ABSTRACT
Linguists familiar with other auxiliary systems might well express surprise at discovering that these lexemes function as auxiliaries; many would probably be hard pressed to find parallels in other languages. And while some studies of Tamil have suggested some of these verbs as possible auxiliaries, solid proof of their extent and systematic nature has heretofore been largely absent. The verbal category of attitude is a shifter that characterizes the speaker's subjective evaluation of the narrated event. It must be distinguished from two other categories, status and evidential, with which it might be confused. The interaction of attitudinal auxiliaries with the category of person also distinguishes them from other indicative auxiliaries.
