Venpa

Venba ( in Tamil) is a form of classical Tamil poetry. Classical Tamil poetry has been classified based upon the rules of metric prosody. Such rules form a context-free grammar. Every venba consists of between two and twelve lines.

Vowels and consonant-vowel compounds in Tamil alphabet have been classified into ones with short sounds (kuril) and the ones with long sounds (nedil). A sequence of one or more of these units optionally followed by a consonant can form a ner asai (the Tamil word asai roughly corresponds to syllable) or a nirai asai depending on the duration of pronunciation. Ner and Nirai are the basic units of meter in Tamil prosody. A siir or cheer is a type of metrical foot that roughly corresponds to an iamb. Thalai is the juxtaposition of iambic patterns.

Note that the official terms for the different "asai"s are self-descriptive. For example, the word "ner" is itself classified as ner asai. And the word "nirai" is a nirai asai.

A set of well defined metric rules define the grammar for venba. Such rules have been proved to form a context-free grammar.

One set of rules constrains the duration of sound for each word or cheer, while another set of rules defines the rules for the possible sounds at the beginning of a word that follows a given sound at the end of the preceding word. Any venba should conform to both these sets of rules.

Following is the set of production rules corresponding to the first set of rules.

Following is the set of production rules corresponding to the second set of rules.

Following is a couplet from Tirukkural:

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