Telugu is an agglutinative language with person, tense, case and number being inflected on the end of nouns and verbs. Its word order is usually subject-object-verb, with the direct object following the indirect object. The grammatical function of the words are marked by suffixes that indicate case and postpositions that follow the oblique stem. It is also head-final and a pro-drop language.
The first treatise on Telugu grammar (), the Andhra Shabda Chintamani () was written in Sanskrit by Nannayya, who is considered the first poet (ādikavi) and grammarian of the Telugu language, in the 11th century CE. In the 13th century, Andhra Bhasha Bhushanamu, a foundational Telugu grammar and vocabulary work, was written by the 13th-century scholar Mulaghatika Ketana, and is considered the first comprehensive Telugu grammar written in Telugu. In the 19th century, Paravastu Chinnaya Suri wrote a simplified work on Telugu grammar called Bāla Vyākaraṇam (lit. Children's grammar), borrowing concepts and ideas from Nannayya, in Telugu.
According to Nannayya, language without 'Niyama' or the language which does not adhere to Vyākaranam is called Grāmya (lit of the village) or Apabhraṃśa, is unfit for literary usage. All literary texts in Telugu follow the Vyākaraṇam. Following pure telugu movement to minimise loan words and maximize usage of native telugu that is naatu telugu, a melimi telugu version is introduced where the term melimi means "fine" or excellence". grammar for this version is telugu nudikattu
Nouns Telugu is more inflected than other literary Dravidian languages. Telugu nouns are inflected for number (singular, plural), gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and grammatical case (nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, locative and vocative).
There is a rich system of derivational morphology in Telugu. Verbs and adjectives can be converted into nouns by adding a variety of suffixes.
Example: verb ceyu + ika = ceyika(action) adjective manchi + thanam = manchithanam (goodness)
Gender Telugu has three genders, which govern verb agreement: masculine ( puliṅgamu), feminine (strī liṅgamu), neuter (napunsaka liṅgamu).
In Telugu the occurrence of the suffix (–ḍu) almost always encodes masculine gender. For example: tammuḍu (younger brother), mukhyuḍu (important man), Rāmuḍu (Rāma), nāyakuḍu (leader).
However, there are nouns that do not end in (-ḍu) that belong to the masculine class. For example: annayya (elder brother), māmayya (uncle).
Most of the words ending in -ḍu are borrowings from Sanskrit words ending in -a, and therefore the feminine forms of these words are equivalent to the Sanskrit words.
MasculineSanskrit originalFeminine nartakuḍu nartaka nartaki vācakuḍu vācaka vācaki premikuḍu premika preyasi Sometimes, a word ending in -ḍu is feminized by adding the suffix -ālu to the root. The -a ending of the root becomes -ur. This phenomenon is known as the rugāgama sandhi. MasculineSanskrit original Feminine nartakuḍu nartaka nartakurālu priyuḍu priya priyurālu bhaktuḍu bhakta bhakturālu
Neuter-gendered words usually contain the suffix -amu. This suffix descends from the Old Telugu suffix -ambu and is increasingly losing the final -u to become -aṁ. These neuter words are often borrowed from Sanskrit words ending in -a or -u. The final -a usually becomes -amu, and the final -u becomes -uvu. +Sanskrit originalTeluguākāśaākāśamumadhumadhuvu However, Telugu sometimes uses the same forms for singular feminine and neuter genders– the third person pronoun (అది ) can be used to refer to animals and objects.
Number Anything with quantity one is singular (ekavachanam). Anything more than one in number is called plural (bahuvachanam), as in English. Formation of the plural stem, however, is relatively complicated, although the ending is centred on variants -lu or -ḷu.
In Telugu the plural is also used to as an honorific. Some nouns are always plural and some are always singular. For example, water (nīru) and milk (pālu) are always plural.
God (bhagavantudu), sun (suryudu), earth (bhūmi), and moon (chandrudu) are always singular form.
Plural formation + Rules Rule Telugu English Notes Exceptions Singular Plural 0 āvu āvulu cow No modification of the stem, and variant -lu is used. cellelu → celleṇḍḷu, celleḷḷu "younger sister" cēnu → cēlu "field with a crop" kūturu → kūtuṇḍḷu, kūtuḷḷu "daughter" eddu → eddulu, eḍḷu "bullock" pēnu → pēlu "louse" 1 cōṭu cōṭḷu place Vowels in -ṭ[i/u], -ṇṭ[i/u], or -ṇḍ[i/u] in the singular is deleted, and variant -ḷu is used. Forms in -ṇḍḷu varies with -ḷḷu, used in western and eastern dialects, respectively. paṇḍu paṇḍḷupaḷḷu fruit 2 kālu kāḷḷu leg -ḍ[i/u], -l[i/u], or -r[i/u] (-li or -ri are limited to nouns with at least 3 syllables) in the singular are replaced by -ḷḷu. Some instances of -ḷḷu have alternative form -rlu. alluḍu → alluṇḍḷu, alluḷḷu "son-in-law" ēḍu → ēṇḍḷu, ēḷḷu "year" jītagāḍu → jītagāṇḍḷu, jītagāḷḷu "servant" kāḍi → kāṇḍḷu, kāḷḷu "yoke" kumāruḍu → kumārulu, kumāruḷḷu "son" manamarālu → manamarāṇḍḷu, manamarāḷḷu "granddaughter" pēru pēḷḷupērlu name koḍavali → koḍavanḍḷu, koḍavaḷḷu "sickle" -gāri → -gārlu "a honorific suffix" -sāri → -sārlu "time" 3 guḍḍu guḍḷu egg -ṭṭ[i/u] and -ḍḍ[i/u] in the singular change into -ṭ- and -ḍ- before variant -ḷu. 4 illu iṇḍḷuiḷḷu house -llu and -nnu in the singular are replaced by -ṇḍḷu or -ḷḷu. junnu → junnulu "kind of cheese" pannu → pannulu "tax" ponnu → ponnulu "iron ring" tannu → tannulu "beating" ṭannu → ṭannulu "tonne" vennu → vennulu "back, ear of corn" 5 pustakam pustakālu book -[a/ā]m and -em in the singular are replaced by -ā- and -ē- before variant -lu. 6 abbāy(i) abbāy(i)lu son, boy The vowel in -yi- is sometimes deleted, and variant -lu is used. 7 cēyiceyyi cētulu hand -(y)yi in the singular is replaced by -tulu, and the vowel preceding -yyi becomes long after pluralization (ceyyi → cētulu). poyyi → poyyilu, poyilu "hearth" rāyi → rāḷḷu "rock" veyyi → vēlu "thousand" 8 pilli pillulu cat The vowel -i- is replaced by -u-, and the variant -lu is used. In native nouns with more than three syllables, all instances of -i- is ablauted to -u-. peṇḍḷi, peḷḷi → peṇḍḷinḍḷu, peḷḷiḷḷu "marriage" rātri → rātriḷḷu "night" vari → vaḍlu "paddy" maniṣi manuṣulu person
Numerals Cardinal numbers and quantifiers in Telugu vary based on whether or not the noun being counted is human, or non-human. The numbers from 1-7 have unique forms between the human and non-human forms, whereas numbers greater than 7 simply use the measure word మంది mandi to denote number. Ordinal numbers merely replace the final vowel of the non-human cardinal form with -ō and do not vary between human and non-human nouns. +12345678910Non-Humanఒక oka (prepositive)ఒకటి okaṭiరెండు reṇḍuమూడు mūḍuనాలుగు nāluguఐదు aiduఆరు āruఏడు ēḍuఎనిమిది enimidiతొమ్మిది tommidiపది padiHumanఒకడు okaḍu (male informal)ఒకతే okatē (female informal)ఒకరు okaru (respectful)ఇద్దరు iddaruముగ్గురు mugguruనలుగురు naluguruఐదుగురు aiduguruఆరుగురు āruguruఏడుగురు ēḍuguruఎనిమిది మంది enimidi mandiతొమ్మిది మంది tommidi mandiపది మంది padi mandiOrdinalమొదటి, ఒకటో modaṭi, okaṭōరెండో reṇḍōమూడో mūḍōనాలుగో nālugōఐదో aidōఆరో ārōఏడో ēḍōఎనిమిదో enimidōతొమ్మిదో tommidōపదో padō
Case A Grammar of Modern Telugu by Krishnamurti and Gwynn (1985), which focuses on a grammatical description of modern spoken Telugu rather than classical literary Telugu, presents a simple analysis of grammatical case, in comparison with classical Telugu:
Only the nominative, genitive, accusative, and dative cases are regularly used, and the locative case is formed using the suffixes -lō, -lōpala which were originally placed in the Genitive case by traditional grammarians to fit into the Sanskrit case scheme. The instrumental+sociative case suffix is -tō (while classical has -cēn/-cētan for instrumental and -tōn/-tōḍan for sociative); the colloquial suffixes for ablative case are -nuṇḍi/-nuñci. Ablative case is also used for comparative statements in colloquial Telugu, for which the suffixes are -kaṇṭe/-kannā. Another usage of ablative case is to indicate 'because of' noun, where the suffix -valla (classical -valanan) is used. The benefactive suffixes in classical (-koṟakun/-kai) are completely replaced by -kōsam in modern colloquial Telugu. The genitive form of a noun is defaulted to its oblique stem, i.e., oblique stem of a noun serves as its genitive case by default, though an explicit suffix -yokka is used in formal contexts (refer to oblique stem formation below).
