The first treatise on Telugu grammar (Telugu: వ్యాకరణం vyākaranam), the "Andhra Shabda Chintamani" was written in Sanskrit by Nannayya, who was considered as the first poet and translator of Telugu in the 11th century A.D. After Nannayya, Atharvana and Ahobala composed sutras, vartikas and bhashyam.
Contents
- Inflection
- Gender ligam
- Number vachanam
- Case vibhakti
- Pronouns
- Word order
- Punctuation
- Sandhi or joining
- Samasam or nominal compounds
- Alankaram or ornamentation
- Chandassu or Telugu prosody
- Prakruti and Vikruti
- References
In the 19th century, Chinnaya Suri wrote a simplified work on Telugu grammar called Bāla Vyākaranam, borrowing concepts and ideas from Nannayya's Andhra Shabda Chintamani, and wrote his literary work in Telugu.
According to Nannayya, language without 'Niyama' or the language which doesn't adhere to Vyākaranam is called Grāmya or Apabhraṃśa and hence it is unfit for literary usage. All the literary texts in Telugu follows Vyākaranam.
Inflection
Telugu is more inflected than 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).
Gender (liṃgam)
Telugu has three genders:
In Telugu the suffix (–Du) is almost always indicative of masculine gender. For example:
However, there are more masculine nouns that do not end in (-Du). For example:
Some masculine nouns ending in (Du) can be converted to feminine nouns by deleting the (–Du) suffix and adding a suffix (-I).
Some masculine names ending in (Du) can be converted to Feminine names by deleting the (Du) and adding the suffix (rAlu).
In Telugu the suffix (–Mu) or (-Am) or (-u) is almost always indicative of the neuter gender. For example:
However, Telugu sometimes uses the same forms for singular feminine and neuter genders – the third person pronoun (అది /ad̪ɪ/) is used to refer to animals and objects.
Number (vachanam)
Any thing in singular form is singular (ekavachanam). Any things more than one in number are called plural (bahuvachanam).
In Telugu plural is also used to address elders with respect. In Telugu language some are always plural and some are always singular, for example water, {neellu} is always plural.
God (bhagavantudu), sun (suryudu), earth (bhoomi), moon (chandrudu), these are always singular form. However, Devullu is a plural form of god,because many deities exist.
Case (విభక్తి vibhakti)
Telugu has eight cases.
Pronouns
Telugu pronouns include
Word order
The primary word order of Telugu is SOV (subject–object–verb)
This sentence can also be interpreted as 'Ram will go to school' depending on the context. But it does not affect the SOV order.
Punctuation
Telugu uses single and double vertical bars to indicate a comma and a full stop. However modern Telugu uses punctuation marks which are borrowed from English.
Sandhi or joining
Sandhi is 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 uses morphological processes to join words together, forming complex words. These processes are traditionally referred to as sandhi. Example, Shankara + Abharanam gives the word shankarabharanamu.
There are many types of sandhi in Telugu. Some of them are mentioned below:
Samasam or nominal compounds
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:
Alankaram or ornamentation
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. shabdalankaras are 6 types where as there are nearly 30 to 40 types in ardhalankaras.
Chandassu or Telugu prosody
Metrical poetry in Telugu is called 'Chandassu' or 'Chandas'. ya-maa-taa-raa-ja-bhaa-na-sa-la-gam is called the chandassu chakram. Utpalamala, Champakamala, Mattebha vikreeditham, Sardoola Vikreeditham, Kanda, Aata veladi, Theta geethi, Sragdhara, Bhujangaprayata, etc. are some metrics used in Telugu poetry.
Prakruti and Vikruti
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: