Phonological isogloss : The most striking phonological isogloss is R isogloss. The phoneme jR/ is found only in this dialect of Tamil and hence it is an exclusive isogloss. (For ex. in items like a Ru ‘cut’, ma Ra ‘forget”). Grammatical level : In the grammatical level also a number of exclusive isoglosses are found. The instrumental case suffixes – vacci, -kontu, - it tu are found exclusively in this dialect. The gemitive case suffix — akke (enakke makan *my son*) is an exclusive grammatical isogloss found in this dialect. The present tense suffixes -k-, -kk- and –op - are found exclusively in this dialect of Tamil. cg. kuli-kk a it “bathes – he' a lu - k-a - n ‘weeps — he' ! . . tiri-o- a n ‘wanders – he' The verbal participle of vitu is an exclusive isogloss in this dialect. avan colli kittu po : na : n “having said he went’ But in most of the other dialects the corresponding form is avan collittu po : n : an ‘having said he went’. The loss of third person neuter singular pronominal termination is also an exclusive isogloss in this dialect. For example, atu vantutu ‘came-it” corresponds to atu vantu ‘came—it’ in the Nanjilnad dialect. –a : kscum is an emphatic marker in this Tamil dialect and it is an exclusive isogloss. eg. avan aikkum vanta:n ‘It is he who came’. The ordinal suslix | —a matte which is found in the following example, na : 1 – a : matte‘fourth’ is an exclusive isogloss found in this dialect. Lexical isoglosses: In the lexical level too many lexical items are exclusively found in this dialect. Some of such peculiar lexical items are listed below. _ 248 ---
