Nominal Inflections: The Morphological Adaptations of Nepali Nouns, Pronouns and Adjectives
Nominal Inflections: The Morphological Adaptations of Nepali Nouns, Pronouns and Adjectives
Nepali is an inflectionally rich language. In this post we will look into inflections in Nepali Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives.
Recap: Inflectional Morphemes
Inflectional morphemes encode grammatical meaning like gender, number, tense, person, and levels of honorifics.
Inflectional forms of a word have the same meaning as the root.
Inflectional morphemes have a transparent and regular function such that they do not change the lexical category.
Since inflection encode grammatical meaning, they do not precede derivational morphemes.
In Nepali, there are only inflectional suffixes.
Inflections in Nepali Nouns and Pronouns
Nepali nouns and pronouns inflect for seven cases (कारक): Nomiantive, Accusative, Instrumental, Dative, Ablative, Genitive and Locative and number (वचन): Singular, Plural. All of thses inflectional forms are marked by postpositions.
Nominative Case (कर्ता) Nominative case is used to indicate the subject of a sentence, or the doer of an action.
साथीले (sathi-le) - noun with nominative, singular
साथीहरुले (sathi-haru-le) - noun nominative case, plural
तिमीले (timi-le) - pronoun nominative case, singular
तिमीहरुले (timi-haru-le) - pronoun nominative case, plural
Accusative Case (कर्म) The accusative case marks the direct object of a verb, the receiver of the action.
साथीलाई (sathi-lai:) - noun with accusative, singular
तिमीलाई (timi-lai:) - pronoun with accusative, singular
साथीहरुलाई (sathi-haru-lai:) - noun with accusative, plural
तिमीहरुलाई (timi-haru-lai:) - pronoun with accusative, plural
Instrumental Case (करण) The instrumental case denotes the instrument or means by which an action is performed.
साथीले (sathi-le) - noun with instrumental, singular
साथीहरुले (sathi-haru-le) - noun instrumental case, plural
तिमीले (timi-le) - pronoun instrumental case, singular
तिमीहरुले (timi-haru-le) - pronoun instrumental case, plural
Dative Case (सम्प्रदान) Dative case indicates the indirect object of a verb, the recipient of the action.
साथीलाई (sathi-lai:) - noun with dative, singular
तिमीलाई (timi-lai:) - pronoun with dative, singular
साथीहरुलाई (sathi-haru-lai:) - noun with dative, plural
तिमीहरुलाई (timi-haru-lai:) - pronoun with dative, plural
Ablative Case (अपादान) The ablative case expresses the origin, source, or cause of an action.
साथीदेखि (sathi-dekhi), साथीबाट (sathi-bata) - noun with ablative, singular
तिमीदेखि (timi-dekhi), तिमीबाट (timi-bata) - pronoun with ablative, singular
साथीहरुदेखि (sathi-haru-dekhi), साथीहरुबाट (sathi-haru-bata) - noun with ablative, plural
तिमीहरुदेखि (timi-haru-dekhi), तिमीहरुबाट (timi-haru-bata) - pronoun with ablative, plural
Genitive Case (सम्बन्ध) The genitive case signifies possession, association, or belonging.
साथीको (sathi-ko) - noun with genitive, singular
उनको (un-ko) - pronoun with genitive, singular
साथीहरुको (sathi-haru-ko) - noun with genitive, plural
उनीहरुको (uni-haru-ko) - pronoun with genitive, plural
Locative (अधिकरण) The locative case indicates location or place where something happens or is located.
साथीमा (sathi-ma) - noun with locative, singular
उनीमा (uni-ma) - pronoun with locative, singular
साथीहरुमा (sathi-haru-ma) - noun with locative, plural
उनीहरुमा (uni-haru-ma) - pronoun with locative, plural
Inflections in Nepali Adjectives
Nepali adjectives inflect for number (Singular, Plural) and gender (Masculine and Feminine) and seven cases of the nouyn they modify. It involves transforming singular adjectives ending in "o" to their plural counterparts ending in "a", and masculine adjectives with "o" ending to feminine adjectives with "i" ending. For instance, the adjective "राम्रो" (ramro), meaning "good" in singular masculine form, becomes "राम्रा" (ramra) in its plural form and "राम्री" (ramri) in its feminine form. See Table 2 for a detailed overview of inflectional patterns in Nepali adjectives.
राम्रो (ramr-o) - singular, masculine
राम्री (ramr-i) - singular, feminine
राम्रा (ramr-a) - plural, masculine
राम्रा (ramra) - plural, feminine