Grammar and Language Usage (Vyakaran): Agreement, Postpositions, Ergative Past
Grammar and Language Usage (Vyakaran)
Vyakaran tests script recognition, gender and number, postpositions, the genitive, verb agreement, tense forms, negation and question-making. Sindhi is written right-to-left in the Perso-Arabic script with 52 letters, and dots are phonemic - one dot changes the word.
Core rules
- Two genders only. Learn each noun with its gender, because adjectives and verbs agree.
- The genitive جو، جي، جا agrees with the possessed noun: منهنجو ڀاءُ (my brother), منهنجي ڀيڻ (my sister), منهنجا ڀائر (my brothers), منهنجيون ڀيڻون (my sisters).
- Postpositions follow the noun and take the oblique: گهر ۾ (in the house), اسڪول تي (at school), شهر کان (from the city), قلم سان (with the pen), ٻارن لاءِ (for the children).
- Habitual present uses ٿو/ٿي/ٿا/ٿيون agreeing with the subject: مان ٿو وڃان، هئي ٿي وڃي، اسان ٿا وڃون.
- Transitive perfective is ergative: the subject takes مون/تون/هن and the verb agrees with the object: مون خط لکيو (masculine object), مون چٺي لکي (feminine object).
Worked example
Fill in: مون روٽي ___ (کائڻ). Reasoning: the verb is transitive and perfective, and the subject is مون, so agreement moves to the object روٽي, feminine singular, giving کاڌي. With a masculine object the form would be کاڌو. Forms agreeing with the subject are wrong here.
Traps that cost marks
- Using جو with a feminine noun.
- Placing the postposition before the noun, by Hindi/English transfer.
- Forgetting the oblique plural before a postposition (ٻارن لاءِ, not ٻار لاءِ).
- Mismatching ٿو/ٿي with the subject's gender.
- Confusing ڪ/ک, گ/ڳ and ٽ/ٺ in spelling.