Morphology

The Toda language is primarily described as an ‘inflectional’ language, which explicit in its “inflections with forms that are of the general type (for number and person in the verb)” (Sakthivel 1976: 24). Toda is said to be “peculiar and complicated in its inflection for several categories: voice, tense and mode, number and person, verbal noun forms, non-finite forms” (Emeneau 1984: 114). These inflectional patterns define and exemplify Toda’s uniqueness.

The basic word classes present in Toda are nouns, pronouns, numerals, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs (Emeneau 1984).

NOUNS

In Toda, nouns are distinguished by their occurrence as the subjects or objects of the sentence. Nouns are primarily mono-morphemic, although there are exceptions to this statement. Plural nouns are often marked with -am. Besides nouns representing the subjects and objects, nouns can be found in the dative, locative, ablative, instrumental, causitive, and sociative cases (Emeneau 1984: 69).

Some monomorphemic nouns include: nir ‘water,’ up ‘salt,’ oɫ. ‘man, Toda man,’ nes̠of ‘moonlight,’ kopan. ‘butterfly’

Noun Case	Suffix or Formation	Examples
Dative	Suffix -k Added to the oblique stem	oɫ.k ‘to the Toda’ ïrk ‘to the boffalo’ kwïgk ‘to the plains’ mor̠tk ‘to the mund’ personal pronouns: enk, nïnk, tank, emk, omk
Locative	5 allomorphs of the suffix exist: -s, -š, -ž, -s., -z. Added to the oblique stem	kubs ‘at the back’ poɫ.yš ‘at the dairy’ muž ‘in the vessel’ kwït.s. ‘on the branch’ pos̠öz. ‘at Nos. mund’
Ablative	Suffix -s̠n	kwïgs̠n, ker̠ïrk, tod. fodfïs.k ïd̠ti. ‘An army came from the plains to Ker̠ïr – so they say.’ ay as̠s̠n bït̠ fod ‘bringing it from a house out of sight’
Instrumental (means)	Suffix -ït̠, meaning ‘by means of, with’ Added to noun stems	wïd̠ xwïr.ït. er̠sn ‘when it dug with one horn’ moštït. xwar̠fïn. ‘he cut at him with the axe’
Causitive	Suffix -ïd, meaning ‘because of’ Added to noun stems	enïd ‘with my help nïnïd ‘it is in your power’ anïd xwïd.fïn.g ‘because of her they quarreled’
Sociative	2 ways to form the sociative: 1) Noun then a form -pod̠y, meaning ‘following after’ 2) noun with suffix -wïr., meaning ‘with’	ni, aθan bod̠y södot.i ‘do not associate with (pod̠y) them!’ pör.wïr. xur.yot.i. kurbwïr. södot.i ‘do not associate with Tamilians! Do not assoiciate with Kurumbas!’

 

PRONOUNS

The Toda language has personal pronouns, which have reference to the speaker or addressee or are considered to be reflexive. Both single and plural personal pronouns exist in this language.

The singular personal pronouns have a form that is used as the subject and an oblique form used as the base for other case forms:

	Subject	Oblique
1st Singular	on	en-
2nd Singular	ni	nïn-
Reflexive Singular	ton	tan-

The plural personal pronouns have only one form each, which are used as the subject and as the base for other case forms.

1st Plural Exclusive	em
1st Plural Inclusive	om
2nd Plural	nïm
Reflexive Plural	tam

NUMERALS

In the Toda language, numerals are nouns in that they occur with case suffixes. Numerals are commonly used when counting and when enumerating an entity of collection of items, in the environment typically preceding or following a noun.

Here is a list of numerals as provided by Emeneau:

Number	Numeral in Toda
1	wïd̠
2	ed.
3	mud̠
4	nong
5	üʐ
6	or̠
7	öw
8	öt.
9	wïnboθ
10	pot
11	pon wïd
12	pon ed̠
13	pon mud̠
14	pang
15	puj
16	par̠
17	paw
18	put.
19	pun.boθ
20	ï foθ
30	mu poθ
40	naɫ poθ
50	e boθ
60	ar̠oθ
70	öw foθ
80	öt. foθ
90	en. boθ
100	nur̠
200	ï nur̠
300	mu nur̠
400	no nur̠
500	oy nur̠
600	or̠ nur̠
700	öw nur̠
800	öt. nur̠
900	wïnbo nur̠
1000	sofer

ADJECTIVES

Dravidian languages typically have a small class of words called adjectives, which cannot be delineated with suffixes, qualifiers, or nouns. Instead, Toda utilizes and exemplifies the presence of adjectives by utilizing sentences and context such as:

not.is̠y, toʐ mox θöwu. ‘Not.is̠y is a female deity’

toʐ mox ‘woman,’ here is translated as female

Beyond context clues, linguists have identified a set of adjectives that are considered to be “descriptive” and surface as one form consistently.

