Malayalam grammar

Malayalam is one of the Dravidian languages and as such has an agglutinative grammar. The word order is generally subject–object–verb, although other orders are often employed for reasons such as emphasis. Nouns are inflected for case and number, whilst verbs are conjugated for tense, mood and causativity (and also in archaic language for person, gender, number and polarity). Malayalam adjectives, adverbs, postpositions and conjunctions do not undergo any inflection; they are invariant. Being the linguistic successor of the macaronic Manipravalam, Malayalam grammar is based on Sanskrit too.

Nouns

The declensional paradigms for some common nouns and pronouns are given below. As Malayalam is an agglutinative language, it is difficult to delineate the cases strictly and determine how many there are, although seven or eight is the generally accepted number. Alveolar plosives and nasals (although the modern Malayalam script does not distinguish the latter from the dental nasal) are marked with a macron below, following the convention of the National Library at Kolkata romanization.

Pronouns

There are three persons - first, second and third. The first person has three forms - singular, inclusive plural (i.e. speaker, listener, and possibly others) and exclusive plural (i.e. speaker and others, but not the listener). The second person has three forms - singular informal, singular formal and plural. Of these, the singular formal and plural forms are similar. A fourth form ('respectful' or 'official') is sometimes used in certain official documents and announcements.

The third person has eight forms - proximal and distal forms of singular masculine, singular feminine, singular neutral and plural. The masculine and feminine genders are used for humans and anthropomorphised non-humans. Non-living objects, plants and most animals take the neutral gender. The plural form is used for multiple objects of any gender. The plural form can also be used for a single person, either to show respect, or because the gender is unknown or irrelevant.

Personal Pronoun

			singular	plural
1st person	Exclusive		Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
	Inclusive			Template:Fs interlinear
2nd person	Informal		Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
	Formal		Template:Fs interlinear
	'Respectful' / 'Official'		Template:Fs interlinear
3rd person	Proximal	Masculine	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
		Feminine	Template:Fs interlinear
		Neutral	Template:Fs interlinear
	Distal	Masculine	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
		Feminine	Template:Fs interlinear
		Neutral	Template:Fs interlinear

Cases

Vocative forms are given in parentheses after the nominative, as the only pronominal vocatives that are used are the third person ones, which only occur in compounds.

Singular

Case വിഭക്തി	1st person	2nd person		3rd person (distal)
		informal	formal	masculine	feminine	neutral
Nominative സംബോധന	ഞാൻ ñān	നീ nī	നിങ്ങൾ niṅṅaḷ	അവൻ avan (voc. avanē)	അവൾ avaḷ (voc. avaḷē)	അത് athu (voc. athinē)
Accusative പ്രതിഗ്രാഹിക	എന്നെ enne	നിന്നെ ninne	നിങ്ങളെ niṅṅaḷe	അവനെ avane	അവളെ avaḷe	അതിനെ athine
Genitive സംബന്ധിക	എന്റെ/എൻ/എണ്റ്റെ enṭe/en/ennuṭe	നിന്റെ/നിൻ/നിന്നുടെ ninṭe/nin/ninnuṭe	നിങ്ങളുടെ niṅṅaḷuṭe	അവന്റെ/അവണ്റ്റെ avanṭe/avanuṭe	അവളുടെ avaḷuṭe	അതിന്റെ athinṭe
Dative ഉദ്ദേശിക	എനിക്ക് enikku	നിനക്കു ninakku	നിങ്ങൾക്കു niṅṅaḷkku	അവന് avanu	അവൾക്കു avaḷkku	അതിന് athinu
Instrumental പ്രായോജിക	എന്നാൽ ennāl	നിന്നാൽ ninnāl	നിങ്ങളാൽ niṅṅaḷāl	അവനാൽ avanāl	അവളാൽ avaḷāl	അതിനാൽ athināl
Locative ആധാരിക	എന്നിൽ ennil	നിന്നിൽ ninnil	നിങ്ങളിൽ niṅṅaḷil	അവനിൽ avanil	അവളിൽ avaḷil	അതിൽ athil
Sociative സംയോജിക	എന്നോട് ennōṭu	നിന്നോട് ninnōṭu	നിങ്ങളോട് niṅṅaḷōṭu	അവനോട് avanōṭu	അവളോട്‌ avaḷōṭu	അതിനോട് athinōtu
Notes:

