Telugu grammarFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaTelugu grammaris called Vykaranam (Telugu:).The first treatise on Telugu grammar, the "Andhra Shabda Chintamani" was written inSanskritbyNannayya, who was considered as the first poet and translator of Telugu in the 11th century A.D. There was no grammatical work in Telugu prior toNannayya's "Andhra shabda chintamani". This grammar followed the patterns which existed in grammatical treatises likeAdhyyandVlmkivykaranambut unlikePini, Nannayya divided his work into five chapters, coveringsamjn,sandhi, ajanta,halantaandkriya.[1]After Nannayya,AtharvanaandAhobalacomposedsutras,vartikasandbhashyam. Like Nannayya, they had previously written their works in Sanskrit.[1]In the 19th century, Chinnaya Suri wrote a simplified work on Telugu grammar calledBla Vykaranam, borrowing concepts and ideas from Nannayya's Andhra Shabda Chintamani, and wrote his literary work in Telugu.[1]Every Telugu grammatical rule is derived fromPinian,KatyayanaandPatanjaliconcepts. However high percentage of Paninian aspects and techniques borrowed in Telugu.[1]According toNannayya, language without 'Niyama' or the language which doesn't adhere toVykaranamis calledGrmyaorApabhraaand hence it is unfit for literary usage. All the literary texts in Telugu followsVykaranam.[1]Contents 1Subjectobjectverb 2Inflection 2.1Gender 3Pronouns 4Vibhakti or postpositions/prepositions 5Punctuation 6Sandhi or joining 7Samasam or nominal compounds 8Alankaram or ornamentation 9Chandassu or Telugu prosody 10Vachanam or grammatical numbers 11Prakruti and Vikruti 12See also 13ReferencesSubjectobjectverb[edit]The primary word order of Telugu is SOV (subjectobjectverb)Sentence .

Words.

TransliterationRmuubaikivetu

GlossRamuto schoolgoes.

PartsSubjectObjectVerb

TranslationRamu goes to school.

This sentence can also be interpreted as 'Ramu will go to school' depending on the context. But it does not affect the SOV order.[1]Inflection[edit]Telugu is moreinflectedthan the other literary Dravidian languages. Telugu nouns are inflected for number (singular, plural), gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and case (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, vocative, instrumental, and locative).[2]Gender[edit]Telugu has threegenders: masculine (purusha ligam), feminine (str ligam), neuter (napusaka ligam).In Telugu the suffix - (Du ) is almost always indicative of masculine gender. For example: ta-mmu-Du (younger brother), mu-khyu-Du (important man), Ramu-Du (Ramu), nA-ya-ku-Du (leader).However, there are more masculine nouns that do not end in (-Du). For example: a-nna (elder brother), mA-ma (uncle).Some masculine nouns ending in (Du) can be converted to feminine nouns by deleting the (Du) suffix and adding a suffix (-I).MasculineFeminine

na-rta-ku-Du (dancer)na-rta-ki (dancer)

vA-cha-ku-Du (narrator)vA-cha-ki (narrator)

pre-mi-ku-Du (lover)pre-ya-si (lover)

Some Masculine names ending in (Du) can be converted to Feminine names by deleting the (Du) and adding the suffix, (rAlu).MasculineFeminine

na-rta-ku-Du (dancer)na-rta-ku-rA-lu (dancer)

pri-yu-Du (lover)pri-yu-rA-lu (lover)

bha-ktu-Du (male devote)bha-ktu-rA-lu (female devotee)

In Telugu the suffix - (Mu ) or (-Am) or (-u) is almost always indicative of the neuter gender. For example: Chitra Pata-mu or Chitra Pat-am (Photo Frame), Chitra-mu or Chitr-am (Picture/Photo) Akash-am or Akasha-mu (sky), Neer-u (Water), Parikar-am or Parikara-mu (Tool).However, Telugu sometimes uses the same forms for singular feminine and neuter genders the third person pronoun (/ad/) is used to refer to animals and objects.[3]Pronouns[edit]Telugu pronouns include Personal pronouns and Demonstrative pronouns(The persons speaking, the persons spoken to, or the persons or things spoken about). Reflexive pronouns (in which the object of a verb is being acted on by verb's subject). Interrogative Pronoun. Indefinite pronoun. Demonstrative adjective and Interrogative adjective Pronouns. Possessive adjective Pronouns. Pronouns referring to numbers. Distributive Pronouns.[4]Vibhakti or postpositions/prepositions[edit]Telugu language usespostpositionsfor word in different cases. With the use of postpositions, there are eight possible cases (vibhakti).TeluguEnglishSignificanceUsual SuffixesTransliteration of Suffixes

(I)Pratham Vibhakti ( )NominativeSubject of sentence, , , u, mu, vu, lu

(II)Dvity Vibhakti ( )AccusativeObject of action, , , , nin, nun, lan, krci, gurici

(III)Truty Vibhakti ( )Instrumental, SocialMeans by which action is done (Instrumental), Association, or means by which action is done (Social), , , ctan, cn, tan, tn

(IV)Chaturthi Vibhakti ( )DativeObject to whom action is performed, Object for whom action is performed, korakun, kai

(V)Pancham Vibhakti ( )Ablativeof motion fromMotion from an animate/inanimate object, , valanan, kaen, pai

