The grammar of the
Marathi language
Marathi (; ''Marāṭhī'', ) is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the official language of Maharashtra, and additional official language in the state of Goa. It is one of t ...
shares similarities with other modern
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
such as
Odia,
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...
or
Punjabi. The first modern book exclusively about the grammar of
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
was printed in 1805 by
Willam Carey.
The principal
word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
in Marathi is
SOV (subject–object–verb). Nouns
inflect for
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures ...
(masculine, feminine, neuter),
number
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 c ...
(singular, plural), and
case. Marathi preserves the
neuter gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nou ...
found in
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
, a feature further distinguishing it from many Indo-Aryan languages. Typically, Marathi adjectives do not inflect unless they end in an () vowel, in which case they inflect for gender and number. Marathi verbs
inflect for tense (past, present, future). Verbs can agree with their subjects, yielding an active voice construction, or with their objects, yielding a passive voice construction. A third type of voice, not found in English for example, is produced when the verb agrees with neither subject nor object. Affixation is largely suffixal in the language and postpositions are attested. An unusual feature of Marathi, as compared to other
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, is that it displays the
inclusive and exclusive we
In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee ...
feature, that is common to the
Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
,
Rajasthani
Rajasthani may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Rajasthan, a state of India
* Rajasthani languages, a group of languages spoken there
* Rajasthani people, the native inhabitants of the region
* Rajasthani architecture
* Rajasthani art ...
, and
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...
.
The contemporary grammatical rules described by
Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad and endorsed by the
Government of Maharashtra are supposed to take precedence in standard written Marathi. These rules are described in ''Marathi Grammar'', written by M. R. Walimbe. The book is widely referred to students in schools and colleges.
Sanskrit influence
Traditions of Marathi Linguistics and above mentioned rules give special status to ‘
tatsama
Tatsama ( sa, तत्सम , lit. 'same as that') are Sanskrit loanwords in modern Indo-Aryan languages like Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Hindi, Gujarati, and Sinhala and in Dravidian languages like Malayalam and Telugu. They ...
’ (तत्सम) words borrowed from the
Sanskrit language
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the lat ...
. This special status expects the rules for ‘tatsama’ words be followed as of Sanskrit grammar.
Parts of speech
Marathi words can be classified in any of the following
parts of speech
In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are ass ...
:
Nominals
Nouns are primarily divided into three categories – proper nouns (विशेषनाम, ''visheshnāma''), common nouns (सामान्यनाम, ''samānyanāma''), and abstract nouns (भाववाचकनाम, ''bhāvvāchaknāma'') – that are identical in definition to their counterparts in other languages (such as English), and are inflected for gender, number and case. They are also often categorized based on their ending vowel, which is especially useful in studying their inflection – those ending in the schwa (or inherent vowel) ''a'' (अ) are termed ''akārānt ''(अकारान्त), those ending in the vowel ''ā'' (आ) are termed ''ākārānt ''(आकारान्त), those ending in the vowel ''ī ''(ई) are termed ''īkārānt ''(ईकारान्त), and so on.
Gender
There are three genders in Marathi: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Some other modern Indo-European languages have lost these genders, completely, as in English and Persian, or in part, with either neuter and common gender (merging masculine and feminine), as in some Northern Germanic languages, or feminine and masculine (absorbing neuter), as in almost all Romance languages.
While there exists no concrete rules for determining the gender of a given noun, certain observations do help speakers in that regard: masculine nouns can only be ''akārānt ''or ''ākārānt, ''while neuter nouns can only be ''akārānt, īkārānt, ukārānt ''(उकारान्त, ending in ''u'')'', ''or ''ekārānt ''(एकारान्त, ending in ''e'')''.''
The grammatical gender of common nouns referring to animated objects corresponds to their natural sex – for example, ''mulgā'' (मुलगा, 'boy') is a masculine noun, whereas ''mulgī'' (मुलगी, 'girl') is a feminine one. Given the masculine forms of such nouns, the feminine noun can often be determined using a set of rules:
* Some ''ākārānt ''nouns have corresponding feminine forms as ''īkārānt ''with the same root – ''mulgā/mulgī'' (boy/girl), ''kutrā/kutrī'' (dog/bitch)'', ghoḍā/ghoḍī'' (horse/mare).