Plural

Case വിഭക്തി	1st person		2nd person	3rd person
	exclusive	inclusive
Nominative സംബോധന	ഞങ്ങൾ ñaṅṅaḷ	നാം/നമ്മൾ nām/nammaḷ	നിങ്ങൾ niṅṅaḷ	അവർ avar (voc. avarē)
Accusative പ്രതിഗ്രാഹിക	ഞങ്ങളെ ñaṅṅaḷe	നമ്മളെ nammale	നിങ്ങളെ niṅṅaḷe	അവരെ avare
Genitive സംബന്ധിക	ഞങ്ങളുടെ/ഞങ്ങുടെ ñaṅṅaḷuṭe/ñaṅuṭe	നമ്മുടെ nammuṭe	നിങ്ങളുടെ niṅṅaḷuṭe	അവരുടെ avaruṭe
Dative ഉദ്ദേശിക	ഞങ്ങൾക്ക്/നമ്മൾക്ക് ñaṅṅaḷkk/ñammaḷkku	നമ്മക്ക് namukku	നിങ്ങൾക്കു niṅṅaḷkku	അവർക്കു avarkku
Instrumental പ്രായോജിക	ഞങ്ങളാൽ/ഞങ്ങൾ ñaṅṅaḷāl/ñaṅṅaḷ	നമ്മളാൽ nammaḷāl	നിങ്ങളാൽ niṅṅaḷāl	അവരാൽ avarāl
Locative ആധാരിക	ഞങ്ങളിൽ ñaṅṅaḷil	നമ്മളിൽ nammaḷil	നിങ്ങളിൽ niṅṅaḷil	അവരിൽ avaril
Sociative സംയോജിക	ഞങ്ങളോട് ñaṅṅaḷōṭu	നമ്മളോട് nammaḷōṭu	നിങ്ങളോട് niṅṅaḷōṭu	അവരോട് avarōṭu

The mnemonic 'നിപ്രസം ഉപ്രസം ആ' created by combining the first sounds of the case names is used.

Number

The suffix -കൾ (-kaḷ), which changes to -ങ്ങൾ (-ṅṅaḷ) when the nouns ends in -അം (-aṁ), is the most common suffix for denoting plural nouns. It is used by all inanimate nouns, concrete or abstract, and most animate, non-gendered nouns. Two other suffixes, -മാർ (-mār) and അർ (-ar), are used exclusively by a few animate nouns. All suffixes follow the sandhi (സന്ധി) rules where applicable, and are not used when preceded by numeral adjectives. The following are a few examples.

Word	Singular	Plural
book	പുസ്തകം (pustakaṁ)	പുസ്തകങ്ങൾ (pustakaṅṅaḷ)
umbrella	കുട (kuṭa)	കുടകൾ (kuṭakaḷ)
child	കുട്ടി (kuṭṭi)	കുട്ടികൾ (kuṭṭikaḷ)
dog	നായ (nāya)	നായ്ക്കൾ (nāykkaḷ)
mother	അമ്മ (amma)	അമ്മമാർ (ammamār)
human	മനുഷ്യൻ (manuṣyan)	മനുഷ്യർ (manuṣyar)

Other nouns

The following are examples of some of the most common declensional patterns.

Word	tree		elephant		human		dog
Case	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	maram	marangaḷ	āaṉa	āaṉakaḷ	maṉuṣyaṉ	maṉuṣyar	paṭṭi	paṭṭikaḷ
Vocative	maramē	marangaḷē	āaṉē	āaṉakaḷē	maṉuṣyā	maṉuṣyarē	paṭṭī	paṭṭikaḷē
Accusative	marattiṉe	maraṅṅaḷe	āaṉaye	āaṉakaḷe	maṉuṣyaṉe	maṉuṣyare	paṭṭiye	paṭṭikaḷe
Genitive	marathiṉṯe	maraṅgalude	āaṉayude	āaṉakaḷude	maṉuṣyaṉṯe	maṉuṣyarude	paṭṭiyude	paṭṭikaḷude
Dative	marathinu	maraṅgaḷkku	āaṉaykku	āaṉakaḷkku	maṉuṣyaṉu	maṉuṣyarkku	paṭṭiykku	paṭṭikaḷkku
Instrumental	marathāl	maraṅgaḷāl	āaṉayāl	āaṉakaḷāl	maṉuṣyaṉāl	maṉuṣyarāl	paṭṭiyāl	paṭṭikaḷāl
Locative	marathil	maraṅgaḷil	āaṉayil	āaṉakaḷil	maṉuṣyaṉil	maṉuṣyaril	paṭṭiyil	paṭṭikaḷil
Sociative	marathōdu	maraṅgaḷōdu	āaṉayōdu	āaṉakaḷōdu	maṉuṣyaṉōdu	maṉuṣyarōdu	paṭṭiyōdu	paṭṭikaḷōdu

