Tamil Grammar - Sentence Structure

Sentence Structure

Except in poetry, the subject precedes the object, and the verb must conclude the sentence. In a standard sentence, therefore, the order is usually subject–object–verb (SOV) though object–subject–verb is not uncommon.

Tamil is a null subject language. Not all Tamil sentences have subjects, verbs and objects. It is possible to construct valid sentences that have only a verb - such as muṭintuviṭṭatu ("It is completed") - or only a subject and object, such as atu eṉ vīṭu ("That is my house"). The elements that are present, however, must follow the SOV order. Tamil does not have an equivalent for the word is and the word is included in the translations only to convey the meaning. The verb to have in the meaning "to possess" is not translated directly either. In order to say "I have a horse" in Tamil a construction equivalent to "There is a horse to me" or "There exists a horse to me" will be used.

Tamil lacks relative pronouns, but their meaning is conveyed by relative participle constructions which are built using agglutination. For example, the English sentence "Call the boy who learned the lesson" will be said in Tamil roughly as "That-lesson-learned-boy call".