
grammatical category
Adjectives
come before a head noun as a modifier (ex. periya
nduul 'big book'). It can be followed a determiner (ex. indta periya puttakam 'this big book'). When adjective occupies the predicate slot,
it is pronominalized (ex. andta nduul
periyatu 'that book is a big one').
Adjectives can be classified into simple adjectives (ex. ndalla 'good', periya 'big') and derived adjectives (azhaku 'beauty' + aana
> azhakaana 'beautiful', uyaram + aana > uyaramaana
'high'). There is still some dispute over considering aana, uLLa, illaata the relativized forms of verbs aaku 'become', uL 'be', ill 'not' as
adjectivalizer or not. Both adjectives
as well as relative participle forms occur before a noun. But relative participle form of verbs
co-occur with adverbial elements like uTan
'immediately', pin 'after', piRaku
'after', pootu 'at that time', mun 'before', maTTum 'up to', varaikkum
'up to' to form adverbial clauses (ex. vandta
uTan 'immediately after coming', vandta pin 'after coming', varum
mun 'before coming'). Adjectives (from appellative verbs) do not
behave like this (Paramasivam, 1983:194). Paramasivam includes relative
participle forms of
verbs, relative participle forms of appellative verbs, negative
relative participle forms of verbs and adjectives formed by the adjectivalizer aana as adjectives. At the same time he identifies relative
participle forms and negative relative participle forms as phrases and appellative
relative participle forms and adjectives formed by the adjectivalizer aana as simple words.
Those
who argue adjective as a word class points out the property of adjective not
taking the plural suffix kaL and case
suffixes. Those who consider that adjective comes under nouns, take adjectival
forms as alternate forms of the concerned nouns. For example, in the compound peeraapattu
(< peer+ aapattu), the modifying element peer is considered as an
alternate form of perumai and peeraapattu
will be analyzed as perumai + aapattu.
The traditional grammars also carry the same opinion. There is no consistency in reconstructing the
adjectives into nouns. For example irumozhi 'two language' is reconstructed
as iraNTu + mozhi 'two language' and mummuurtti
'three gods' is reconstructed as muunRu
+ muurtti. There is no reason whey they cannot be
analyzed as irumai + mozhi and mummai + muurtti
respectively. There is no valid reason
why perumai, ciRumai and ndanmai are
not derived from the adjectival roots peer, ciRu
and ndal by suffixing mai.
Lakoff (1970) considers adjectives as verbs. There is enough
justification in considering peer, ciR, and ndal as adjective
or as a word class different form noun.
In languages like English adjectives comes before a as a modifier and in
where as a complement after be-verbs (ex. She is a beautiful girl. The girl is
beautiful). In Tamil aaku/aay
suffixed abstract nouns, which are in adverbial form and which come as
complement before the be-verb iru,
function as adjectives modifying the noun in subject slot apart
form aana suffixed abstract nouns
which function as adjectives before nouns under modification.
Examples:
avaL azhakaana peN
she
beautiful woman
'She is a beautiful woman'
andta
peN azhakaaka/azhakaay iru-kkiR-aaL
that woman
beautifully be_PRES_she
'That woman is beautiful'
The same N+aaka/aay form
function as adverbial if the verb in predicate slot is not a be verb.
andta
peN azhakaaka paaTu-kiR-aaL
that woman
well sing_PRES_she
'That girl sings well'
aaka/aay
added to abstract nouns denoting emotions also functions as adverbs when
collocated with be verbs such as iru and uL.
andta
peN koopamaaka/koopamaay irukkiRaaL
that woman
angrily be_PRES_she
'That woman is angry'
andta
peN koopamaaka/koopamaay irukkiRaaL
that woman
angrily be_PRES_she
'That woman is angry'
Kothandaraman (1973:94-100) considers aaka
as a case marker.
3. TESTS FOR FINDING OUT ADJECTIVES
Gopal (1981:88-93) following Quirk et al
(1976:231-34) and Nadkarni (1971:187-193), lists four tests to find out
adjectives:
- Intensifier rompa
'very' test.
- Comparative test.
- eppaTippaTTa
'what kind of' test.
- Exclamation test.
