Sanskrit grammar

The grammar of the Sanskrit language has a complex verbal system, rich nominal declension, and extensive use of compound nouns. It was studied and codified by Sanskrit grammarians from the later Vedic period (roughly 8th century BCE), culminating in the Pāṇinian grammar of the 6th century BCE.

Grammatical tradition

Sanskrit grammatical tradition (vyākaraṇa, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) began in late Vedic India and culminated in the Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, which consists of 3990 sutras (ca. 5th century BCE). About a century after Pāṇini (around 400 BCE) Kātyāyana composed vārtikas (explanations) on the Pāṇinian sũtras. Patañjali, who lived three centuries after Pāṇini, wrote the Mahābhāṣya, the "Great Commentary" on the Aṣṭādhyāyī and Vārtikas. Because of these three ancient Sanskrit grammarians this grammar is called Trimuni Vyākarana. Jayaditya and Vāmana wrote a commentary named Kāśikā in 600 CE. Kaiyaṭa's (12th century AD) commentary on Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya also exerted much influence on the development of grammar, but more influential was the Rupāvatāra of Buddhist scholar Dharmakīrti which popularised simplified versions of Sanskrit grammar.

The most influential work of the Early Modern (Mughal) period was Siddhānta-Kaumudī by Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita (17th century) and its various derivate versions by Varadarāja. European grammatical scholarship began in the 18th century with Jean François Pons and others, and culminated in the exhaustive expositions by 19th century scholars such as Otto Boehtlingk, William Dwight Whitney, Jacob Wackernagel and others.

Verbs

Classification of verbs

Sanskrit has ten classes of verbs (plus one used in the Vedas) divided into two broad groups: athematic and thematic. The thematic verbs are so called because an a, called the theme vowel, is inserted between the stem and the ending. This serves to make the thematic verbs generally more regular. Exponents used in verb conjugation include prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and reduplication. Every root has (not necessarily all distinct) zero, guṇa, and vṛddhi grades. If V is the vowel of the zero grade, the guṇa-grade vowel is traditionally thought of as a + V, and the vṛddhi-grade vowel as ā + V.

Tense systems

The verb tenses (a very inexact application of the word, since more distinctions than simply tense are expressed) are organized into four 'systems' (as well as gerunds and infinitives, and such creatures as intensives/frequentatives, desideratives, causatives, and benedictives derived from more basic forms) based on the different stem forms (derived from verbal roots) used in conjugation. There are four tense systems:

• Present (Present, Imperfect, Imperative, Optative)
• Perfect
• Aorist
• Future (Future, Conditional)

Present system

The present system includes the present tense and the imperfect (past imperfective), the optative and imperative moods, as well as some of the remnant forms of the old subjunctive. The tense stem of the present system is formed in various ways. The numbers are the native grammarians' numbers for these classes.

Perfect system

The perfect system includes only the perfect. The stem is formed with reduplication as with the present system.

The perfect system also produces separate "strong" and "weak" forms of the verb—the strong form is used with the singular active, and the weak form with the rest.

Aorist system

The aorist system includes aorist proper (with past indicative meaning, e.g. abhūḥ "you were") and some of the forms of the ancient injunctive (used almost exclusively with mā in prohibitions, e.g. mā bhūḥ "don't be"). The principal distinction of the two is presence/absence of an augment – a- prefixed to the stem. The aorist system stem actually has three different formations: the simple aorist, the sibilant aorist, and the reduplicating aorist, which is semantically related to the causative verb.

Future system

The future system is formed with the suffixation of sya or iṣya and guṇa. Verbs then conjugate as though they were thematic verbs in the present system. The imperfect of the future system is used as a conditional.

Verbs: conjugation

Each verb has a grammatical voice, whether active, passive or middle. There also is an impersonal voice, which can be described as the passive voice of intransitive verbs. Sanskrit verbs have an indicative, an optative and an imperative mood. Older forms of the language had a subjunctive, though this had fallen out of use by the time of Classical Sanskrit.

Basic conjugational endings

Conjugational endings in Sanskrit convey person, number, and voice. Different forms of the endings are used depending on what tense stem and mood they are attached to. Verb stems or the endings themselves may be changed or obscured by sandhi.

		Active			Middle
	Person	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Primary	1	mi	váḥ	máḥ	é	váhe	máhe
	2	si	tháḥ	thá	sé	ā́the	dhvé
	3	ti	táḥ	ánti, áti	té	ā́te	ánte, áte
Secondary	1	am	vá	má	í, á	váhi	máhi
	2	ḥ	tám	tá	thā́ḥ	ā́thām	dhvám
	3	t	tā́m	án, úḥ	tá	ā́tām	ánta, áta, rán
Perfect	1	a	vá	má	é	váhe	máhe
	2	tha	áthuḥ	á	sé	ā́the	dhvé
	3	a	átuḥ	úḥ	é	ā́te	ré
Imperative	1	āni	āva	āma	āi	āvahāi	āmahāi
	2	dhí, hí,—	tám	tá	svá	ā́thām	dhvám
	3	tu	tā́m	ántu, átu	tā́m	ā́tām	ántām, átām

Primary endings are used with present indicative and future forms. Secondary endings are used with the imperfect, conditional, aorist, and optative. Perfect and imperative endings are used with the perfect and imperative respectively.

Nominals

Sanskrit is a highly inflected language with three grammatical genders: masculine (पुल्लिङ्ग pulliṅga), feminine (स्त्रीलिङ्ग strīliṅga), and neuter (नपुंसकलिङ्ग napuṃsakaliṅga); and three numbers: singular (एकवचनम् ekavacanam), dual (द्विवचनम् dvivacanam), and plural (बहुवचनम् bahuvacanam). It has eight cases: nominative, vocative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, and locative.

The number of actual declensions is debatable. Pāṇini identifies six kārakas corresponding to the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, locative, and ablative cases.^[1] Pāṇini defines them as follows (Ashtadhyayi, I.4.24 – 54):

1. Apādāna (lit. 'take off'): "(that which is) firm when departure (takes place)." This is the equivalent of the ablative case, which signifies a stationary object from which movement proceeds.
2. Sampradāna ('bestowal'): "he whom one aims at with the object". This is equivalent to the dative case, which signifies a recipient in an act of giving or similar acts.
3. Karaṇa ("instrument") "that which effects most." This is equivalent to the instrumental case.
4. Adhikaraṇa ('location'): or "substratum." This is equivalent to the locative case.
5. Karman ('deed'/'object'): "what the agent seeks most to attain". This is equivalent to the accusative case.
6. Kartā ('agent'): "he/that which is independent in action". This is equivalent to the nominative case. (On the basis of Scharfe, 1977: 94)

The genitive (Sambandha) and vocative cases are not equivalent to any kāraka in Pāṇini's grammar.

In this article they are divided into five declensions. The declension to which a noun belongs to is determined largely by form.

Basic noun and adjective declension

The basic scheme of suffixation is given in the table below—valid for almost all nouns and adjectives. However, according to the gender and the ending consonant/vowel of the uninflected word-stem, there are predetermined rules of compulsory sandhi which would then give the final inflected word. The parentheses give the case-terminations for the neuter gender, the rest are for masculine and feminine gender. Both Devanagari script and IAST transliterations are given.

Case name	Case number	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative (कर्ता kartā)	1	-स् -s (-म् -m)	-औ -au (-ई -ī)	-अस्} -as (-इ -i)
Accusative (कर्म karma)	2	-अम् -am (-म् -m)	-औ -au (-ई -ī)	-अस् -as (-इ -i)
Instrumental (करण karaṇa)	3	-आ -ā	-भ्याम् -bhyām	-भिस् -bhis
Dative (सम्प्रदान sampradāna)	4	-ए -e	-भ्याम् -bhyām	-भ्यस् -bhyas
Ablative (अपादान apādāna)	5	-अस् -as	-भ्याम् -bhyām	-भ्यस् -bhyas
Genitive (सम्बन्ध sambandha)	6	-अस् -as	-ओस् -os	-आम् -ām
Locative (अधिकरण adhikaraṇa)	7	-इ -i	-ओस् -os	-सु -su
Vocative (सम्बोधन sambodhana)		-स् -s (- -)	-औ -au (-ई -ī)	-अस् -as (-इ -i)

The final स् (s) characters in the above table are theoretical. In Classical Sanskrit, all of them become ः (ḥ) when the word is at the end of a sentence, and, if the word is followed by another in a sentence, the rules of sandhi for final "-ḥ" are applied.

a-stems

A-stems (/ə/ or /aː/) comprise the largest class of nouns. As a rule, nouns belonging to this class, with the uninflected stem ending in short-a (/ə/), are either masculine or neuter. Nouns ending in long-A (/aː/) are almost always feminine. A-stem adjectives take the masculine and neuter in short-a (/ə/), and feminine in long-A (/aː/) in their stems. This class is so big because it also comprises the Proto-Indo-European o-stems.

