Verb Phrase in Tamil

Abstract

The verb phrase is built up of a verb, which is the head of the construction. Verb occurs as predicate in the rightmost position of a clause. As a predicate it selects arguments (Ex. Subject, Direct object, Indirect object and Locative NPs) and assigns case to its arguments and adverbial adjuncts. Another syntactic property of verbs in Tamil is that they can govern subordinate verb forms. Verb occurring as finite verbs in clause final position can be complemented by non-finite verbs proceeding them. The latter with respect to the interpretation of tense or subject governs these non-finite forms, being subordinate to the finite verb form. If we follow the traditional idea of having a VP node for Tamil, then all the elements, except the subject NP, will have to be grouped under VP.