Intensifier Test
The intensifier rompa 'very' can co-occur
only with adjectives. If it is used with other attributes, it will not produce
acceptable phrases.
Examples:
rompa ndalla paiyan
'very
good boy'
*rompa va-ndt-a
paiyan
very come_PAST_RP boy
*rompa marap peTTi
very wooden box
*rompa andta paiyan
very that boy
*rompa cila paiyan
very some boy
*rompa iraNTu paRavaikaL
very two birds
*rompa iraNTu maTangku kaTTiTam
very two times building
*rompa aaciriyar kaNNan
very teacher Kannan
Comparative test
Employing comparative test can
identify adjectives. If the test is used
with other attributes it will produce only ungrammatical phrases.
avan-ai viT-a ivaL
ndalla-vaL
he_ACC leave_INF he good_she
'He is better than her'
*avan-ai viT-a ivaL va-ndta-vaL
he_ACC leave_INF she came_she
*avan-ai viT-a ivarkaL cilar
he_ACC leave_INF they few
*avan-ai viT-a ivarkaL iraNTu paRavaikaL
he_ACC leave_INF two birds
*at-ai viT-a itu iraNTu maTangku kaTTiTam
that leave_INF two times
building
avan-ai viT-a ivan
aaciriyar
he_ACC leave_INF he teacher
Interrogative Test: eppaTippaTTa
'what kind of' test.
Adjectives
can be identified from other attributes by employing interrogative test using
the interrogative word eppaTippaTTa
'what kind of'. By using the question
word eppaTippaTTa, we can get answers
as given in the first two phrases and not as given in the rest of the phases
given below:
Possible
answers
ndalla
manitarkaL
'good men'
azhakaana
manitarkaL
'beautiful men'
Impossible
answers
va-ndt-a
manitarkaL
'come_PAST_RP
men'
aaciriyar
manitarkaL
'teacher
men'
cila
manitrakaL
'few men'
Similarly,
the answers for eppaTippaTTa peTTi 'what kind of box' is:
Possible
answers
ndalla
peTTi 'good box'
paLuvaana
peTTi 'heavy box'
Impossible
answers
marppeTTi
'wooden box'
Exclamation test
Adjectives
can be differentiated from other attributes by exclamation test employing the
exclamatory word evvaLavu 'how much'.
evvaLavu
azhakaana paiyan!
how_much
beautiful boy
'How beautiful boy he is!'
evvaLavu
veekamaana kutirai!
how much
fast horse
'How fast the horse is!'
evvaLavu
pazhu-tt-a pazham!
how_much ripe_PAST_RP fruit
'How much ripped the fruit is!'
This
test cannot be successfully employed for relative participles, quantifiers,
appositional clauses and other noun phrases.
*evvaLavu va-ndt-a paiyan
how_much came_RP boy
*evvaLavu cila peer
how_much
some persons
*evvaLavu iraNTu peer
how_much
two persons
*evvaLavu reNTu maTangku kaTTiTam
how_much
two times building
*evvaLavu aaciriyar kaNNan
how_much
teacher Kannan
evvaLavu as an exclamatory word can
successfully collocated with nouns as compound nouns, but only to exclaim the
quantity and not the quality.
evvaLau
paiyankaL
'How many boys!'
evvaLavu
marappeTTikaL
how_much
wooden boxes
'How many wooden
boxes!'
4. ADJECTIVES AS A SEPARATE CATEGORY
Generally,
adjectives in Tamil are taken as a separate category on the basis of their
syntactic behaviour and not from the point of view of their morphological
features. But still they can be treated as separate category from the point of
view of their morphological behaviour too.
The adjectives of peer type
(discussed in the later part) show some kind of morphological regularity. This
can be seen from the following information about peer type of adjectives. For
example, peer occurs as peer, perum and periya while function as adjectives (the details are dealt in the
later part of the paper). The
adjectives with iya, aiya and a as adjectival suffixes (dealt
in the later part of the paper) can be treated so on the following grounds.