	Masculine (rāma-)			Neuter (āsya- 'mouth')			Feminine (kānta- 'beloved')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	rāmaḥ	rāmau	rāmāḥ	āsyam	āsye	āsyāni	kāntā	kānte	kāntāḥ
Accusative	rāmam	rāmau	rāmān	āsyàm	āsye	āsyāni	kāntām	kānte	kāntāḥ
Instrumental	rāmena	rāmābhyām	rāmāiḥ	āsyèna	āsyā̀bhyām	āsyāìḥ	kāntayā	kāntābhyām	kāntābhiḥ
Dative	rāmāya	rāmābhyām	rāmebhyaḥ	āsyā̀ya	āsyābhyām	āsyebhyaḥ	kāntāyai	kāntābhyām	kāntābhyaḥ
Ablative	rāmāt	rāmābhyām	rāmebhyaḥ	āsyāt	āsyābhyām	āsyebhyaḥ	kāntāyāḥ	kāntābhyām	kāntābhyaḥ
Genitive	rāmasya	rāmayoḥ	rāmānām	āsyasya	āsyayoḥ	āsyānām	kāntāyāḥ	kāntayoḥ	kāntānām
Locative	rāme	rāmayoḥ	rāmeṣu	āsye	āsyayoḥ	āsyeṣu	kāntāyām	kāntayoḥ	kāntāsu
Vocative	rāma	rāmau	rāmāḥ	āsya	āsye	āsyā̀ni	kānte	kānte	kāntāḥ

i- and u-stems

i-stems

	Masc. and Fem. (gáti- 'gait')			Neuter (vā́ri- 'water')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	gátiḥ	gátī	gátayaḥ	vā́ri	vā́riṇī	vā́rīṇi
Accusative	gátim	gátī	gátīḥ	vā́ri	vā́riṇī	vā́rīṇi
Instrumental	gátyā	gátibhyām	gátibhiḥ	vā́riṇā	vā́ribhyām	vā́ribhiḥ
Dative	gátaye, gátyāi	gátibhyām	gátibhyaḥ	vā́riṇe	vā́ribhyām	vā́ribhyaḥ
Ablative	gáteḥ, gátyāḥ	gátibhyām	gátibhyas	vā́riṇaḥ	vā́ribhyām	vā́ribhyaḥ
Genitive	gáteḥ, gátyāḥ	gátyoḥ	gátīnām	vā́riṇaḥ	vā́riṇoḥ	vā́riṇām
Locative	gátāu, gátyām	gátyoḥ	gátiṣu	vā́riṇi	vā́riṇoḥ	vā́riṣu
Vocative	gáte	gátī	gátayaḥ	vā́ri, vā́re	vā́riṇī	vā́rīṇi

u-stems

	Masc. and Fem. (śátru- 'enemy')			Neuter (mádhu- 'honey')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	śátruḥ	śátrū	śátravaḥ	mádhu	mádhunī	mádhūni
Accusative	śátrum	śátrū	śátrūn	mádhu	mádhunī	mádhūni
Instrumental	śátruṇā	śátrubhyām	śátrubhiḥ	mádhunā	mádhubhyām	mádhubhiḥ
Dative	śátrave	śátrubhyām	śátrubhyaḥ	mádhune	mádhubhyām	mádhubhyaḥ
Ablative	śátroḥ	śátrubhyām	śátrubhyaḥ	mádhunaḥ	mádhubhyām	mádhubhyaḥ
Genitive	śátroḥ	śátrvoḥ	śátrūṇām	mádhunaḥ	mádhunoḥ	mádhūnām
Locative	śátrāu	śátrvoḥ	śátruṣu	mádhuni	mádhunoḥ	mádhuṣu
Vocative	śátro	śátrū	śátravaḥ	mádhu	mádhunī	mádhūni