Adjectives

Malayalam is thought to have no semantic category for adjectives, and instead relies heavily on using participial relative clauses for modifying nouns. There are two classes of words that typically act as adjectives.

1. Native roots + a: This includes words such as നല്ല (nalla, good), വലിയ (valiya, big), and ചെറിയ (cheṟiya, short). All such words can be directly used as adjectives, without further modification. The conventional view regarding this category of words is that they typically encode the possession of the property they signify in the participial marker (-a) attached to them, meaning a word such as നല്ല (nalla) would actually mean "having goodness". For instance: ഇതൊരു നല്ല പുസ്തകമാണ് (ithoru nalla pustakamāṇ), translating to "this is a good book", could be thought to mean "this is a goodness-having book". Note that when used in typical relative clauses, the marker -a can be inflected for tense, but not when used here in an adjectival sense.
2. Borrowed roots + am: This includes words such as സങ്കടം (saṅkaṭaṁ, sadness), സന്തോഷം (santōṣaṁ, happiness), and ഉയരം (uyaraṁ, height/tallness). The -am at the end signifies the word's quality as a noun, which means that to use it as an adjective it has to be modified. This is in the form of -ഉള്ള (uḷḷa), the suffix for the non-finite existential copula. For instance: അവൻ ഉയരമുള്ള കുട്ടിയാണ് (avan uyaramuḷḷa kuṭṭiyāṇ, translating to "he is a tall child") could be thought to mean "he is a tallness-having child". Since the suffix is non-finite it does not vary with tense or person.

All adjectives in Malayalam must be used with succeeding nouns or noun phrases, i.e., they cannot be used as predicate adjectives (e.g.: good in "this book is good"), which are not typically used in Malayalam. Certain suffixes do exist that help create similar constructions that don't require specifying the entire noun. For example, the suffixes -വൻ (-van) and വൾ (-vaḷ) denote males and females respectively, so the sentence "she is tall" could be translated as അവൾ ഉയരമുള്ളവൾ ആണ് (avaḷ uyaramuḷḷavaḷ āṇ), where the noun for "girl" was replaced by its corresponding suffix.

Verbs

Inflection of Malayalam verbs occurs for tense, aspect, and mode (TAM), and not for number (plurality) or gender. The verb stem, combined with a consonant and the ending -ഉക (-uka), forms the dictionary form of verbs.

Tenses

Broadly, there are three tenses in Malayalam language: present, past and future. Verb forms in different tenses are created by either simply replacing the infinitive ending -ഉക (for present and future tense), or by suffixing the verb stem with a special marker depending on the class of the verb (for past tense). Verb conjugations for the verb "പോകുക" (pōkuka, to go) based on the commonly recognized aspects in Malayalam are given below. The past tense marker in this case is -ഇ (-i).

Tenses

	Past	Present	Future
Simple	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
Continuous	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
Perfect	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
Perfect continuous	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
Habitual	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear	-

Copula

Malayalam employs two defective verbs as its copulas. The first, -ആക് (āk), is the plain equative copula. The second, -ഉണ്ട് (uṇṭŭ), is the locative copula and also used to indicate possession (with the subject/possessor in the dative case). These verbs change forms in different tenses and are usually suffixed to the noun phrases that are specified by the copula. The table below lists some examples.

