The Tamil Auxiliary Verb System introduces the syntactic process of auxiliary formation and applies it to the grammatical analysis of the indicative, or non-modal, auxiliary verbs of Modern Tamil. Data from the spoken and written registers, gathered over several years, form the basis of this synchronic study, which focuses on the semantic and syntactic properties of twenty-four auxiliary verbs.

This book demonstrates for the first time the systematic nature of auxiliary verb phenomena and how they are integrated into the grammar of the language. Discoveries are presented at several levels of Tamil grammar: morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics, new constructions, verbal categories and tenses are all analyzed. This book will have further implications for historical and typological linguistics, particularly as they bear on the formation of the compound verbs as an isogloss feature of the South Asian linguistic area. The Tamil Auxiliary Verb System will be of interest to linguists, Dravidian scholars and students of Tamil.