Long Vowel-stems

	ā-stems (jā- 'progeny')			ī-stems (dhī- 'thought')			ū-stems (bhū- 'earth')
	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	jā́s	jāú	jā́s	dhī́s	dhíyāu	dhíyas	bhū́s	bhúvāu	bhúvas
Accusative	jā́m	jāú	jā́s, jás	dhíyam	dhíyāu	dhíyas	bhúvam	bhúvāu	bhúvas
Instrumental	jā́	jā́bhyām	jā́bhis	dhiyā́	dhībhyā́m	dhībhís	bhuvā́	bhūbhyā́m	bhūbhís
Dative	jé	jā́bhyām	jā́bhyas	dhiyé, dhiyāí	dhībhyā́m	dhībhyás	bhuvé, bhuvāí	bhūbhyā́m	bhūbhyás
Ablative	jás	jā́bhyām	jā́bhyas	dhiyás, dhiyā́s	dhībhyā́m	dhībhyás	bhuvás, bhuvā́s	bhūbhyā́m	bhūbhyás
Genitive	jás	jós	jā́nām, jā́m	dhiyás, dhiyā́s	dhiyós	dhiyā́m, dhīnā́m	bhuvás, bhuvā́s	bhuvós	bhuvā́m, bhūnā́m
Locative	jí	jós	jā́su	dhiyí, dhiyā́m	dhiyós	dhīṣú	bhuví, bhuvā́m	bhuvós	bhūṣú
Vocative	jā́s	jāú	jā́s	dhī́s	dhiyāu	dhíyas	bhū́s	bhuvāu	bhúvas

ṛ-stems

ṛ-stems are predominantly agental derivatives like dātṛ 'giver', though also include kinship terms like pitṛ 'father', mātṛ 'mother', and svásṛ 'sister'.

	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	pitā́	pitárāu	pitáras
Accusative	pitáram	pitárāu	pitṝn
Instrumental	pitrā́	pitṛ́bhyām	pitṛ́bhis
Dative	pitré	pitṛ́bhyām	pitṛ́bhyas
Ablative	pitúr	pitṛ́bhyām	pitṛ́bhyas
Genitive	pitúr	pitrós	pitṝṇā́m
Locative	pitári	pitrós	pitṛ́ṣu
Vocative	pítar	pitárāu	pitáras

Numerals

The numbers from one to ten are:

1. éka-
2. dvá-
3. trí-
4. catúr-
5. páñca-
6. ṣáṣ-
7. saptá-, sápta-
8. aṣṭá-, áṣṭa-
9. náva-
10. dáśa-

All numbers in Sanskrit can be declined in all the cases. Numbers above four are only declined in the plural. Éka is declined like a pronominal adjective, though the dual form does not occur. Dvá appears only in the dual. Trí and catúr are declined irregularly:

	Three			Four
	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine
Nominative	tráyas	trī́ṇi	tisrás	catvā́ras	catvā́ri	cátasras
Accusative	trīn	trī́ṇi	tisrás	catúras	catvā́ri	cátasras
Instrumental	tribhís		tisṛ́bhis	catúrbhis		catasṛ́bhis
Dative	tribhyás		tisṛ́bhyas	catúrbhyas		catasṛ́bhyas
Ablative	tribhyás		tisṛ́bhyas	catúrbhyas		catasṛ́bhyas
Genitive	triyāṇā́m		tisṛṇā́m	caturṇā́m		catasṛṇā́m
Locative	triṣú		tisṛ́ṣu	catúrṣu		catasṛ́ṣu

Personal pronouns and determiners

Sanskrit pronouns are declined for case, number, and gender. Many pronouns have alternative enclitic forms. The first and second person pronouns are declined for the most part alike, having by analogy assimilated themselves with one another. Ablatives in singular and plural may be extended by the syllable -tas; thus mat or mattas, asmat or asmattas. Sanskrit does not have true third person pronouns, but its demonstratives fulfil this function instead by standing independently without a modified substantive.

There are four different demonstratives in Sanskrit: tat, etat, idam, and adas. etat indicates greater proximity than tat. While idam is similar to etat, adas refers to objects that are more remote than tat. eta, is declined almost identically to ta. Its paradigm is obtained by prefixing e- to all the forms of ta. As a result of sandhi, the masculine and feminine singular forms transform into eṣas and eṣã.