Example	Notes
Equative
Template:Fs interlinear	Present tense form of ആക് is ആണ് (āṇŭ)
Template:Fs interlinear	Past tense form of ആക് is ആയിരുന്നു (āyirunnu)
Template:Fs interlinear	Future tense form of ആക് is അകും (ākuṁ)
Locative
Template:Fs interlinear	ഉണ്ട് stays the same in the present tense
Template:Fs interlinear	Past tense form of ഉണ്ട് is ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നു (uṇṭāyirunnu)
Template:Fs interlinear	Future tense form of ഉണ്ട് is ഉണ്ടാകും (uṇṭākuṁ)
Possessive
Template:Fs interlinear
Template:Fs interlinear
Template:Fs interlinear

Negation

Standard negation is expressed through the use of the negative particle/suffix -ഇല്ല (-illa, literally "no"), regardless of tense. The equative copula -ആക്, however, is negated by the negative suffix -അല്ല (-alla) in the present tense; in all other tenses -ഇല്ല is used. When these particles are suffixed to their corresponding noun phrases, sandhi (സന്ധി) rules must be obeyed.

Example	Notes
Template:Fs interlinear	Equative copula negated by -അല്ല (-alla) in the present tense
Template:Fs interlinear	Equative copula negated by -ഇല്ല (-illa) in any tense other than the present tense
Template:Fs interlinear	All other negations use -ഇല്ല (-illa)
Template:Fs interlinear
Template:Fs interlinear

Sandhi (സന്ധി)

Malayalam is an agglutinative language, and words can be joined in many ways. These ways are called sandhi (literally 'junction'). There are basically two genres of Sandhi used in Malayalam - one group unique to Malayalam, and the other one common with Sanskrit. Thus, we have the "Malayala Sandhi" and "Samskrita Sandhi".

Sandhi unique to Malayalam

There are basically four Sandhi types unique to Malayalam - the "lōpa sandhi", "dvitva sandhi", "āgama sandhi" and "ādēśa sandhi".

Lōpa sandhi or "Elision"(ലോപ സന്ധി)

The Lopa sandhi occurs when the varna (vowel) at the end of a word is lost when it merges with another word. In most cases, the varna is the "samvr̥tōkāram". (the "closed u sound").

Dvitva Sandhi or "Rule of doubling"

In Malayalam, gemination is more in tense consonants and less in lax consonants. When two words combine in which the first is the qualifier and the qualified, the tense consonants initial to the second word geminates.

Āgama sandhi or "Rule of arrival" (ആഗമ സന്ധി)

When two vowels undergo Sandhi, a consonant ("y" or "v") is added to avoid the pronunciation difficulty.

Template:Fs interlinearNimishathil

Ādēśa Sandhi or "Rule of substitution"

In this Sandhi, one letter is substituted by another during concatenation.

This sandhi also includes Sanskrit Sandhi forms like vi + samam = viṣamam.

Sandhi common with Sanskrit

These Sandhi rules are basically inherited from Sanskrit, and are used in conjunction with Sanskrit vocabulary which forms approximately 80% of Modern Standard Malayalam (the entire Sanskrit vocabulary is also usable with appropriate changes). The rules like savarṇadīrgha sandhi, yaṇ sandhi, guṇa sandhi, vr̥ddhi sandhi and visarga sandhis are used without changes.

Samāsam (സമാസം)

All the Sanskrit samāsa rules are adapted to Malayalam compounds. In Malayalam, the tatpurusha compounds are classified according to the vibhakti they are based on, during compounding. The "alaṅkāraṁ" is also used to classify tatpurusha compounds. There are 4 types of samasam-1)aavyayi bhavan 2) thathpurusha 3) dvandan 4) bahuvrihi

Vr̥ttaṁ (വൃത്തം)

The vr̥ttaṁ consists of metres of Malayalam prosody. Like Sandhi, there are specific vr̥ttaṁs unique to Malayalam apart from the metres common with Sanskrit. As in case of Sandhi, the Malayalam vrittams are also named in Sanskrit.

Alaṅkāram (അലങ്കാരം)

Alaṅkāraṁ or "ornamentation" is also based on Sanskritic grammarian classification. It consists of the different figures of speech used in Malayalam poetry. Being successor to Sanskrit and Manipravalam, most of Sanskrit alankaras are used in Malayalam. Thus, the common figures of speech in poems are rūpakaṁ, utprēkṣā, upamā etc.

