Since we are going to deal with the plurals of nouns, which are obviously in the nominative case, this grammar topic is actually a subset of Declensions. Konkani  nouns in our vocabulary list are going to include four principal parts: the nominative singular, singular flex stem, nominative plural and the plural flex stem. In this section we are going to deal with the third principal parts of nouns, viz., the nominative plural. Thus we are giving this topic a special treatment because of its importance.  However, today we shall restrict ourselves to masculine nouns only.

1. Masculine nouns that end in o

 , form their plural by changing the o into e. These are the most regular masculine nouns.

Examples:
ghoddo 

(horse) becomes ghodde   (horses), cheddo  (boy) becomes chedde  (boys).

Sometimes, however, the change in the vowel (from o to e) may be accompanied by a change in the preceding consonant as well. This happens in three cases:

a) when the preceding consonant is an s 

which changes to x  and
b) when the preceding consonant is a z  which changes to j.  

Examples:
 a) The plural of kollso 

(= a water pot)  is kollxe;  the plural of sonso  (rabbit) is sonxe. 

b) The plural of bhozo 

(=bhuja or pakoda) is bhoje. 

There is a third case wherein while the preceding consonant remains the same as far as the spelling is concerned, the sound of that consonant changes.

Example:
Mocho 

(shoe) changes to moche.

2. Masculine nouns whose last vowel is either an ê

 or an ô form their plurals by opening out the last vowel, i.e. ê  becomes e, while ô  changes to o.

Examples:
Khêll 

(sports, game) becomes khell , vôdd  (banyan tree) changes to vodd  and fatôr  (stone) forms its plural by changing into fator.  Exception: xêtt  (goldsmith) does not change its form in the plural.

3. All other masculine nouns retain the same form in the (nominative) plural.

Examples:
the words raza 

(king), razu  (rope), kantt  (edge) remain unchanged in the plural.

This case is particularly tricky and while the native Konkani speakers like me have no problem juggling the singular, plural, masculine, feminine and neuter on both sides of the pronouns — the inside as well as the outside (I’ll shortly explain what I mean), those who are learning Konkani are bound to feel lost in this little grammatical jungle. That is why I would like to insist once again that those who want to learn the language should not trundle along the grammatical path: use this grammar section only as a source of reference.

Here are the genitives of pronouns:

SINGULAR				PLURAL
Masc. & Neut.		Fem.
Mhozo, mhoji, mhojem…			my,  mine	amcho …	our(s)
Tuzo, tuji, tujem…			your, yours	tumcho…	your(s)
Tacho … .		Ticho …	his, her(s), its	tancho …	their(s)

Now, if you have not yet realized it yet,  that’s a potpourri of first, second and third persons; singulars and plurals; masculines, feminines and neuters.

Let’s take the third person feminine singular: she. The genitive is her. That’s simple enough in English. But let’s take the corresponding Konkani  (not word but) words. If you want to say, “her shoe”, it is ticho mocho 

(masc. sing.); but “her shoes” is tiche moche (masc. pl.). Now is ticho (her) masculine or feminine? Well it is both: the first part refers to a lady (her) so it is feminine, but cho refers to a shoe which is masculine in Konkani. So ticho is masculine!

Next, let us take a feminine possession of hers: sotri

(umbrella).  Sotri is feminine. “Her umbrella” is tichi sotri;  “her umbrellas” would be: ticheô sotreô .

And  what about the neuter like ful

(flower)? “Her flower” is tichem ful ; while “her flowers” would be tichim fulam .

This is a problem with genitives in other languages as well: Portuguese, Spanish, French, Marathi … The best way to tackle this problem is to consider the genitives as adjectives, as indeed they are. Take the case of the adjective, tambddo

= red. The word tambddo refers to a masculine noun, like tambddo kando = red onion. If kando is replaced by a neuter noun like ful, the adjective changes to neuter too, thus: tambddem ful . You have surely heard the Konkani song, Tambdde Roza tuje pole? Now Roza is a lady and she is singular alright (and probably single as well!). But pole is the plural of polo (= cheek)  which is masculine. Hence tambdde, which refers to her cheeks, is masculine plural.

So it is with all genitives in Konkani. They may be first, second or third person, singular or plural, masculine, feminine or neuter …  all that is immaterial to its ending, which will agree with the noun it qualifies.

But there is a better way at looking at genitives: all genitives are, after all, nothing but adjectives and are to be treated like the most regular adjectives. And just as adjectives in general agree with the nouns they qualify, so too do the genitives. And this applies to all genitives, not just the genitives of personal pronouns.

As I have said earlier, the two most important sections of Konkani grammar are conjugations and declensions. It might perhaps appear more systematic to first cover the conjugations in their entirety and then move on to declensions. However, I don’t believe that would be a practical proposition. Instead, I  have decided to treat both of them almost alternately and also deal with other grammatical issues, side by side.  So let me start with a little introduction to a somewhat complex aspect of our language: its declensions.