1. They appear before nouns as
modifiers.
umaa oru periya paaTaki
Uma one big singer
'Uma is a good singer'
2. The adjectives can be
intensified by intensifiers such as mika.
umaa oru mikap periya paaTaki
Uma one very big singer
'Uma is a very good singer'
3. The adjectives can be modified
by comparative propositions introduced by the comparative elements such as viTa, kaaTTilum.
umaa raataiyai viTa mikap periya
paaTaki
Uma Radha_ACC than very big singer
'Uma is very talented singer than Radtha'
4.
If the adjectives function as predicates
they occur in their pronominalized forms.
paaTaki
umaa raataiy-ai viTa mikap periya-vaL
singer Uma Radha_ACC more very talented_she
'The singer Uma is very talented than Radha'
5. The adjectives of the periya-type take pronominalizers such as atu,
avai, etc.
periya-tu 'big one', kariya-tu 'black one', ndalla-tu 'good one'
periya-vai 'big ones', kariya-vai 'black ones', ndalla-vai 'good ones'
periy-van
'big man', kariya-van 'black man', ndalla-van ' good man'
6. The stop consonants (k, c, t, p) of the nouns which follows
the adjectival suffix a
of the adjectives of the periya-type
do not geminate.
periya paiyan 'big boy'
ciRiya peTTi 'small box'
The
first two statements are based on the syntax and the fourth and are based on
morphology and the sixth based on phonology.
5. ADJECTIVES AS A GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY
Adjectives in Tamil can be
taken as a grammatical category on the basis of their syntactic function. They
come before the nouns to attribute them and they are not followed by a
postposition. Bhat (1991) argues in
details how adjective establishes itself as a separate category like noun and
verb.
There
is a pair of forms for a number of adjectives:
1. One is a bound form that has to
be added immediately before a noun like a prefix.
Examples:
ndal 'good' found in the word ndalaaci
‘good wish’
2. The other is an a-ending form that is
independent.
ndalla ‘good’ found in the phrase ndalla
eNNam ‘good thinking’
We
have at least three alternative solutions in dealing with the paired form.
1. The bound form can be taken as
an allomorph of the a-ending forms.
2. The bound form can be
considered as a reduced form of its counterpart, which is a quality noun (ex. ndanmai ‘goodness’ + eNNam > ndalleNNam, as proposed by the traditional grammarians).
3. The bound form can be
considered as a root or base from which the a-ending forms are derived by the
suffixation of the adjective maker -a.
The
third alternative is not fruitful and productive as far as Modern Tamil is
concerned. The second alternative
indirectly supports the formation of a stem by truncation. The first alternative holds well. But if we do not give categorical status to
the bound forms, the relation between many related forms will be denied. For example, the relation between ndalla ‘good’, ndanku ‘well’, ndanRu
‘fine’ ndanmai ‘benefit’, ndalam ‘state of good health' and ndalloor ‘great person’ cannot be
established if these words are considered monomorphemic. The denial of categorical status to the bound
form probably needs rethinking.
6. WHETHER TO CONSIDER RELATIVE PARTICIPLE
FORM AS ADJECTIVE OR NOT?
There
is not doubt that relative participle forms of verbs attribute the noun which
follows them. So naturally one may doubt
whether to consider the relative participle form of a verb as adjective or not.
The difference between the adjectivalized forms such periya 'big', ciRiya
'small' and koTiya 'cruel' of
appellative verbs peri 'be big', ciRi 'be small', koTi 'be cruel' and the adjectivalized forms (i.e. relaive
participle forms) of the normal verbs is that the former is adjectivalized at
the lexical level and the latter is adjectivalized at the sentential
level. The adjuctivalization does not
disturb the argument structure of the verb that is adjectivalized.
ndaan paLLiyil ndeeRRu paTitta paaTattai inRu avan paTittaan
I school_LOC yesterday studied_RP
lesson today he studied_he
'He studied the lesson which I had
studied in school yesterday'
Though
adjectivalization changes the category of a verb into an adjective, it does not
disturb its argument structure and its characteristic feature of expressing
tense or negative. There is no need to
give the adjectivalized forms of verbs in dictionary as their resultant
meanings and acquired syntactic characteristics can be predicted. KTTA has listed only those relativized forms
that are lexicalized into adjectives due to their idiosyncratic meaning.