The enclitic pronoun ena is found only in a few oblique cases and numbers. Interrogative pronouns all begin with k-, and decline just as tat does, with the initial t- being replaced by k-. The only exception to this are the singular neuter nominative and accusative forms, which are both kim and not the expected *kat. For example, the singular feminine genitive interrogative pronoun, "of whom?", is kasyãḥ. Indefinite pronouns are formed by adding the participles api, cid, or cana after the appropriate interrogative pronouns. All relative pronouns begin with y-, and decline just as tat does. The correlative pronouns are identical to the tat series.

In addition to the pronouns described above, some adjectives follow the pronominal declension. Unless otherwise noted, their declension is identical to tat.

• eka: "one", "a certain". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both ekam)
• anya: "another".
• sarva: "all", "every". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both sarvam)
• para: "the other". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both param)
• sva: "self" (a reflexive adjective). (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both svam)

Compounds

One other notable feature of the nominal system is the very common use of nominal compounds, which may be huge (10+ words) as in some modern languages such as German and Finnish. Nominal compounds occur with various structures, however 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. The four principle categories of nominal compounds are:^[2]

• Dvandva (co-ordinative)

These consist of two or more noun stems, connected in sense with 'and'. Examples are rāma-lakşmaņau—Rama and Lakshmana, rāma-lakşmaņa-bharata-śatrughnāh—Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Satrughna, and pāņipādam—limbs, literally hands and feet, from pāņi = hand and pāda = foot.

• Tatpuruṣa (determinative)

There are many tatpuruṣas; in a tatpuruṣa the first component is in a case relationship with another. For example, a doghouse is a dative compound, a house for a dog; other examples include instrumental relationships ("thunderstruck") and locative relationships ("towndwelling").

• Karmadhāraya (descriptive)

A compound where the relation of the first member to the last is appositional, attributive or adverbial; e.g., uluka-yatu (owl+demon) is a demon in the shape of an owl. Karmadhārayas are considered by some to be tatpuruṣas.

• Bahuvrīhi (possessive/exocentric)

Bahuvrīhi compounds refer to a compound noun that refers to a thing which is itself not part of the compound. For example the word bahuvrīhi itself, from bahu = much and vrīhi = rice, denotes a rich person—one who has much rice.

Phonology

Classical Sanskrit distinguishes about 36 phonemes. There is, however, some allophony and the writing systems used for Sanskrit generally indicate this, thus distinguishing 48 sounds. The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels (Ac), diphthongs (Hal), anusvara and visarga, plosives (Sparśa) and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in IAST as follows:

a ā i ī u ū ṛ ṝ ḷ ḹ ; e ai o au

ṃ ḥ

k kh g gh ṅ; c ch j jh ñ; ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ; t th d dh n; p ph b bh m

y r l v; ś ṣ s h

An alternate traditional ordering is that of the Shiva Sutra of Pāṇini.

Vowels

The vowels of Classical Sanskrit written in Devanagari, as a syllable-initial letter and as a diacritic mark on the consonant प् (/p/), pronunciation transcribed in IPA, IAST, and approximate equivalent in English:

Letter	प्	IPA	IAST
अ	प	[ə]	a
आ	पा	[ɑ]	ā
इ	पि	[i]	i
ई	पी	[iː]	ī
उ	पु	[u]	u
ऊ	पू	[uː]	ū
ऋ	पृ	[r̩] (traditional) or [ri] (modern, North-Central India)	ṛ	syllabic alveolar trill: closest to er in butter in rhotic accents
ॠ	पॄ	[r̩ː] (traditional) or [ri:] (modern, North-Central India)	ṝ	syllabic alveolar trill: closest to ir in bird in rhotic accents
ऌ	पॢ	[l̩] (traditional) or [lri], [li] (modern, North-Central India)	ḷ	syllabic dental lateral approximant: le in turtle
ॡ	पॣ	[l̩ː] (traditional) or [lri:], [li:] (modern, North-Central India)	ḹ	syllabic dental lateral approximant: longer le
ए	पे	[e]	e	long close-mid front unrounded vowel: a in bane (some speakers)
ऐ	पै	[əj]/[ɑj]	ai	a diphthong: i in ice, i in kite (US, Canadian, and Scottish English)
ओ	पो	[o]	o	close-mid back rounded vowel: o in bone (Scottish English)
औ	पौ	[əw]/[ɑw]	au	a diphthong: ou in house (Canadian English)

The long vowels are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels. This lengthening is called pluti; the lengthened vowels, called pluta, are used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The pluti is not accepted by all grammarians. The vowels /e/ and /o/ continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian /ai/, /au/ and are categorised as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realised phonetically as simple long vowels.