I don’t need to define what a declension is. I would rather describe declensions simply as different forms that a noun, a pronoun or an adjective can take to perform its different functions and in the process convey different meanings. Let us take a simple example: the English pronoun, I. I is said to be in the nominative  (that is, the plainest) form, and it can take various other forms like my, mine and me. In the sentence, “You can see me”, the word me is the direct object of the verb to see, and that is called the accusative.

However the same word me can also be an indirect object in another sentence, “Please give me the book”.  In this second sentence, the book is the direct object of give and is in the accusative case, while me is the indirect object and is said to be in the dative. Note that the word me takes the same form both in the accusative (as in “you can see me“) and in the dative (as in “give me the book”), except that, when you use the word in the dative, the sentence can be slightly altered and the word me can be replaced by to me, which would not be possible with the word book. Thus, instead of saying, “Give me the book,” you could say, “Give the book to me”, but you cannot say, “Give me to the book.”  In Konkani too, the accusative and dative forms of words are often identical, just like in English, but they play different roles in the respective sentences when they are declined differently.

My is yet another form of I, and it is called the genitive. Now, all the forms that the word I takes, e.g., me, mine and my, are called cases. So far we have spoken about the nominative, accusative, dative and genitive cases. But in Konkani, there are other cases as well, viz., the vocative, the instrumental, the locative and the ablative. And then there are the post positions which correspond exactly to prepositions but are grammatically just a fraction of an inch away from the declensions. We shall cover all these in due time.

When a Konkani noun or adjective is declined, it takes different forms or inflections for different cases. But in each of these inflections there are two distinct modifications that take place in the word: first, the word takes what I call a flex stem (some grammarians call it a crude form), and this flex stem then takes on the desired case ending to form different cases.  Let us take a simple Konkani word put 

(meaning son). That is the nominative singular of the word. Now if you want to change it to any other case (in the singular), you have first to get to its flex stem, which is puta. (As it happens, that brings us directly to the vocative case, because this flex stem itself, i.e.,  puta, happens to be the vocative, meaning “O son”; and such, in fact, is the case with all Konkani nouns in the singular: the naked flex stem itself, without any appendage to it, is the vocative singular of that noun which, however, isn’t the case with the vocative plurals).

Now what we have done so far with the word put, is to shape it into its flex stem, puta. If you then want to put the word put into any other case: genitive, dative or any other (except the vocative, as explained above), all you have to do is to grab its flex stem, and append to it the necessary case ending. Thus if you want the genitive case (i.e., of the son or son‘s), all you have to do is to take the flex stem puta and add the case ending cho 

(or chi  or chem  etc.) and you get the genitive: putacho (or putachi, etc.). Or if you want to change the word to its dative (to the son), you just need to add k to the flex stem puta to give you the dative (or accusative) putak. In the same way, in order to get the instrumental case, you take the same flex stem puta and add the case ending n and you get putan.

Once you understand this inflection technique, you will find it much easier to decline any noun, masculine, feminine or neuter, into any case you need to. What you must know is that every noun can have two flex stems, one for the singular and the other for the plural, while every declension too can have two case endings, one for the singular and the other for the plural. As simple as that.

What about the plural inflections? To complete our illustration, let us take the plural of put, i.e., son. The nominative plural here, put, happens to be the same as the nominative singular, put, so that “one son” = ek put,

 while “five sons” = panch put  — the word put remaining unchanged. (Such isn’t often the case, though).

Now let us proceed with the other cases in the plural. The plural flex stem of put is putam.

 In fact, all plural flex stems end with the nasal m (although our spelling conventions may require this m to be changed to n in the case of certain case endings, i.e., for certain inflections). Thus the vocative and the instrumental plural of put are putamnô  and putamnim  respectively, while the genitive and the dative are putancho (chi, chem etc.)  and putank  respectively.  That may not be so hard to remember, because whether the plural flex stem ends with an m or an n depends on the particular case ending and not on the noun, and so it applies to all plural nouns irrespective of their gender.

All this may initially appear to be a little complicated, but it isn’t really as hard to learn as it may appear. Future posts will explain and exemplify things and make them clearer. However, I am convinced that the best way to tackle declensions is to package them along with the vocabulary. So, when learning Konkani nouns, you do what the Romans do, or rather, adopt a method similar to what Latin students use: when learning a Konkani noun, bundle it up with its plural as well as its singular and plural flex stems! In other words, let vocabulary-learning take some load of (and off) the Konkani grammar! To continue with our example of the word put, when you learn the Konkani word for son, you learn the word thus: put, puta, put, putam,

 i.e., nominative singular followed by the  singular flex stem, then nominative plural followed by the plural flex stem. And you do this with every noun you come across!

Konkani Made Easy!

