Grammar Flashcards
ablative
The case of nouns and their modifiers expressing causation, departure, separation, and point of origin.
absolutive
A verbal derivative used to express an action, or a series of consecutive actions, done by the subject of the sentence prior to the action denoted by the main verb.
accusative
The case of nouns and their modifiers used principally for the direct object of transitive verbs and secondary objects in double accusatives with verbs of speech, also in certain adverbial expressions.
adverbial compound
a compound that functions adverbially; it is generally indeclinable and in the form of the accusative singular ending in the niggahīta, though sometimes with the case ending retained.
aorist
the past tense of a verb.
bahubbīhi
a compound ending in a noun used as an adjective to describe or represent a noun external to itself; it is declined like the noun it qualifies and agrees with it in gender, number, and case.
case
the form of a noun and its qualifiers that governs its role in the syntax of a sentence.
causative
a form of the verb that expresses its role in causing the action denoted by the primary verb to take place.
compound
a word formed by joining together two or more words in such a way that the combination of words functions as a single unit.
conditional
a form of the verb that expresses a conditional relationship about a counterfactual matter — that is, “if such [which is not the case] were the case.”
dative
the case of nouns and their modifiers that may express the destination of movement, an indirect object, and the purpose of an action.
dvanda
a copulative compound, made up of two or more words that, used separately, would be joined by the conjunction ca.
enclitic
the form of a word, especially the pronouns me, no, te, and vo, that occurs only within a sentence or clause, never at the beginning of a sentence or clause.
future passive participle
a verbal derivative used to express the ideas of necessity, obligation, or fitness, indicating that a certain action should be done, must be done, or is worth doing.
gender
the classification of nouns and their modifiers as masculine, feminine, or neuter.
genitive
the case of nouns and their modifiers that may express a possessive or partitive relation between two nouns, corresponding to the preposition “of” or possessive forms of nouns and pronouns.
imperative
the mood of a verb used to issue a command or make a request.
indeclinable
a word that is not subject to declination by way of case, number, and gender.
infinitive
a form of the verb not specified for any person, number, or tense, usually used with the sense of “to do [the action signified by the verb].”
instrumental
the case of nouns and their modifiers that may express the agent of passive verbs, the instrument of action, the cause or reason of an action or event, the qualities with which someone or something is endowed, persons who accompany the subject, and the accompaniment of an action.
interrogative
a sentence (or part of speech) that poses a question.
itaritara
a dvanda compound in which the joined terms constitute a plural and take the gender and case of the last member.
kammadhāraya
a descriptive determinative compound, a compound made up of two members, with the first modifying the second as an attributive adjective, a noun, or an adverb.
locative
the case of nouns and their modifiers that expresses location and position in space and time; it is also used for the object referred to by nouns of desire and knowledge.
locative absolute
a construction used to show a situation with a subordinate subject and action/event, distinct from the main subject and its action/event in the primary clause; the subordinate subject along with the terms that qualify it and its action/event, represented by either the past participle or present participle, all occur in the locative case.
middle voice
the form of a verb and present participle originally used to denote an action that accrues only to the subject (as contrasted with an action that passes from a subject to an object), but in Pāli confined mostly to verse and elevated prose, without necessarily signifying an action that inheres only in the subject.
niggahīta
the pure nasal sound attached to certain vowels, represented by -ṃ.
nominative
the case of a noun and its modifiers used to represent the grammatical subject of a sentence.
number
the determination of nouns, their modifiers, verbs, and verbal derivatives by way of the distinction of singular or plural.
optative
the form of a verb that expresses what should be done, can be done, or might happen.
past participle
a verbal derivative based on an action that has already occurred whose effect continues; it can function as an adjective or a noun, or it may take the place of the verb of the sentence. Some past participles (such as nisinna, ṭhita, and paṭipanna) function almost as present participles.
person:
the determination of pronouns and verbs as referring to oneself and those in one’s group (first person), another person or persons whom one is addressing (second person), or another person, persons, or things to whom or to which one is referring (third person).
present participle
a verbal derivative used to describe an action performed by a subject or occurring to an object at roughly the same time as the action denoted by the main verb of the sentence; in English it corresponds to forms ending in -ing.
prohibitive
a sentence (or part of speech) that forbids an action.
samāhāra
a dvanda in which the joined terms constitute a neuter singular; some, however, take the case ending of the last term, for instance, chandarāgo and lābhasakkārasiloko.
sandhi
the changes that letters undergo in their combinations and encounters with other letters, both within a word and when words meet.
syntactical compound
a compound of two or more words joined together, in which some components retain the syntactical form they would have had in a non-compounded statement.
tappurisa
a dependent determinative compound, a compound made up of two members with the first dependent on the second.
vocative
the case of a noun as it is used to address someone or a group of people.