Additional points:

• There are some additional signs traditionally listed in tables of the Devanagari script:
  • The diacritic ं called anusvāra, (IAST: ṃ). It is a pure voiced nasal sound having no oral or oro-nasal articulation.^[3]
  • The diacritic ः called visarga, represents /x/ (IAST: ḥ); e.g. पः /pəh/. While pronounced as a fricative, it's assimilable into a succeeding stop,
  • The diacritic ँ called chandrabindu, not traditionally included in Devanagari charts for Sanskrit, is used interchangeably with the anusvāra to indicate nasalisation of the vowel, primarily in Vedic notation; e.g. पँ /pə̃/.
• If a lone consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it is given a halanta/virāma diacritic below (प्).
• The vowel /aː/ in Sanskrit is realised as being more central and less back than the closest English approximation, which is /ɑː/. But the grammarians have classified it as a back vowel.^[4]
• The ancient Sanskrit grammarians classified the vowel system as velars, retroflexes, palatals and plosives rather than as back, central and front vowels. Hence ए and ओ are classified respectively as palato-velar (a+i) and labio-velar (a+u) vowels respectively. But the grammarians have classified them as diphthongs and in prosody, each is given two mātrās. This does not necessarily mean that they are proper diphthongs, but neither excludes the possibility that they could have been proper diphthongs at a very ancient stage. These vowels are pronounced as long /eː/ and /oː/ respectively by learned Sanskrit Brahmans and priests of today. Other than the "four" diphthongs, Sanskrit usually disallows any other diphthong—vowels in succession, where they occur, are converted to semivowels according to sandhi rules.
• The vowels [r̩] and [r̩ː] were syllabic rhotics. much the same as in English "butter" and the Hindi "patr", meaning letter. Indian descendant languages of Sanskrit lost the vocalic r, and Indian pandits came to pronounce it as variously "ri" in the North - as in the name of the god known there as "krishn" -, "ru" in the West - where the same god is commonly referred to as "krushna" -, and "ra" in the East. When vocalic r reappeared in modern Indian languages due to the loss of final "a" in Sanskrit loan words such as "patra" > "patr" in Hindi (in accordance with Hindi phonology), which replaced prakrit and apabramsha "patta", the natural derivative of the Sanskrit, it was not recognised by modern speakers that this corresponded to the vocalic r of ancient Sanskrit.

Consonants

IAST and Devanagari notations are given, with approximate IPA values in square brackets.^[5]

		Labial ओष्ठ्य oṣṭhya		Dental दन्त्य dantya		Retroflex मूर्धन्य mūrdhanya		Palatal तालव्य tālavya		Velar कण्ठ्य kaṇṭhya		Glottal
Stop स्पर्श sparśa	Unaspirated अल्पप्राण alpaprāṇa	p प [p]	b ब [b]	t त [t̪]	d द [d̪]	ṭ ट [ʈ ]	ḍ ड [ɖ ]	c च [t͡ɕ]	j ज [d͡ʑ]	k क [k]	g ग [ɡ]
	Aspirated महाप्राण mahāprāṇa	ph फ [pʰ]	bh - [bʱ]	th थ [t̪ʰ]	dh ध [d̪ʱ]	ṭh ठ [ʈʰ]	ḍh ढ [ɖʱ]	ch छ [t͡ɕʰ]	jh झ [d͡ʑʱ]	kh ख [kʰ]	gh घ [ɡʱ]
Nasal अनुनासिक anunāsika		ṭ म [m]		n न [n̪]		ṇ ण [ɳ ]		(ñ ञ [ ɲ])		ṅ ङ [ŋ]
Semivowel अन्तस्थ antastha		v व [ʋ]						y य [j]
Liquid द्रव drava				l ल [l̪]		r र [ɽ]
Fricative ऊष्मन् ūṣman				s स [s̪]		ṣ ष [ʂ]		ś श [ɕ]				ḥ ः [x]	h ह [ɦ]

The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English (as pronounced in General American and Received Pronunciation or the Indian English pronunciation if specified), French and Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (/ə/), and is named in the table as such.