* Some ''akārānt ''nouns also have their corresponding feminine forms as ''īkārānt ''with the same root – ''hansa/hansī'' (male and female swans), ''vānar/vānrī'' (male and female monkeys).
* Some nouns use the suffix ''-īṇ'' (ईण) to form their feminine forms – ''vāgha/vāghīṇ'' (tiger/tigress), ''mālaka/mālakīṇ'' (male and female owners).
* Some nouns have their feminine forms made out of entirely different words – ''navrā/bāyko'' (husband/wife), ''bāp/āī'' (father/mother), ''rājā/rāṇī'' (king/queen).
Similarly, for masculine ''ākārānt ''common nouns referring to inanimate objects, the 'diminutive' (लघुत्वदर्शक, ''lughatvadarshak'') forms are feminine, and are ''īkārānt – danḍā/danḍī ''(big/small stick)'', loṭā/loṭī ''(big/small mug)''.''
Case
There are differences of opinion regarding
grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...
s in Marathi. According to one view, there are two cases:
direct, which is unmarked (e.g. Ram 'Ram') and
oblique
Oblique may refer to:
* an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / )
*Oblique angle, in geometry
*Oblique triangle, in geometry
* Oblique lattice, in geometry
* Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...
, which is used before
adpositions (e.g. ' 'to Ram', ''-a'' being the oblique case marker and ''-la'' the dative adposition) and
postposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s (e.g. ' 'from Ram',''-a'' being the oblique case marker and ''-pasun'' the postposition). The form of the oblique suffix depends on the gender and the final vowel of the word it is suffixed to.
According to this analysis, true postpositions (like ' 'from') have a wide range of meanings and can be separated form the noun by
clitics like ' (e.g. '). Adpositions (like ''-la''), on the other hand, are only used to mark nominal
arguments
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
of the verb in terms of their
theta role
In generative grammar, a theta role or θ-role is the formal device for representing syntactic argument structure—the number and type of noun phrases—required syntactically by a particular verb. For example, the verb ''put'' requires three a ...
s and cannot be separated from the noun by clitics (''*'' is ungrammatical). Syntactically, the latter behave the same as case markers corresponding to the traditional grammar. In this view, the cases are:
nominative (unmarked),
accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
/
dative (singular ''-la'', plural ''-na''),
ergative, which is traditionally called 'instrumental' (sg. ''-ne'', pl. ''-ni'') and
genitive/possessive (', ', ', ').
The class of true postpositions will then include ''-hatun'' 'through', ''-hu(n)'' 'from'/
ablative
In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. ...
, ''-t''
locative, ''-jagi'' 'in place of' and many more. The genitive markers inflect to agree with the governing noun.
Traditional grammar
In traditional analyses which follow the pattern of Sanskrit grammatical tradition, case suffixes are referred to as (''vibhaktī pratyaya'') विभक्ती प्रत्यय. There are eight such (''vibhaktī'') विभक्ती ('
विभक्ती'') in Marathi. The form of the original word changes when such a suffix is to be attached to the word, and the new, modified root is referred to as ''saamaanya ruup'' of the original word. For example, the word (''ghodā'') घोडा (“horse”) gets transformed into (''ghodyā-'') घोड्या- when the suffix (''-var'') वर- (“on”) is attached to it to form (''ghodyāvar'') घोड्यावर (“on the horse”). The nominal suffixes are tabulated below.
= Split Ergativity
=
Marathi is considered a
split ergative
In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergat ...
language, i.e. it uses both
nominative-accusative and
ergative-absolutive alignment. In the latter type, the subject of a transitive verb takes the ergative marking (identical to that of the
instrumental case) instead of having the same form as the subject of an intransitive verb. This change also results in the verb agreeing with the unmarked noun (usually the object) instead of its subject, as it would in nominative-accusative situations:
Note that it is possible for the unmarked noun to be a direct object despite Marathi having an accusative case: Marathi exhibits
Differential object marking
In linguistics, differential object marking (DOM) is the phenomenon in which certain objects of verbs are marked to reflect various syntactic and semantic factors. One form of the more general phenomenon of differential argument marking, DOM is pr ...
for direct objects, and the accusative declension is used in the case of definite or animate objects.