7. POSITION OF ADJECTIVES IN NOUN PHRASE
The
position of adjectives among the elements occuring in NP reveal that adjectives
occur inbetween the noun and the relative participle form. If the relative
participle form occurs in an NP, then the acceptable postion of adjective is
after relative participle form.
va-ndt-a
ndalla paiyan
come_PAST_RP
good boy
‘the good
boy who came’
ooTiya
azhakaana kutirai
run_PAST_RP
beautiful horse
‘the
beautiful horse ran’
*ndalla vandta paiyan
*azhkaana ooTiya kutirai
In
the case of compound noun the adjective cannot immediately attribute the head
noun (i.e. It cannot occur inbetween the constituents of the compound noun.)
The adjective precedes the compound noun.
*mara ndalla peTTi
wooden good box
*pon azhakiya cankili
golden
beautiful chain
ndalla
marappeTTi
‘good
wodden box’
azhakiya
pon cangkili
‘beautiful
golden chain’
The
demonstratives generally precede the adjective.
andta
ndalla paiyan
‘that good
boy’
indta
azhakiya ciRumi
‘this good
girl’
?ndalla andata paiyan
good that
boy
?azhakiya indta ciRumi
beautiful
this girl
The
qunatifiers like cila ‘few’, ovvoru ‘each’, iraNTu ‘two’, mutalaavatu
‘first’, etc. can be interchanged with adjectives.
ndalla cila
manitarkaL
‘good few
men’
cila ndalla
manitarkaL
‘few good
men’
ndalla
ovvoru manitarum
‘good each
one of good men’
ovvoru
ndalla manitarum
‘each one
of good men’
ndalla
iraNTu ciRumikaL
‘good two
girls’
iraNTu
ndalla ciRumikaL
‘two good
girls’
ciRandta
mutalaavatu paiyan
‘best first
boy’
mutalaavatu
ciRandta paiyan
‘first best
boy’
8. GOPAL'S CONCLUDING REMARKS ON ADJECTIVES
Goapal’s
concluding remarks on adjectives need to be explored here.
“The conclusion arrived at is that adjectives are not a separate
part of speech and are only separate category like that of infinitives and
verbal participles. The various forms which are considered to be adjectives in
Tamil by various scholars which in reality are not adjectives have been taken
for study in detail ... and rejected as they do not account for certain
syntactic requirements. That is, the
demonstratives, quantifiers, numerals, nominal compounds, participles are not
considered as adjectives. And certain
syntactic tests have been posited to identify adjectives. ... A constrictive
study of English and Tamil is undertaken ... in order to show adjectives in
Tamil in the surface structure behave differently from adjectives in
English.... different forms of adjectives are taken up and it has been shown
that the shape cannot determine an adjective and it must be treated as a
syntactic category rather than a morphological category.” (Gopal,
1981:246-247).
The
need for positing adjective as a word class has been discussed below. Here we are going to examine all the lexical
items listed in kiriyaavin taRkaalat tamizh akaraati (KTTA) as
adjectives and extract the strategies involved in the derivation of adjectives
as reflected from the dictionary. Taxonomy of adjectival formation is aimed at
in order to stream line our understanding of adjectival formation.
9. TAXONOMY OF ADJECTIVAL
FORMATION
Adjectives
can be classified into three based of their structure and process of
derivation:
1. Adjectives from nominal source
2. Adjectives from verbal source
3. Adjectives from a third source
9.1. Adjectives from nominal
source
Certain
nouns are listed as adjectives as they come before nouns functioning as
adjectives by attributing the nouns.
They can be classified into two based on whether they are phonologically
changed or not. Thus we have two sets of
adjectives in this type:
1.
Phonologically unchanged denominal adjectives
2.
Phonologically changed denominal adjectives
9. 2. Phonologically unchanged
denominal adjectives
A set noun that are listed in KTTA as adjectives due do their semantic
change and syntactic function are incorporated here. These nouns are used as
adjectives without any phonological change.
Based on their internal structure they can be classified as simple and
compound.