Adjectives	Gloss
per or ït	‘big’
kïr̠ or kin	‘small’
kut.	‘small, short’
kur̠	‘short’
poč	‘green’
pöɫ.	‘white’
kö-	‘red’
ka- or kax	‘black’
nas̠	‘beautiful’
pas̠	‘right’ or ‘left’
paw	‘old’
puθ	‘new’
po	‘uninhabited’
kwar̠	‘defective’
mar̠	‘next in time’
ki	‘below’
mel	‘above’

ADVERBS

According to Emeneau, “syntactically, there are numerous ‘adverbials,’ adjuncts preceeding the verb and denoting time or place” (Emeneau 1984: 178). However, due to the presence of adverbs near or attached to nouns or verbs of the sentence, it is quite difficult to elicit a class of stand alone adverbs. Based on Toda data collected, here are a few adverbs parsed by linguists:

Adverbs	Gloss
pïn	‘afterwards, then’
maxar̠	‘first (in time), before’
makol	‘tomorrow’
isy	‘morning, in the morning’
ed̠	‘why?’
al	‘there’
il	‘here’
el	‘where?’

VERBS

Toda verbs can be categorized by two stems, known as S1 and S2 (Emeneau 1984: 114).  Both past tense and present-future tense can be attributed to S2 (Emeneau 1984: 114). Each stem contains certain suffixes that influence the meaning of the verb. Toda verbs have 4 classes of verbs, each which have 2-3 subclasses of words categorized depending on differences in the S2 verb stem (Emeneau 1984). The language marks voice, tense and mode, number and person, subordinate predication forms, verbal noun forms, and non-finite forms on verbs. Particularly, Toda verbs include past, present-future, and tenseless verbs. In addition, modes such as the negative, voluntative, dubitative, and imperative are marked through the use of different S2 verb suffixes (Emeneau 1984: 131).

In Toda, S2 verbs are formed by adding a suffix to an S1 verb as shown in the examples below:

S2 Verb Formations and Main Classes	Examples
S2 = S1 + -y-	sop-, sopy-    ‘to suck’ top-, topy-    ‘to postpone, fail to come escape, give split to’ nob-, noby-    ‘to trust, believe’
S2 = S1 + -θ-	kof-, kofθ- ‘to be turned upside down’ wad.-, wad.θ- ‘to beat drum’ kar̠-, kar̠θ- ‘to milk’
S2 = S1 + -t-	muf-, mut- ‘to become old’ ef-, et- ‘to take, receive’ puf-, put- ‘to blossom’
S2 = S1 + -d-	kwïl.-, kwïl.d- ‘to hatch’ kol.-, kol.d- ‘to steal’ miy-, mid- ‘to bathe’

 

As described my Emeneau, here is a brief chart detailing the formation of Toda verbs with tense and their corresponding suffixes:

TODA VERBS

 

Based on the discussion of verbs and chart presented above, see below for the verb conjugations of the word pïx-, pi- ‘to go’ according to the present-future and past tense paradigms within Toda:

Present-Future
	I	II
1sg	pipen	pin
1pl exclusive	pipem	pim
1pl inclusive	pipum	pim
2sg	pipy	pity
2pl	pitš	pitš
3	pit	piu

 

Past
	I	II
1sg	pišpen	pišn
1pl exclusive	pišpem	pišm
1pl inclusive	pišpum	pišm
2sg	pišpy	pič
2pl	piš	piš
3	pič	pišk

REFERENCES:

Emeneau, Murray B. 1984. Toda grammar and texts. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. xiii+426pp.

Sakthivel, S. 1976. Phonology of Toda with vocabulary. Annamalainagar: Annamalai University. 382pp.