Stops—sparśa

	Unaspirated Voiceless alpaprāṇa śvāsa	Aspirated Voiceless mahāprāna śvāsa	Unaspirated Voiced alpaprāṇa nāda	Aspirated Voiced mahāprāna nāda	Nasal anunāsika nāda
Velar kaṇṭhya	क /kə/; English: skip	ख /kʰə/; English: cow	ग /ɡə/; English: game	घ /ɡʱə/; no equivalent	ङ /ŋə/; English: ring
Palatal tālavya	च /cə/; no equivalent	छ /cʰə/; no equivalent	ज /ɟə/; no equivalent	झ /ɟʱə/; no equivalent	ञ [ ɲə]; French: agneau, Spanish ñ
Retroflex mūrdhanya	ट /ʈə/; English: stop	ठ /ʈʰə/; English: time	ड /ɖə/; English (Indian): door	ढ /ɖʱə/; no equivalent	ण /ɳə/; no English equivalent
apico-Dental dantya	त /t̪ə/; French, Spanish: tomate	थ /t̪ʰə/; Aspirated /t̪/	द /d̪ə/; French: dans, Spanish donde	ध /d̪ʱə/; Aspirated /d̪/	न /n̪ə/; English name
Labial oṣṭhya	प /pə/; English: spin	फ /pʰə/; English: pork	ब /bə/; English: bone	- /bʱə/; no equivalent	म /mə/; English: mine

Non-Plosives/Sonorants

	Palatal tālavya	Retroflex mūrdhanya	Dental dantya	Labial/ Glottal oṣṭhya
Approximant antastha	य /jə/; English: you	र /ɽə/; no equivalent	ल /l̪ə/; French, Spanish: la	व (labio-dental) /ʋə/; Danish v
Sibilant/ Fricative ūṣmang	श /ɕə/; similar to English: ship	ष /ʂə/; Retroflex form of /ʃ/	स /s̪ə/; English: same	ह (glottal) /ɦə/; English ahead

The pronunciation of व causes much confusion. The ancient Indian literature of phonetics (see the Wikipedia article "Shiksha"} classifies this sound as the labio-dental approximant - a sound which the English language generally lacks. The modern Hindi pronunciation of that phoneme is also generally pronounced as a labio-dental semi-vowel (approximant). To an English ear this is interpreted as the labio-dental fricative, the English "v". However, when the व phoneme is at the beginning of a word, or follows a sibilant (e.g. swa..), the English ear hears this as the equivalent of "w" (the labio-velar approximant). The effect is that, to the English speaker, the व corresponds to what are, in English, two totally separate phonemes: "v" and "w". Actually, in Hindi the phoneme has a considerable range depending on the usage and speaker, from the labio-dental fricative "v", to the labio-dental semi-vowel, to a bilabial fricative (a variant of "w" to the English ear). The Sanskrit व must have had much the same range; Panini condemned the bi-labial pronunciation as vulgar (according to Allen), so it obviously must have been fairly common as the extreme of the range. For the reader who needs guidance in pronouncing Sanskrit: Hindi speakers can simply pronounce Sanskrit words with व as in Hindi; for English speakers, "v" comes close in general, with "w" for words where the व follows a sibilant (s or sh).

Accent

Vedic Sanskrit had pitch accent; some syllables had a high tone, and the following syllable a falling tone, though through ellipsis a falling tone may occur elsewhere.

Phonology and sandhi

The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. The long syllabic l (ḹ) is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart ḷ occurs in a single root only, kḷp "to order, array". Long syllabic r (ṝ) is also quite marginal, occurring in the genitive plural of r-stems (e.g. mātṛ "mother" and pitṛ "father" have gen.pl. mātṝṇām and pitṝṇām). i, u, ṛ, ḷ are vocalic allophones of consonantal y, v, r, l. There are thus only 5 invariably vocalic phonemes:a, ā, ī, ū, ṝ.

