Grammatical Terms

This page contains a list of almost all of the technical terms used on the website. These terms first appeared in bold blue type; but, terms that were not defined within the main text are not featured. A dash () indicates that the term is the same as the one to the left of it in the table. A blank spot indicates that no term exists.

Below, each term is provided with three others:

Like many parts of this site, this page is a work in progress.

General grammar terms

The terms here refer to general grammatical concepts, and many of them exist in other languages.

Website TermEnglish TermSanskrit TermPanini's Term
adjectiveviśeṣaṇa
adverb
agreement
aspiratedmahāprāṇa
ātmanepadamiddle voiceātmanepada
casevibhakti
case 1 (subject)nominative caseprathamā
case 2 (object)accusative casedvitīyā
case 3 ("with")instrumental casetṛtīyā
case 4 ("for")dative casecaturthī
case 5 ("from")ablative casepañcamī
case 6 ("of")genitive caseṣaṣṭhī
case 7 ("in")locative casesaptamī
case 8 (address)vocative casesaṃbodhana
causal verbcausativeṇijanta
command moodimperative moodājñāloṭ
compound (word)samāsa
compound voweldiphthongsaṃdhyakṣaraec
conditional moodsaṃketalṛṅ
consonantvyañjanahal
desiderativesannanta
distant future tenseperiphrastic futureanadyatanaluṭ
distant past tenseperfectparokṣabhūtaliṭ
doublingreduplicationabhyāsa
dual (number)dvivacana
dvandvacopulative compounddvandva
feminine genderstrīliṅga
first personuttama
genderliṅga
gerundgerundktvānta
grammatical case(see "case")
grammarvyākaraṇa
hard palatetālu
heavy (syllable)guru
intensiveyaṇanta
light (syllable)laghu
lipoṣṭha
long voweldīrgha
masculine genderpuṃliṅga
medium vowelfull grade vowelguṇa
nasalanunāsika
neuter gendernapuṃsakaliṅga
noun endingsup
noun from verbdenominativenāmadhātu
nounsubanta
numbervacana
objectkarman
option moodpresent optativevidhilaṅ
ordinary future tensesimple futurebhaviṣyan
ordinary past tenseimperfectanadyatanabhūtalaṅ
parasmaipadaactive voiceparasmaipada
participle
personpuruṣapuruṣa
plural (number)bahuvacana
point of pronunciationpoint of articulationsthāna
prefix(see "verb prefix")
present tensepresent indicativevartamānalaṭ
primary (suffix)kṛt
pronounsarvanāman
recent past tenseaoristbhūtaluṅ
"s"-soundsibilantūṣman
sandhi
second personmadhyamamadhyama
secondary (suffix)taddhita
semivowelantaḥstha
short vowelhrasva
simple vowelsamānākṣara
singular (number)ekavacana
soft palatekaṇṭha
stem (of a noun)prātipadika
stem (of any word)aṅga
stopsparśa
strong vowellengthened grade vowelvṛddhi
subjectkartṛ
suffixpratyaya
syllableakṣara
third personprathama
toothdanta
ubhayapadaubhayapada
unaspiratedalpaprāṇa
uninflected wordavyayaavyaya
unvoicedaghoṣa
verb classgaṇa
verb endingtiṅ
verb prefixupasargaupasarga
verb rootdhātu
verbtiṅanta
verbless sentencenominal sentence
voicedghoṣavat
vowelsvaraac

Specialized Grammar Terms

Sanskrit textbooks tend to share a set of conventional terms for talking about Sanskrit. Some of these terms are below:

Website TermConventional TermSanskrit TermPanini's Term
-a+ classClass 1bhvādigaṇa
-a0 classClass 6tudādigaṇa
-aya classClass 10curādigaṇa
-nā classClass 9kryādigaṇa
nasal classClass 7rudhādigaṇa
-no classClass 5svādigaṇa
-o classClass 8tadādigaṇa
-ya classClass 4divādigaṇa
doubling classClass 3juhotyādigaṇa
root classClass 2adādigaṇa