 

 

You are certainly aware that asonk, i.e., the Konkani verb to be, is intransitive, which means that the action is not passed on to an object, because it has no object. However, unlike many other languages, Konkani intransitive verbs agree with the subject both in number and gender in most tenses. And that is certainly true of the simple past. This is how it is conjugated:

Affirmative

S i n g u l a r
Written/formal	Spoken
Hanv aslom, aslim, aslim = I was	Hanv ahal’lom, ahal’lim, ahal’lim
Tum asloi, aslii, aslẽi = You (s.) were	Tum ahal’loi, ahal’lii, ahal’lẽi
To aslo, ti asli, tem aslem = He, she, it was	To ahal’lo, ti ahal’li, tem ahal’lem

 

P l u r a l
Written/formal	Spoken
Ami asleanv = We were	Ami ahal’leanv
Tumi asleat = You (pl.) were	Tumi ahal’leat
Te asle, teô asleô, tim aslim = They were	Te ahal’le, teô ahal’leô, tim ahal’lim

 

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Negative

S i n g u l a r
Written/formal	Spoken
Hanv naslom, naslim, naslim = I wasn’t	Hanv nahal’lom, nahal’lim, nahal’lim
Tum nasloi, naslii, naslẽi = You (s.) weren’t	Tum nahal’loi, nahal’lii, nahal’lẽi
To naslo, ti nasli, tem naslem = He, she, it wasn’t	To nahal’lo, ti nahal’li, tem nahal’lem

 

P l u r a l
Written/formal	Spoken
Ami nasleanv = We weren’t	Ami nahal’leanv
Tumi nasleat = You (pl.) weren’t	Tumi nahal’leat
Te nasle, teô nasleô, tim naslim = They weren’t	Te nahal’le, teô nahal’leô, tim nahal’lim

 

 

Just like in other languages, in Konkani there are regular and irregular verbs. As a rule, the most commonly used verbs tend to be irregular. My intention is to fully cover only the most fundamental verb, i.e., the verb to be or asonk. All other irregular verbs will then be treated together in one go under the heading, “Other Irregular Verbs” and will be individually covered as part of the vocabulary. Finally, we shall deal with the regular verbs under their respective conjugations.

The Portuguese language has left its footprints on Konkani, some of which have been deeply embossed and embedded into the framework of our language. One of these is verb number one: to be. If you are familiar with Portuguese or Spanish you are certainly aware of the two verbs that stand for ‘to be‘: estar and ser. The verb estar is used the location and other temporary features of persons or things , whereas the verb ser is used to denote their essential or permanent properties. For instance, when you ask someone, “how are you”, i.e., about the state of his health which can change from time to time, you use the verb estar. On the other hand, when you ask a person who he is, i.e., his name, you  would use the verb ser.

We follow a similar practice in Konkani. And the reason why I feel that this has been influenced by close coexistence with Portuguese is that such is not exactly the case in Marathi. The Konkani verb that corresponds to estar is asonk.

What about the corresponding Konkani verb for ser then? In days gone by, Catholic preachers used to convey the sense of ser with the verb vortonk, which is never used today even by the old time preachers. Instead, in formal speech some use another form, zaun asonk, which is a compounded verb. In normal parlance, however, the verb is just dropped, specially when it is used in the present and often in other tenses as well. For instance, if you want to ask, “Who are you?”, you just drop the verb and ask, “Tum konn?” which is equivalent to “You who?” I would like to add here, that although the verb can be dropped in Marathi as well, it can however be used in Marathi, while it just cannot be used in Konkani. Thus even though in Marathi one would say, “तू कोणॽ”, one could instead say, “तू कोण आहेसॽ”, and it would still be correct. But if you say that in Konkani, “Tum konn ahai?”, it would certainly be wrong.

Let us then start with the simple present of asonk:

Affirmative

S i n g u l a r		P l u r a l
Written/formal	Spoken	Written/formal	Spoken
Hanv asam = I am	Hanv aham	Ami asanv = We are	Ami ahanv = We are
Tum asai = You (s.) are	Tum ahai	Tumi asat = You (pl.) are	Tumi ahat
To, ti, tem asa = We are	To, ti, tem aha	Te, teô, tim asat = They are	Te, teô, tim ahat

 

Negative

S i n g u l a r	P l u r a l
Hanv nam = I am not	Ami nanv = We aren’t
Tum nai = You (s.) aren’t	Tumi nant = You (pl.) aren’t
To, ti, tem na = He, she, it isn’t	Te, teô, tim nant = They aren’t

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As has been mentioned earlier, this feature is not an attempt to teach Konkani. The main aim of this section is to give readers an idea of the structure of the language. Gone are the days when one used to learn a language by studying its grammar and vocabulary. I don’t recommend that method to learn Konkani, simply because it doesn’t work, which is why it has been discarded all the world over as a language learning technique. We shall therefore cater to our visitors’ Konkani learning needs in the Spoken Konkani section, which we shall try to extend even towards written Konkani. This corner therefore will not be used for that purpose but just to present an analysis of the structure of the language, an analysis of its grammar. Read more »