Visarga ḥ ः is an allophone of r and s, and anusvara ṃ, Devanagari ं of any nasal, both in pausa (i.e., the nasalised vowel). The exact pronunciation of the three sibilants may vary, but they are distinct phonemes. An aspirated voiced sibilant /zʱ/ was inherited by Indo-Aryan from Proto-Indo-Iranian but lost shortly before the time of the Rigveda (aspirated fricatives are exceedingly rare in any language). The retroflex consonants are somewhat marginal phonemes, often being conditioned by their phonetic environment; they do not continue a PIE series and are often ascribed by some linguists to the substratal influence of Dravidian^[6] or other substrate languages. The nasal [ɲ] is a conditioned allophone of /n/ (/n/ and /ɳ/ are distinct phonemes—aṇu 'minute', 'atomic' [nom. sg. neutr. of an adjective] is distinctive from anu 'after', 'along'; phonologically independent /ŋ/ occurs only marginally, e.g. in prāṅ 'directed forwards/towards' [nom. sg. masc. of an adjective]). There are thus 31 consonantal or semi-vocalic phonemes, consisting of four/five kinds of stops realised both with or without aspiration and both voiced and voiceless, three nasals, four semi-vowels or liquids, and four fricatives, written in IAST transliteration as follows: k, kh, g, gh; c, ch, j, jh; ṭ, ṭh, ḍ, ḍh; t, th, d, dh; p, ph, b, bh; m, n, ṇ; y, r, l, v; ś, ṣ, s, h or a total of 36 unique Sanskrit phonemes altogether.

The phonological rules which are applied when combining morphemes to a word, and when combining words to a sentence, are collectively called sandhi "composition". Texts are written phonetically, with sandhi applied (except for the so-called padapāṭha).

Syntax

Because of Sanskrit's complex declension system the word order is free.^[7] In usage, there is a strong tendency toward subject – object – verb (SOV), which was the original system in place in Vedic prose. However, there are exceptions when word pairs cannot be transposed.^[8]

Peculiar characteristics

In the introduction to his celebrated translation of Vidyakara's 'Subhasitaratnakosa', Daniel H.H. Ingalls describes some peculiar characteristics of the Sanskrit language. He refers to the enormous vocabulary of Sanskrit, and also of the presence of a larger choice of synonyms in Sanskrit than any other language he knew of. Further, he writes, just as there exist a vast number of synonyms for almost any word in Sanskrit, there also exist synonymous constructions. Ingalls writes that in elementary Sanskrit examinations he would ask his students to write in Sanskrit the sentence 'You must fetch the horse' in ten different ways. Actually, Ingalls explains, it is possible to write the sentence in Sanskrit in around fifteen different ways 'by using active or passive constructions, imperative or optative, an auxiliary verb, or any of the three gerundive forms, each of which, by the way, gives a different metrical pattern'. Ingalls emphasizes that while these constructions differ formally, emotionally they are identical and completely interchangeable. He comments that in any natural language this would be impossible. Ingalls uses this and other arguments to show that Sanskrit is not a natural language, but an 'artificial' language. By 'artificial', he explains he means it was learned after some other Indian language had been learned by simple conditioning. Ingalls writes: 'Every Indian, one may suppose, grew up learning naturally the language of his mother and his playmates. Only after this and if he belonged to the priesthood or the nobility or to such a professional caste as that of the clerks, the physicians, or the astrologers would he learn Sanskrit. As a general rule, Sanskrit was not the language of the family. It furnished no subconscious symbols for the impressions which we receive in childhood nor for the emotions which form our character in early adolescence.'^[9]

See also

• Sanskrit pronouns and determiners

Notes

References

• W. D. Whitney, Sanskrit Grammar: Including both the Classical Language and the Older Dialects
• W. D. Whitney, The Roots, Verb-Forms and Primary Derivatives of the Sanskrit Language (A Supplement to His Sanskrit Grammar)
• Wackernagel, Debrunner, Altindische Grammatik, Göttingen.
  • vol. I. phonology Jacob Wackernagel (1896)
  • vol. II.1. introduction to morphology, nominal composition, Wackernagel (1905)
  • vol. II.2. nominal suffixes, J. Wackernagel and Albert Debrunner (1954)
  • vol. III. nominal inflection, numerals, pronouns, Wackernagel and Debrunner (1930)
• B. Delbrück, Altindische Tempuslehre (1876)

Topics in Sanskrit morphology and syntax

• Frits Staal, Word order in Sanskrit and Universal Grammar, Foundations of Language, supplementary series 5, Springer (1967), ISBN 978-90-277-0549-5.

External links

• Vedic Society Sandhi Calculator
• Online tool to perform and undo Sanskrit sandhi effects
• Little Red Book
• Sanskrit grammars
• Sanskrit grammar Laghu-Siddanta-Kaumudi (English & Tamil Lectures)
• Sanskrit grammar Video AdiLaghu (English & Tamil)

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