In case there is no unmarked noun, the verb shows neutral agreement:
As in many Indo-Aryan languages, the ergative split in Marathi is primarily aspect-based, specifically triggered by the
perfective
The perfective aspect ( abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the i ...
for
transitive verbs
A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''.
Transitiv ...
, as seen in the examples above. Furthermore, subjects of
intransitive verbs
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
in the obligative
subjunctive mood are also marked as ergative, as are third-person subjects in the
optative
The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mo ...
:
= Differential object marking
=
Marathi, like many
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
, exhibits
differential object marking
In linguistics, differential object marking (DOM) is the phenomenon in which certain objects of verbs are marked to reflect various syntactic and semantic factors. One form of the more general phenomenon of differential argument marking, DOM is pr ...
.
Direct object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
s are marked according to
definiteness
In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical ...
, with unmarked objects representing indefinite nouns. As such,
accusative case markings are not universally required.
Sentences with both unmarked
direct object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
s and unmarked
subjects must follow the unmarked
SOV word order SOV may refer to:
* SOV, Service Operations Vessel
* SOV, a former ticker symbol for Sovereign Bank
* SOV, a legal cryptocurrency created by the Sovereign Currency Act of 2018 of the Republic of the Marshall Islands
* SOV, the National Rail statio ...
. Since the
nominative case
In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
is typically unmarked, the only time this does not occur is when the subject is a pronoun or in the ergative case, allowing for the usage of marked word orders for emphasis:
An alternate analysis of this situation is that Marathi does not mark the
accusative case at all, rather the -ला marker is shared between the
dative case
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...
and definite
differential object marking
In linguistics, differential object marking (DOM) is the phenomenon in which certain objects of verbs are marked to reflect various syntactic and semantic factors. One form of the more general phenomenon of differential argument marking, DOM is pr ...
.
Adjectives
Adjectives typically precede the noun (although in adjective phrases they can follow the noun) and are divided into declinable and indeclinable categories. Declinable adjectives end in the vowel -''ā'' (आ) and must be declined for the gender, number and case of the nouns they qualify. Declining adjectives for case is easier compared to declining nouns, since a single ending applies to all cases; a complete table listing the different endings is given below, with the masculine nominative singular as the
citation form
In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural ''lemmas'' or ''lemmata'') is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' a ...
.
Possessive
Possessive adjectives in Marathi are slight modifications to the personal pronouns, suffixed with the genitive/possessive case markers – चा/ची/चे (''cā/cī/ce'')'','' for masculine, feminine and plural subjects respectively. However, in the first and second-person singular the case marking is different, as shown below. Possessive adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they modify; for plural nouns, the markers change from चा/ची/चे to चे/च्या/ची (''ce/cyā/cī''), with a similar transformation for the first and second-person singular adjectives.
Demonstrative
The adjectives हा (''hā'', this) and तो (''to'', that) serve as demonstrative adjectives and are always declined for the gender and number of the noun(s) that follows them.
Pronouns
There are three
grammatical person
In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others ( third pe ...
s (पुरुष ''purushh'') in Marathi. There is gender distinction in the first- and second-persons when the pronouns act as
agreement Agreement may refer to:
Agreements between people and organizations
* Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law
* Trade agreement, between countries
* Consensus, a decision-making process
* Contract, enforceable in a court of law
** Meeting o ...
markers on verbs; as independent pronouns this distinction in lost.
[Bhat, D.N.S. 2004. ''Pronouns.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 18–19]
Verbs
Verb stems can end in a vowel (''ākārānt, īkārānt, ''or ''ekārānt'') or a consonant (a''kārānt'') and are declined for person, gender and number. They are usually listed in dictionaries in their infinitive forms, which consist of the verb stem with the suffix – ''ṇe'' (णे); for example खाणे (''khāṇē'', to eat), बोलणे (''bolaṇē'', to speak), चालणे (''cālaṇē'', to walk). Verbs are fairly regular, although the copula and other auxiliaries are notable exceptions.
