Marathi grammar
The grammar of the Marathi language shares similarities with other modern Indo-Aryan languages such as Odia, Gujarati or Punjabi. The first modern book exclusively on Marathi Grammar was printed in 1805 by Willam Carey.
The principal word order in Marathi is SOV. Nouns inflect for gender, number, and case. Marathi preserves the neuter gender found in Sanskrit, a feature further distinguishing it from many Indo-Aryan languages. Typically, Marathi adjectives do not inflect unless they end in long a, in which case they inflect for gender and number. Marathi verbs inflect for tense. 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, is that it displays the inclusive and exclusive we feature, that is common to the Dravidian languages, Rajasthani, and Gujarati.
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’ words borrowed from the Sanskrit language. 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:| English | Sanskrit |
| Noun | nāma |
| Pronoun | sarvanāma |
| Adjective | vishheshana |
| Verb | kriyāpada |
| Adverb | kriyāvishheshana |
| Conjunction | ubhayanvayī avyaya |
| Preposition | shabdayogī avyaya |
| Interjection | kevalaprayogī avyaya '' |
Nominals
Nouns are primarily divided into three categories - proper nouns, common nouns, and abstract nouns - that are identical in definition to their counterparts in other languages, 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 a are termed akārānt , those ending in the vowel ā are termed ākārānt , those ending in the vowel ī are termed īkārānt , 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 or in part, with either neuter and common gender, as in some Northern Germanic languages, or feminine and masculine, 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 ', or ekārānt '.
The grammatical gender of common nouns referring to animated objects corresponds to their natural sex - for example, mulgā is a masculine noun, whereas mulgī 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, kutrā/kutrī , ghoḍā/ghoḍī.
- Some akārānt nouns also have their corresponding feminine forms as īkārānt with the same root - hansa/hansī, vānar/vānrī.
- Some nouns use the suffix -īṇ to form their feminine forms - vāgha/vāghīṇ, mālaka/mālakīṇ.
- Some nouns have their feminine forms made out of entirely different words - navrā/bāyko, bāp/āī, rājā/rāṇī.
Case
There are differences of opinion regarding grammatical cases in Marathi. According to one view, there are two cases: direct, which is unmarked and oblique, which is used before postpositions. According to the alternative analysis, there is a distinction between two classes of "postpositions". Some of them, like -pasun 'from' have a wide range of meanings and can be separated form the noun by clitics like -cya, while others are only used to mark arguments and cannot be separated from the noun by clitics. The latter are then considered to be the case markers. In this view, the cases are: nominative, accusative/dative, ergative, which is traditionally called 'instrumental' and genitive/possessive. The class of true postpositions will then include -hatun 'through', -hu 'from'/ablative, -t locative, -jagi 'in place of' and many more. The genitive markers inflect to agree with the governing noun. The form of the oblique suffix depends on the gender and the final vowel of the word it is suffixed to.Traditional grammar
In traditional analyses which follow the pattern of Sanskrit grammatical tradition, case suffixes are referred to as vibhaktī pratyaya. There are eight such vibhaktī 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 gets transformed into ghodyā- when the suffix -var is attached to it to form ghodyāvar. The nominal suffixes are tabulated below.| Sanskrit Ordinal Number | English Ordinal Number | Sanskrit Case Description | English Case Description | Singular Suffixes | Plural Suffixes |
| pratham | First | kartā | Nominative case | – | -ā |
dwitīya | Second | karma | Accusative case | -sa, -lā, -te | -sa, -lā, -nā, -te |
| trutīya | Third | karaṇa | Instrumental case | -nī, e, shī | -nī, -hī, e, shī |
| caturthī | Fourth | sampradāna | Dative case | -sa, -lā, -te | -sa, -lā, -te |
| pancamī | Fifth | apādāna | Ablative case | -un, -hun | -un, -hun |
| shhashhthī | Sixth | sambandh | Genitive case | -chā, -chī, -che | -ce, -cyā, -cī |
| saptamī | Seventh | adhikaran | Locative case | -ta, -i, -ā | -ta, -ī, -ā |