The accusative case suffix is -ni/-nu, with the former always used after final syllables containing -i-, and the latter elsewhere but freely varies with -ni. The intervening vowel is sometimes deleted between -ḍ-, -l-, -n-, -ṇ-, -r- and the suffix, e.g. mimmala "you (plural) + -ni → mimmalni, vāḍi "him" + -ni → vāṇṇi (*-ḍni → -ṇṇi).
In neuter nouns, the nominative singular ending -am changes before the accusative and dative case suffixes, such that the combined forms of these endings are neuter accusative singular -ānni (← *-ānini) and neuter dative singular -āniki. +CaseSuffixExampleDative-ki/-kuఅతను బడికి వెళ్తాడు Atanu baḍiki veḷtāḍu He goes to schoolAccusative-ni/-nuఅతను అబ్బాయిని చూస్తాడు Atanu abbāyini cūstāḍu He sees the boySociative + Instrumental-tōఅతను కుక్కతో ఆడుకుంటాడు Atanu kukkatō āḍukuṇṭāḍu He plays with the dog
అతను చేతితో రాస్తున్నాడు
Atanu cētitō rāstunnāḍu He is writing using handAblative-nuṇḍi/-nuñci ('from') -kaṇṭē/-kannā (comparative)
-valla ('because of')అతను ఇంటినుండి బయలుదేరాడు Atanu iṇṭinuṇḍi bayaludērǣḍu He set out from home
అతనికంటే నేను పొడుగు
Atanikaṇṭē nēnu poḍugu I am taller than him
అతనివల్ల నేను ఓడిపొయ్యాను
Atanivalla ōḍipoyyǣnu I have lost because of himLocative-lō/lōpalaఅతను గదిలో ఉన్నాడు Atanu gadilō unnāḍu He is in the room
Oblique stem formation Formation of the oblique stem, also usually but not always the same as the genitive (by default homophonous unless noted), is relatively complicated just like pluralization. The plural oblique stem, however, is either -la or -ḷa.
+ Classes Class Telugu English Notes Nominative Oblique A ceṭṭu ceṭṭu- tree No change. B kālu kāli- leg Human nouns ending in -ḍu, -lu, -nu, or -ru (including a few non-human nouns ending in -lu or -ru) replace -u with -i. C gūḍu gūṭi- nest Non-human nouns ending in -ḍ[i/u], -l[i/u], -r[i/u] replace the endings with -ṭi. D illu iṇṭi- house Only limited to nouns cannu "breast", illu "house", kannu "eye", oḷḷu "body", pannu "teeth", and villu "bow". kannu kaṇṭi- eye E cēyiceyyi cēti- hand Only limited to nouns cēyi "hand", gōyi "pit", nēyi "ghee", nūyi "well", rāyi "stone", gorru "hearth", and Parru, all of them except the last three show variation between -V̄yi vs. -Vyyi. gorru gorti hearth F kalam kalāni- pen All nouns ending in -am replace the ending with -āni, although the genitive is homophonous with nominative instead of the oblique stem.
Examples Only nominative, genitive, accusative, and dative cases are shown here. + kukka "dog" Singular Plural Nominative kukka kukkalu Genitive kukkala Accusative kukkani kukkalani Dative kukkaki kukkalaki
Sentence Structure Telugu word order tends to be subject–object–verb. It is head-final - the head follows its complements. Since Telugu is a pro-drop language, the subject can be omitted as the verb already marks person and number.
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 sandhis can be divided into native ones and those derived from Sanskrit ones.
Sanskrit Sandhis These sandhis usually take place when the two words undergoing Sandhi are words borrowed from Sanskrit.
Savarṇadīrghasandhi (Vowel lengthening)