நற்றிணையில் நிபந்தனை எச்சம்: சூழலும் காரணிகளும் / Conditional Participles in Narrinai: Context and Factors

Abstract

Sangam poets carefully employed grammatical categories and linguistic structures in their poetic compositions. Literary linguistics is a field that analyses the language used in the literature concerning author, theme, time, characters etc. This paper deals with the use of conditional participles in one of the Sangam texts, ‘Narrinai’; it also analyses their structures, contexts, uses and how the conditional participles are employed in the five Thinais, Statements (kootru), characters (Aga Maandhars) such as Hero, Heroine and Heroine’s Friend (Thozhan and Thozhi) and so far. Limited research has been done on the use of verb forms (especially on conditional participles) in Sangam classics and even they are peripheral level explanations without considering the contextual sensitivity of the word forms. This research article justifies that the event of conditional participles occurring in statements is dependent on the situation where Uripporul’s time is extended in the Thinai. This paper also explains that the frequency of occurrence of conditional participles is based on the landscape (Thinai) and Statements (kootru) of characters. Most of the ‘conditional participles’ are seen in the poetry of Kurinji Thinai and the statements of the Heroine’s friend (Thozhi). In addition to this, conditional participles occur in large numbers in the Heroine’s statements too. Based on this, it is understood that women characters had the freedom to express their thoughts and pose conditions to the Hero and Hero’s friend during the period of premarital love. Thus, this article reveals the circumstances in which conditional participles are employed in ‘Narrinai’.

Keywords

• sangam literature
• conditional participle
• narrinai
• context
• factors