| sambhodan | Vocative case | – | -no |
English Case Description | Singular | Case Ending Used | Plural | Case Ending Used |
| Nominative case | – | – | विद्यार्थी अभ्यास करतात | – |
| Accusative case | त्याने संस्थेस देणगी दिली | त्यानी संस्थेस देणगी दिली | ||
| Accusative case | घराला रंग दिला | घरांना रंग दिला | ||
| Instrumental case | विद्यार्थी पेन्सिलनी चित्र काढतो | विद्यार्थी पेन्सिलनी चित्र काढतात | ||
| Instrumental case | मुलगा दाराशी उभा होता | -shī | मुलें दाराशी उभी होती | shī |
| Dative case | मी मुलास ओळखतो | मी मुलांना ओळखतो | ||
| Dative case | मी विद्यार्थ्याला ओळखतो | मी विद्यार्थ्यांना ओळखतो | ||
| Ablative case | मुलगा घरुन निघाला | मुलें घरुन निघाली | ||
| Ablative case | मुलगा गावाहुन आला | मुलं गावाहुन आली | ||
| Genitive case | घराचा दरवाजा सुंदर आहे | -cā | घरांचे दरवाजे सुंदर आहेत | |
| Genitive case | मुलांची तब्येत सुधारली आहे | मुलांच्या तब्येती सुधारल्या आहेत | ||
| Genitive case | मुलाचे प्रगती पत्रक मिळाले | मुलांची प्रगती पत्रके मिळाली | ||
| Locative case | मुलगा घरात होता | मुलें घरात होती | ||
| Locative case | मुलगा घरी होता | मुलें घरी होती | ||
| Locative case | गाय घरी परतली | गाई घरा परतल्या | ||
| Vocative case | – | – | मुलानो शांत बसा | -no |
Adjectives
Adjectives typically precede the noun and are divided into declinable and indeclinable categories. Declinable adjectives end in the vowel -ā 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.Possessive
Possessive adjectives in Marathi are slight modifications to the personal pronouns, suffixed with the genitive/possessive case markers - चा/ची/चे , 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, with a similar transformation for the first and second-person singular adjectives.Pronouns
There are three grammatical persons in Marathi. There is gender distinction in the first- and second-persons when the pronouns act as agreement markers on verbs; as independent pronouns this distinction in lost.| English | Sanskrit | Singular | Plural |
| First Person | pratham purushh | mī “I” | āmhī “we” āpaṇ “we” |
| Second Person | dwitiya purushh | tū “you” | tumhī “you” āpaṇ “you” |
| Third Person | trutiya purushh | to “he” tī “she” te “it” | te “they” or “he” हे tyā “they” tī “they” |
Verbs
Verb stems can end in a vowel or a consonant 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 ; for example खाणे, बोलणे, चालणे. 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 and tense - there are 3 main aspects and 3 main tenses. Tenses are marked using conjugations, while aspects are marked using suffixes and by adding conjugations of a copula/auxiliary verb.
Copula
The verb असणे 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 ; for present-tense and past-tense these conjugations are shown below. In future tense a different auxiliary verb, जाणे, is typically used.
Causatives
Causatives are created from existing verb stems and typically follow the set of patterns listed below.- Attaching 'व' to the stem of the verb; in modern literature 'व' is often replaced by 'वि'. So हसणे → हसवणे/हसविणे ; चालणे → चालवणे/चालविणे.
- * For verbs with stems that have single syllables, attach 'ववि' instead of 'व'. Thus, खाणे → खावविणे ; देणे → देवविणे.
- Root vowel change: a → ā, u/ū → o, i/ī → e ; sometimes also accompanied by the root final consonant change 'ṭ' → 'ṛ'. So तुटणे → तोडणे ; गळणे → गाळणे.
Imperatives
- For akārānt verbs, the informal imperative form is the verb stem itself. The formal imperative is formed by utilizing the transformation a → ā to the stem vowel.
- For ākārānt verbs, the imperative form 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.
- Negative imperative forms are constructed by adding the suffix -ऊ to the verb stem, and then by adding a separate negative particle नकोस/नको or नका.
| Verb | Second-person singular | Second-person singular /Second-person plural | |
| बोलणे | - | तू बोल | तुम्ही बोला |
| बोलणे | Negative | तू बोलू नकोस/नको | तुम्ही बोलू नका |
| खाणे | - | तू खा | तुम्ही खा |
| खाणे | Negative | तू खाऊ नकोस/नको | तुम्ही खाऊ नका |
| देणे | तू दे | तुम्ही द्या | |
| देणे | Negative | तू देऊ नकोस/नको | तुम्ही देऊ नका |
Voice
Traditional grammar distinguishes three grammatical voices in Marathi.- Active voice refers to a sentence construction in which the verb changes according to the subject
- Passive voice refers to a sentence construction in which the verb changes according to the object
- Bhāve prayog 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