Editing Tamil language (section)

=== Syntax ===
Tamil is a consistently [[head-final]] language. The verb comes at the end of the clause, with a typical word order of [[subject–object–verb]] (SOV).<ref name="SOV_language">{{Citation|url=http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/schuh/lx001/Discussion/d02.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030919235821/http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/schuh/lx001/Discussion/d02.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 September 2003 |title=Tamil is a head-final language |access-date=1 June 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{Citation|url=http://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_tml |title=WALS – Tamil |publisher=Wals.info |access-date=13 September 2012}}</ref> However, word order in Tamil is also flexible, so that surface permutations of the SOV order are possible with different [[pragmatics|pragmatic]] effects. Tamil has [[postposition]]s rather than [[prepositions]]. Demonstratives and modifiers precede the noun within the noun phrase. Subordinate clauses precede the verb of the matrix clause.

Tamil is a [[null-subject language]]. Not all Tamil sentences have subjects, verbs, and objects. It is possible to construct grammatically valid and meaningful sentences which lack one or more of the three. For example, a sentence may only have a verb—such as ''{{IAST|muṭintuviṭṭatu}}'' ("completed")—or only a subject and object, without a verb such as ''{{IAST|atu eṉ vīṭu}}'' ("That [is] my house"). Tamil does not have a [[copula (linguistics)|copula]] (a linking verb equivalent to the word ''is''). The word is included in the translations only to convey the meaning more easily.