Kokborok grammar is the grammar of the

Kokborok Kokborok (also known as Tripuri or Tiprakok) is the main native language of the Tripuri people of the Indian state of Tripura and neighbouring areas of Bangladesh. Its name comes from ''kok'' meaning "verbal" and ''borok'' meaning "people" or ...

language, also known as Tripuri or Tipra which is spoken by the

Tripuri people The Tripuri (also known as Tripura, Tipra, Tiprasa, Twipra) are an ethnic group originating in the Indian state of Tripura. They are the inhabitants of the Twipra/Tripura Kingdom in North-East India and Bangladesh. The Tripuri people through the ...

, the native inhabitants of the state of

Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the east a ...

. It is the official language of

, a state located in

Northeast India , native_name_lang = mni , settlement_type = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , motto = , image_map = Northeast india.png , ...

Syntax

The principal structures of affirmative sentences in Kokborok are the following:

Person

In Kokborok grammar use of the notion of 'person' is almost absent; the form of verb is same for one who speaks, one who is spoken to, and one who is spoken about.

Number

In Kokborok there are two

numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

: Singular and plural. The plural marker is used at the end of the noun or pronoun. There are two plural markers: ''rok'' and ''song''. ''Rok'' is universally used while ''song'' is used with human nouns only. The plural marker is normally used at the end of the noun or pronoun. But when the noun has an adjective the plural marker is used at the end of the adjective instead of the noun. Examples: * ''Bwrwirok Teliamura o thangnai''. These women will go to Teliamura. * ''O bwrwi naithokrok kaham rwchabo''. These beautiful women sing very well.

Gender

In Kokborok there are four genders: masculine gender, feminine gender, common gender, and neuter gender. Words which denote male are masculine, words which denote female are feminine, words which can be both male and female are common gender, and words which cannot be either masculine or feminine are neuter gender. There are various ways to change genders of words:

Case and case endings

In Kokborok there are the nominative, accusative, instrumental, ablative, locative and possessive cases. These case suffixes are used at the end of the noun/pronoun and there is no change in the form of the noun.

Adjective

In Kokborok the

adjective In linguistics, an adjective (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that generally grammatical modifier, modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Tra ...

s come after the words they qualify. This rule is strictly followed only in the case of native adjectives. In case of loan adjectives the rule is rather loose. Kokborok adjectives may be divided into four classes: # pure adjectives # compound adjectives # verbal adjectives # K-adjectives The first three classes may include both native and loan words. The fourth class is made of purely native words. e.g.: # ''hilik'' – heavy, ''heleng'' – light # ''bwkha kotor'' – (heart big) – brave, ''bwkha kusu'' – (heart small) – timid # ''leng'' – tire, ''lengjak'' – tired, ''ruk'' – to boil, ''rukjak'' – boiled. # ''kaham'' – good, ''kotor'' – big, ''kisi'' – wet.

Numerals

Kokborok numerals are both

decimal The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral ...

and

vigesimal vigesimal () or base-20 (base-score) numeral system is based on twenty (in the same way in which the decimal numeral system is based on ten). '' Vigesimal'' is derived from the Latin adjective '' vicesimus'', meaning 'twentieth'. Places In ...

. # sa # nwi # tham # brwi # ba # dok # sni # char # chuku # chi * ''ra'' – hundredth * ''sara'' – one hundred * ''sai'' – thousandth * ''sasai''- one thousand * ''rwjag'' – a

lakh A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2,2,3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ex ...

A numeral is organised as:

References

* ''A simplified Kokborok Grammar, by Prof. Prabhas Chandra Dhar, 1987'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Kokborok Grammar Kokborok Sino-Tibetan grammars