Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c27.s40: 7.37 Particles

Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c27.s40

Language: English

7.37 Particles

c27.s40.1

Particles are auxiliary morphemes added to the main words to impart various shades of meanings. The following two particles occur in the Corpus:

*-um*: occurs as an intensifying particle in the sense 'too, also'. *avviru-a-ar-um* 'those two persons also' 45.3.b The reference is to two donors who also joined the others named in the inscriptions in making the gift. The particle occurs here in free form.

c27.s40.3

| *eḻuttum* | 'the letters also' | 85.1 |

c27.s40.4

The reference is to the scribe engraving not only this inscription (No. 85) but also the adjoining charts of musical notations (Nos. *86* & *87*).

c27.s40.5

**-ē:** occurs as the emphatic particle added to the dative case suffix *-ku*:

c27.s40.6

| *kuv-aṉ-kē* | 'to Kuvaṉ' | 1.2.c. |

c27.s40.7

In the following case the emphatic particle *-ē* is added to the dative case suffix *-ku* (used here in the locative-possessive sense) to signify inclusiveness:

c27.s40.8

| *mattirai-kē* | 'of Matirai' | 38.1 |

c27.s40.9

The particle emphasises that all the donors mentioned in the succeeding inscriptions (Nos. *39–45*) hailed from the same place.