Words adopted from Sanskrit

When words are adopted from Sanskrit, their endings are usually changed to conform to Malayalam norms:

Nouns

1. Masculine Sanskrit nouns with a Word stem ending in a short "a" take the ending "an" in the nominative singular. For example, Kr̥ṣṇa -> Kr̥ṣṇan. The final "n" is dropped before masculine surnames, honorifics, or titles ending in "an" and beginning with a consonant other than "n" – e.g. Krishna Menon, Krishna Kaniyaan etc., but Krishnan Ezhutthachan. Surnames ending with "ar" or "aḷ" (where these are plural forms of "an" denoting respect) are treated similarly – Krishna Pothuval, Krishna Chakyar, but Krishnan Nair, Krishnan Nambiar, as are Sanskrit surnames such "Varma(n)", "Sharma(n)", or "Gupta(n)" (rare) – e.g. Krishna Varma, Krishna Sharman. If a name is a compound, only the last element undergoes this transformation – e.g. Kr̥ṣṇa + dēva = Kr̥ṣṇadēvan, not Kr̥ṣṇandēvan.
2. Feminine words ending in a long "ā" or "ī" are changed so that they now end in a short "a" or "i", for example Sītā -> Sīta and Lakṣmī -> Lakṣmi. However, the long vowel still appears in compound words, such as Sītādēvi orLakṣmīdēvi. The long ī is generally reserved for the vocative forms of these names, although in Sanskrit the vocative actually takes a short "i". There are also a small number of nominative "ī" endings that have not been shortened – a prominent example being the word "strī" "woman".
3. Nouns that have a stem in -an and which end with a long "ā" in the masculine nominative singular have a "vŭ" added to them, for exampleBrahmā (stem Brahman) -> Brahmāvŭ. When the same nouns are declined in the neuter and take a short "a" ending in Sanskrit, Malayalam adds an additional "m", e.g. Brahma (neuter nominative singular of Brahman) becomes Brahmam. This is again omitted when forming compounds.
4. Words whose roots end in -an but whose nominative singular ending is -a – for example, the Sanskrit root of "Karma" is actually "Karman" –are also changed. The original root is ignored and "Karma" (the form in Malayalam being "Karmam" because it ends in a short "a") is taken as the basic form of the noun when declining. However, this does not apply to all consonant stems, as "unchangeable" stems such as "manasa" ("mind") and "suhr̥ta (friend)" are identical to the Malayalam nominative singular forms (although the regularly derived "manam" sometimes occurs as an alternative to "manasa").
5. Sanskrit words describing things or animals rather than people with a stem in short "a" end with an "m" Malayalam. For example, Rāmāyaṇa -> Rāmāyaṇam. In most cases, this is actually the as the Sanskrit ending, which is also "m" (or allophonically anusvara due to Sandhi) in the neuter nominative. However, "things and animals" and "people" are not always differentiated based on whether or not they are sentient beings – for example Narasimha becomes Narasiṃham and not Narasiṃhan, whereas Ananta becomes Anantan even though both are sentient.
6. Nouns with short vowel stems other than "a", such as "Viṣṇu", "Prajāpati" etc. are declined with the Sanskrit stem acting as the Malayalam nominative singular (the Sanskrit nominative singular is formed by adding a visarga, e.g. Viṣṇuḥ)
7. The original Sanskrit vocative is often used in formal or poetic Malayalam, e.g. "Harē" (for Hari) or "Prabhō" (for "Prabhu" – "lord"). This is restricted to certain contexts – mainly when addressing deities or other exalted individuals, so a normal man named Hari would usually be addressed using a Malayalam vocative such as "Harī". The Sanskrit genitive is also occasionally found in Malayalam poetry, especially the personal pronouns "mama" (my/ mine) and "tava" (thy/ thine). Other cases are less common and generally restricted to the realm of Maṇipravāḷam.
8. Along with these tatsama borrowings, there are also many tadbhava words in common use. These were borrowed into Malayalam before it became distinct from Tamil. As the language did not then accommodate Sanskrit phonology as it now does, words were changed to conform to the Old Tamil phonological system. For example: Kr̥ṣṇa -> Kaṇṇan.

References

3. Ravi Sankar S Nair 2012 A Grammar of Malayalam http://www.languageinindia.com/nov2012/ravisankarmalayalamgrammar.pdf