The grammar shows similarities to Mainland
Malayalam.
Nouns Case endings The case endings for nouns and pronouns are generally as follows: • Nominative: nil; • Accusative: a, na • Genitive: aa, naa, thaa; • Dative: kk, n, oon; • Communicative: oda, aa kooda, naa kooda; • Instrumental: aa kond, naa kond; • Locative: nd, naa ul, l (only in traces); • Ablative: nd; • Vocative: e, aa;
Pronouns • thaan: self;
Verbs The conjugations of verbs are similar to Mainland
Malayalam. The verb 'kaanu' - meaning 'see', the same as in Mainland
Malayalam, is illustrated here. There are three simple tenses. • Present: suffix added is nna (mostly nda); so kaanunna/kaanunda - sees, is seeing. • Past: the stem of the verb may change as in Mainland Malayalam. For 'kaanu', past is kanda - saw. • Future: the suffix added is 'um'. So, kaanum - will see. The negatives of these tenses show some differences: • For present tense, the negative is formed by adding vela (ppela for some verbs) to the stem. Not only that, a present negative may also function as a future negative. So, kaanuvela - is not seeing, does not see, will not see. • For past tense, the negative is formed by suffixing ela to the past stem. So, kandela - did not see, has not seen. • For the future tense, the old Malayalam poetic suffix 'aa' may be used (kaanaa). The interrogative forms are made by suffixing 'aa' with some changes effected. So, kaanundyaa (does/do ... see?) for kaanunda (sees), kandyaa (did ... see?) for kanda (saw), and kaanumaa/kaanunaa/kaanungaa (will ... see?) for kaanum (will see). ==References==