The verbal system, much like in other Indo-Aryan languages, revolves around a combination of
aspect
Aspect or Aspects may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art
* Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company
* Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England
* ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
and
tense – there are 3 main aspects (perfect, imperfect, and habitual) and 3 main tenses (present, past, and future). Tenses are marked using conjugations, while aspects are marked using suffixes and by adding conjugations of a copula/auxiliary verb.
Copula
The verb असणे (''asṇē'', to be) is an irregular verb that acts as the copula / auxiliary for all tenses and for the perfect and imperfect aspects; its conjugations are shown below.
The habitual aspect uses a different set of conjugations of the same auxiliary verb (असणे); for present-tense and past-tense these conjugations are shown below. In future tense a different auxiliary verb, जाणे (''jāṇē,'' to go), is typically used.
Causatives
Causatives are created from existing verb stems and typically follow the set of patterns listed below.
* Attaching 'व' (''v'') to the stem of the verb; in modern literature 'व' is often replaced by 'वि' (''vi''). So हसणे (''hasaṇē'', to laugh) → हसवणे/हसविणे (''hasavṇē/hasviṇē'', to cause to laugh); चालणे (''cālaṇē'', to walk) → चालवणे/चालविणे (''cālavṇē''/''cālviṇē,'' to cause to walk).
** For verbs with stems that have single syllables (खा, घे, दे; ''khā, ghē, dē''), attach 'ववि' (''vavi'') instead of 'व'. Thus, खाणे (''khāṇē'', to eat) → खावविणे (''khāvaviṇē,'' to cause to eat); देणे (''dēṇē,'' to give) → देवविणे (''dēvaviṇē,'' to cause to give).
* Root vowel change: ''a'' → ''ā'' (अ → आ), ''u/ū'' → ''o'' (उ/ऊ → ओ), ''i/ī'' → ''e'' (इ/ई → ए); sometimes also accompanied by the root final consonant change 'ṭ' → 'ṛ' (ट → ड). So तुटणे (''tuṭaṇē'', to be broken) → तोडणे (''toṛaṇē'', to cause to broken/to break); गळणे (''gaḷaṇē'', to be buried) → गाळणे (''gāḷaṇē'', to cause to be buried/to bury).
Imperatives
The imperative form of a verb (called आज्ञार्थ, ''ādñārtha'') is formed by applying a simple set of rules to the stem of the verb, and has second-person singular (where there is a distinction between formal and informal) and second-person plural forms (which are the same as the second-person singular formal).
* For ''akārānt ''verbs, the informal imperative form is the verb stem itself. The formal imperative is formed by utilizing the transformation ''a'' → ''ā'' (अ → आ) to the stem vowel.
* For ''ākārānt ''verbs, the imperative form (formal and informal) is the verb stem itself.
* For ''īkārānt ''and ''ekārānt ''verbs, the informal imperative is the verb stem itself. The formal imperative is formed by transforming the final vowel to the semi-vowel या (''yā'').
* Negative imperative forms are constructed by adding the suffix -ऊ (''ū'') to the verb stem, and then by adding a separate negative particle नकोस/नको (''nakosa/nako'', for informal imperative) or नका (''nakā'', for formal imperative).
Voice
Traditional grammar distinguishes three
grammatical voice
In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to form ...
s (प्रयोग, ''prayog'') in Marathi.
*
Active voice
Active voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. It is the unmarked voice for clauses featuring a transitive verb in nominative–accusative languages, including English and most other Indo-European languages. A ...
(कर्तरी प्रयोग ''kartrī prayog'') refers to a sentence construction in which the verb changes according to the subject
*
Passive voice
A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
(कर्मणी प्रयोग ''karmanī prayog'') refers to a sentence construction in which the verb changes according to the object
* Bhāve prayog (भावे प्रयोग) refers to a sentence construction in which the verb does not change according to either the subject or the object. This is used for
imperatives.
Sentence structure
A Marathi sentence generally has three parts: subject (कर्ता ''kartā''), object'' ''(कर्म ''karma''), and'' ''verb (क्रियापद ''kriyāpad''). In a Marathi sentence, the subject comes first, then the object, and finally the verb. However, in some sentences there is no object.
See also:
*
Marathi language
Marathi (; ''Marāṭhī'', ) is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the official language of Maharashtra, and additional official language in the state of Goa. It is one of t ...
References
Bibliography
*
External links
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