Simple
a 'that' + karai (n) '
adjacent area; side' > akkarai (n)
'that side' > akkarai
(adj) 'foreign'
iNai (n) 'parallel' > iNai (adj) 'joint;
associate; co'
uumai (n) 'dump person' > uumai (adj)
'latent; without any outward sign'
kuNTu (n) 'ball like structure' > kuNTu
(adj) 'fat'
koLLai (n) 'robbery; swindle' > koLLai
(adj) 'much; enormous'
talaimai (n) 'leadership' > talaimai (adj)
`chief; main; head (adj)'
tiruTTu (n) 'theft; robbery' > tiruTTu
(adj) 'illegal; illicit'
tii (n) 'fire' > tii (adj) 'evil'
tuNai (n) 'help; aid; act of abetting;
company' > tuNai (adj) 'vice; deputy; assistant'
Compound
iRu 'end' + ayal (n) 'that which is next in
place' > iRRayal (adj) 'penultimate'
uTan 'instant' + aTi (n) 'step' > uTanaTi
(adj) 'immediate'
kiizh (n) 'bottom part' + taTTu
(n) 'status' > kiizhttaTTu
(adj) 'lower economic stratum'
taan 'self' + iyangki (n) 'that which operates'
> taaniyangki (adj)
'automatic'
tinam (n) 'day' + cari (n) 'proper' > tinacari
(adj) 'daily'
tinam (n) 'day' + paTi (n) 'step' > tinappaTi
(adj) 'daily; day to day'
puujiyam 'zero' + sri 'mister' > puujiyasri
(adj) 'his holiness'
maRai 'veda' + tiru 'mister' > maRaittiru
(adj) 'reverend'
mun 'before; previous' + ndaaL (n) 'day'> munnaaL
(adj) 'former; ex'
meel 'above' + paTi (n) 'step' > meeRpaTi
(adj) 'given above; mentioned above'
The
nouns listed as adjectives in KTTA are treated so, as they are lexically and
syntactically lexicalized as adjectives. Many nouns, which act as attributes,
can come before nouns, which act as heads. While doing so they may get
lexicalized to become functionally adjectives exhibiting semantic change. Numeral nouns as well as nouns denoting
colours can come before nouns as adjectives.
paccai (n) 'green colour' > paccai (adj)
'green'
civappu (n) 'red colour > civappu (adj)
'red'
iraNTu (n) 'two' > iraNTu (adj) 'two'
eezhai (n) 'poor' > eezhai (adj) 'poor'
It
can be interpreted that nouns are capable of becoming adjectives. In other words, nouns are sources from which
adjectives can be formed when need arise.
9. 3. Phonologically changed
denominal adjectives
Phonologically
changed denominal adjectives can be classified into two based on the type of
phonemic change:
1. Adjectives formed by the germination of the consonant of the
final syllable of the concerned noun
2. Adjectives formed by the deletion of m/n/r of the
final syllable or am\an\ar of the concerned noun
9. 4. Adjectives formed by the
germination of the consonant of the final syllable of the concerned noun
There
are two types based on the internal structure: 1. simple and 2. compound.
Simple
ndaaTu (n) `country' > ndaaTTu
(adj) `indigenous; country '
ndaaTTuc caaraayam 'country liquor'
veeRu (n) `different' > veeRRu (adj) `different
(adj)'
Compound
pal 'several' + ndaaTu (n)
'country' > panndaaTTu (adj) 'multinational; international'
The
potential forms such as the following that are not listed as adjectives in KTTA
can be equated with ndaaTTu 'country
(adj)'.
acaTu 'fool' > acaTTu
'foolish'
kuruTu 'blindness' > kuruTTu
'blind'
muraTu 'roughness' > muraTTu
'rough'
kaaTu 'forest' > kaaTTu
'wild'
The
test frame - X aaka irukkiRa Y 'X who/which is Y'- can be
used to pick out a type of adjectives.
acaTTup paiyan 'foolish boy'< acaTaaka irukkiRa
paiyan 'the boy who is foolish'
kuruTTup paiyan 'blind boy'< kuruTaaka
irukkiRa paiyan 'the boy who is blind'
ceviTTup paiyan 'deaf boy' < ceviTaaka irukkiRa
paiyan 'the boy who is deaf'
muraTTup paiyan 'rough boy' < muraTaaka
irukkiRa paiyan 'the boy who is rough'
kaaTTup panRi 'wild pig'< *kaaTaaka irukkiRa
panRi 'the pig which is forest'
ndaaTTup paN 'national song' < *ndaaTaaka
irukkiRa paN 'the song which is national'
But
as the test frame weeds out ndaaTTu (<ndaaTu)
as well as kaaTTu (<kaaTu) from
the category of adjectives, we cannot fully rely on it.
