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 about the grammar of Marathi was printed in 1805 by Willam Carey.[1] [2]
The principal word order in Marathi is SOV (subject–object–verb).[3] Nouns inflect for gender (masculine, feminine, neuter), number (singular, plural), 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 an Marathi: आ (pronounced as //aː//) 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.[4] 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.
Traditions of Marathi Linguistics and above mentioned rules give special status to ‘tatsama’ (तत्सम) words borrowed from the Sanskrit language. This special status expects the rules for ‘tatsama’ words be followed as of Sanskrit grammar.
Marathi words can be classified in any of the following parts of speech:
| English | Sanskrit | |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | nāma (नाम) | |
| Pronoun | sarvanāma (सर्वनाम) | |
| Adjective | vishheshaṇa (विशेषण) | |
| Verb | kriyāpada (क्रियापद) | |
| Adverb | kriyāvishheshaṇa (क्रियाविशेषण) | |
| Conjunction | ubhayanvayī avyaya (उभयान्वयी अव्यय) | |
| Preposition | shabdayogī avyaya (शब्दयोगी अव्यय) | |
| Interjection | kevalaprayogī avyaya (केवलप्रयोगी अव्यय) |
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.
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:
Similarly, for masculine ākārānt common nouns referring to inanimate objects, the 'diminutive' (लघुत्वदर्शक, laghutvadarshak) forms are feminine, and are īkārānt – danḍā/danḍī (big/small stick), loṭā/loṭī (big/small mug).
There are differences of opinion regarding grammatical cases in Marathi. According to one view, there are two cases: direct, which is unmarked (e.g. Ram 'Ram') and oblique, which is used before adpositions (e.g. 'to Ram', -a being the oblique case marker and -la the dative adposition) and postpositions (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 of the verb in terms of their theta roles 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/dative (singular -la, plural -na), ergative, which is traditionally called 'instrumental' (sg. -ne, pl. -ni) and genitive/possessive (pronounced as /-tsa/, pronounced as /-tse/, pronounced as /-tʃa/, pronounced as /-tʃi/).
The class of true postpositions will then include -hatun 'through', -hu(n) 'from'/ablative, -t locative, -jagi 'in place of' and many more. The genitive markers inflect to agree with the governing noun.
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.
| Sanskrit Ordinal Number | EnglishOrdinal Number | Sanskrit Case Description | EnglishCase Description | Singular Suffixes (एकवचन) | Plural Suffixes (अनेकवचन) | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| prathamā (प्रथमा) | First | kartā (कर्ता) | Nominative case | – | – | The nominative case uses the unmarked singular or plural form. The unmarked form may also mark certain direct objects. | |
| dwitīyā (द्वितीया) | Second | karma (कर्म) | Accusative case | -lā (-ला), -s (-स), -te (-ते) | -nā (ना), -s (-स), -te (-ते), -lā (-ला) | -s and -te are not typically used. Direct objects may also be unmarked in some situations. | |
| trutīyā (तृतीया) | Third | karaṇa (करण) | Instrumental case (and Ergative case) | -ne (ने), -ṣī (शी), -"e" (ए) | -nī (नी), -ṣī (शी), -"ī" (ई), - "hī" (ही) | -shī is not typically used as an instrumental, and never for the ergative case. | |
| caturthī (चतुर्थी) | Fourth | sampradāna (संप्रदान) | Dative case | -lā (-ला), -s (-स), -te (-ते) | -nā (ना), -s (-स), -te (-ते), -lā (-ला) | -s and -te are not typically used. | |
| pancamī (पञ्चमी) | Fifth | apādāna (अपादान) | Ablative case | -ūn (-ऊन), -hūn (हून) | -ūn (-ऊन), -hūn (हून) | -hūn is used when the noun ends in a vowel. | |
| shhashhthī (षष्ठी) | Sixth | sambandh (संबंध) | Genitive case | -cā (-चा), -cī (-ची), -ce (-चे) | -ce (-चे), -cyā (-च्या), -cī (-ची) | The specific suffix used depends on the gender of the noun. | |
| saptamī (सप्तमी) | Seventh | adhikaran (अधिकरण) | Locative case | -t (-त), -i (-इ), -ā (-आ) | -t (-त), -ī (-ई), -ā (-आ) | The specific suffix used depends on the morphology of the noun and the connotation desired. | |
| sambhodan (संबोधन) | Vocative case | – | -no (-नो) | The vocative case cannot be used in the singular |
| English Case Description | Singular(एकवचन) | Case Ending Used | Plural(अनेकवचन) | Case Ending Used | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative case | – | – | विद्यार्थी अभ्यास करतात | – | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Accusative case | घराला रंग दिला | -lā (-ला)|| घरांना रंग दिला |-nā (ना) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| त्याने संस्थेस देणगी दिली | -sa (-स)|| त्यांनी संस्थेस देणगी दिली |-sa (-स) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Instrumental case | विद्यार्थी लेखणीने चित्र काढतो | -ne (ने)|| विद्यार्थी लेखण्यांनी चित्र काढतात|-nī (नी)|-| मुलगा दाराशी उभा होता|-shī (शी)|| मुले दाराशी उभी होती|shī (शी)|-| rowspan="2" |Dative case| मी विद्यार्थ्याला ओळखतो|-lā (-ला)|| मी विद्यार्थ्यांना ओळखतो|-nā (ना) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| मी मुलास ओळखतो | -sa (-स)|| मी मुलांना ओळखतो|-nā (ना)|-| rowspan="2" |Ablative case| मुलगा घरून निघाला|-ūn (-ऊन) | मुले घरून निघाली | -ūn (-ऊन)|-| मुलगा गावाहून आला|-hūn (हून) | मुले गावाहून आली | -hūn (हून)|-| rowspan="3" |Genitive case| घराचा दरवाजा सुंदर आहे|-cā (-चा)|| घरांचे दरवाजे सुंदर आहेत|-ce (-चे) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| मुलांची तब्येत सुधारली आहे | -cī (-ची)|| मुलांच्या तब्येती सुधारल्या आहेत|-cyā (-च्या)|-| मुलाचे प्रगती पत्रक मिळाले|-ce (-चे) | मुलांची प्रगती पत्रके मिळाली | -cī (-ची)|-| rowspan="3" |Locative case| मुलगा घरात होता|-ta (-त)|| मुले घरात होती|-ta (-त)|-| मुलगा घरी होता|-ī (-ई) | मुले घरी होती | -ī (-ई)|-| गाय घरी परतली|-ī (-ई) | गायी घरा परतल्या | -ā (-आ)|-|Vocative case| –|–||मुलांनो शांत बसा |-no (-नो)|}Split ErgativityMarathi is considered a split ergative 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 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:[5] As in many Indo-Aryan languages, the ergative split in Marathi is primarily aspect-based, specifically triggered by the perfective for transitive verbs, as seen in the examples above.[6] Furthermore, subjects of intransitive verbs in the obligative subjunctive mood are also marked as ergative, as are third-person subjects in the optative: Differential object markingMarathi, like many Indo-Aryan languages, exhibits differential object marking. Direct objects are marked according to definiteness, with unmarked objects representing indefinite nouns. As such, accusative case markings are not universally required. Sentences with both unmarked direct objects and unmarked subjects must follow the unmarked SOV word order. Since the nominative case 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 and definite differential object marking. [7] AdjectivesAdjectives 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.
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