(VI)Shashth Vibhakti ( )GenitivePossessive, , , , kin, kun, yokka, ln, lpalan

(VII)Saptam Vibhakti ( )LocativePlace in which, On the person of (animate) in the presence of, adun, nan

(VIII)Sambodhan Pratham Vibhakti ( )VocativeAddressing, calling, , , , , r, s

Punctuation[edit]Telugu uses single and double vertical bars to indicate a comma and a fullstop. However modern Telugu uses punctuation marks which are borrowed from English.[5]Sandhi or joining[edit]Sandhiis the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words.Telugu usesmorphologicalprocesses to join words together, forming complex words. These processes are traditionally referred to assandhi. Example,Shankara+Abharanamgives the wordshankarabhranamu.There are many types of sandhi in Telugu. Some of them are mentioned below: Savarna Deergha Sandhi. Guna Sandhi. Vruddhi Sandhi. Yanadesha Sandhi. Trika Sandhi. Akara Sandhi. Ukara sandhi. Ikara Sandhi. Dugagama Sandhi. Saraladesha Sandhi Gasadadavadesha Sandhi. Rugagama Sandhi. Yadagama Sandhi. Prathametara Vibhakti Sandhi. uchadadi sandhi.Samasam or nominal compounds[edit]Samasam or samasa occurs with various structures, but morphologically speaking they are essentially the same: each noun (or adjective) is in its (weak) stem form, with only the final element receiving case inflection.Some of the Telugu samasams are: TatpuruaSamasam. Prathama tatpurusha samasam Dvitiya tatpurusha samasam Trutiya tatpurusha samasam Chaturthi tatpurusha samasam Panchami tatpurusha samasam Shashthi tatpurusha samasam Saptami tatpurusha samasam Nai tatpurusha samasam KarmadhrayaSamasam. Vieshana purwapada karmadharaya samasam Vieshana uttarapada karmadharaya samasam Vieshana ubhayapada karmadharaya samasam Upamana purvapada karmadharaya samasam Upamana uttarapada karmadharaya samasam Avadharana purvapada karmadharaya samasam Sambhavana purvapada karmadharaya samasam DviguSamasam. DvandvaSamasam. BahuvrhiSamasam. AmreditaSamasam. awyaee bhava samasamAlankaram or ornamentation[edit]Telugu Alankaram is a figure of speech which means ornaments or embellishments which are used to enhance the beauty of the poems. There are two types of Alankarams, 'Shabdalankaram' which primarily focuses on Sound and 'Arthalamkaram' which focuses on meaning. These two alankarams are further broken down in to different categories.[6]shabdalankaras are 6 types where as there are nearly 30 to 40 types in ardhalankaras. Shabdalankaram Vruttyanuprasa Chekanuprasa Latanuprasa antyanuprasa Yamakam Mukta pada grastam Arthalamkaram Upamanaalankaram Utprekshaalankaram Rupakaalankaram Shleshalankaram Arthantaranyaasam Atishayokti Drushtantam Swabhavokti vyajastu virodhi vishamamu parikaramu branti madala kramalamChandassu or Telugu prosody[edit]Main article:Chandas (Telugu)Metrical poetryin Telugu is called'Chandassu' or 'Chandas'. ya-maa-taa-raa-ja-bhaa-na-sa-la-gam is called the chandassu chakram. Utpalamala, Champakamala, Mattebham, Sardoola, Kanda, Sragdhara, Bhujangaprayata, etc. are some metrics used in Telugu poetry.Vachanam or grammatical numbers[edit]Any thing in singular form is singular (Ekavacanam): Any things more than one in number are called plural: (bahuvacanam) In Telugu, Singular is Called Eka-Vachanam (Ex: Nuvvu - you) and Plural is called Bahu-Vachanam (Ex: Manam - we).In Telugu plural is also used address elders with respect. In Telugu language some are always plural and some are always singular for e.g. water, {nILlu} is always plural.God (Bhagavantudu), sun (suryudu), earth (bhoomi), moon (chandrudu) these are always singular form. However, Devullu is a plural form of gods.Water - Neeru (singular) and NeeLLu (Plural)Prakruti and Vikruti[edit]Telugu has many Tatsama words. They are called Prakruti, which are equivalent to Sanskrit words. The equivalent colloquial words are called Vikruti, which means distorted. However, Prakruti is only used as a medium of instruction in educational institutions, offices etc.For example:PrakrutiVikruti

Agni (fire) Aggi

Bhojanam (food) Bonam

Vidya (education) Vidde, Viddiya

Raakshasi (evil) Rakkasi

Shoonya (zero) Sunna

Drishti (sight) Dishti

Kanishtam (minimum) Kaneesam

Agaravarti (inscent, agara+varthi, scent wounded) Agaravatti

Vibhoothi (ash) Vibhudhi

Chanaka (chick pea, Chanakya is derived from the same root) anaga

Kavacha (protective shell) Gavacha, Gavva

Bhiksham (alms) Bichcham

Dvitiya (second) Vidiya

Trutiya (third) Tadhiya

Jaagrata (alert) Jaagratta

Vamati (vomit) Vanti

Swanta (own) Sonta

Atavi (forest) Adavi

Twara (fast) Toraga