9. 5. Adjectives formed by the
deletion of m/n/r of the final syllable am\an\ar of the concerned noun
Adjectives formed by the
deletion of m
Forty-two
adjectives of this type are listed in KTTA out of which twenty-seven are simple
adjectives and the rest of the fifteen are compound adjectives.
Simple
akilam `world (n) > akila (adj) `all '
?aatarcam
(n)> aatarca (adj) 'ideal; perfect; model' ,
?eekam
(n) > eeka (adj) 'large; a great deal of',
kaLLam
(n) > 'cunning or deceitful nature' > kaLLa (adj) 'illicit;
illegal; clandestine'
?kanishTam (n) > kanishTa
(adj) 'last born'
?kiraamiyam
(n) > kiraamiya (adj) 'of village or folk; rural'
kauravam (n) 'prestige; honour' > kaurava
(adj) 'honorary',
?caastriyam
(n) > caastriya (adj) 'classical'
?cuyam
(n) > cuya (adj) 'self'
?cireeshTam
(n) > cireeshTa (adj) 'eldest'
ciimantam (n) 'ceremony concerned with
first pregnancy' > ciimandta (adj) 'first; eldest'
cuttam (n) 'cleanliness' > cutta
(adj)'complete; utter; pure'
condtam (n) 'ownership; relationship'> condta
(adj)'native; personal; private'
tarmam (n) 'charity; alms giving' > tarma
(adj) 'free of cast'
?taarmiikam
(n) > taarmiika (adj) 'moral; righteous;just'
?ndikaram
(n) > ndikara 'net'
ndittiyam (n) 'perpetuity'> ndittiya (adj)
'daily'
?piratamam
(n) > piratama (adj) 'chief'
?puurvam
(n) > puurva (adj) 'former; bygone; ancient'
pautikam (n) 'physics' > putika (adj) 'physical'
?mattiyam
(n) > mattiya (adj) 'belonging to central'
?mattiyam
(n) > mattiya (adj) 'of the centre'
marmam (n) 'secret' > marma (adj) 'suspense
packed'
raajiyam (n) 'country' > raajiya (adj)
'diplomatic'
viceesham 'of special interest' > viceesha
(adj) 'special'
?jeeshTam
(n) > jeeshTa (adj) 'first born'
Compound
N + N
uur (n)
'village' + akam (n) 'inner; internal' > uurakam (n) > uuraka
(adj) 'rural'
kuNam (n) + cittiram (n) > kuNaccittiram
(n) > kuNaccittira (adj) 'character'
ndaTu (n) 'centre' + taram(n)
'quality' > ndaTuttaram (n) 'medium; average'> ndaTuttara
(adj) 'middle'
pakuti (n) 'part' + ndeeram(n)
'time' > pakutindeeram (n) > pakutindeera (adj)
'part-time'
N (with the deletion final m) + N
maatam (n) 'month' + andtaram/andtiram
(n) 'withiness' > mataandtaram/maataandtiram
(n) > mataandtara/maataandtira (adj) 'monthly'
varuTam (n) 'year' + andtaram/andtiram
(n) 'withiness' > varuTaandtaram/
varuTaandtiram (n) > varuTaandtara/varuTaandtira 'anual; yearly'
vaaraam (n) + andtiram (n) > vaaraandtaram/vaaraandtiram
(n) > vaaraandtara/vaaraandtira (adj) 'weekly'
Adj + N
carva 'all' + teecam(n) 'country' > carva teecam (n)
> carvateeca (adj) 'international'
pan
'several' + mukam (n) 'face' > panmukarm (n)> panmuka
(adj) 'multifaceted; varied'
mattiya 'central' + taram (n) 'quality > mattiya
taram > mattiyatara
(adj) 'middle'
muzhu 'full' + ndeeram 'time'>