this is a small article that I have written for The Pali Companion.
It is the third and last new item from my new-year working agenda.
The first was "Pali Word by Word" and the second was "Pali Concise
Dictionary 2.0". I did not really do much of research for it, but
only rely on what I have learnt so far. So, before posting it
online, I think it is better to share it with everyone, and ask for
your kind comments and suggestions.
This article is meant to give only a brief introduction to noun
declension in Pali. It is elementary in nature and I confess that it
does not cover the topic in detail. It is more suitable to new
students of Pali who have difficulties understanding noun
declension. This is particularly true because most Pali textbooks
introduce noun declension over many chapters and do not give more
information than are needed to complete the exercises in the books.
So, I have prepared this article to provide a simplistic view of
Pali noun declension at a macro level.
In Pali, nouns are declined according to number, gender and case.
Like most other languages, Pali has only two numbers - singular and
plural, and the nouns change according to the number. This is
similar to English:
eg. Singular Plural
1. man men
2. baby babies
3. leaf leaves
4. boy boys
5. fish fishes
Pali nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. In
Pali, noun gender is grammatical gender, which means there is no
relationship to biological distinction. For example, the words for
monastery (vihaara), sun (suriya) and moon (canda) are masculine.
The words for ship (naavaa), garland (maalaa) and wisdom (pa~n~naa)
are feminine. The words for city (nagara), cloth (vattha) and leaf
(pa.n.na) are neuter.
Therefore, all Pali nouns fall under one of three gender classes:
masculine, feminine and neuter. Within each class the nouns are
grouped according to their last vowel. To the best of my knowledge,
there are only a total of thirteen groups across the three classes.
[Masculine nouns]
1. Words ending with a: nara (man);
2. Words ending with i: gahapati (householder);
3. Words ending with ii: mantii (minister);
4. Words ending with u: bhikkhu (monk);
5. Words ending with uu: viduu (wise man);
[Feminine nouns]
6. Words ending with aa: ammaa (mother);
7. Words ending with i: ratti (night);
8. Words ending with ii: nadii (river);
9. Words ending with u: rajju (rope);
10. Words ending with uu: vadhuu (bride);
[Neuter nouns]
11. Words ending with a: puppha (flower);
12. Words ending with i: akkhi (eye);
13. Words ending with u: assu (tear).
The reader should feel relieved to know that a large portion of the
nouns belong to group 1. So, by knowing the declensions of masculine
nouns ending with a, you are already on a very safe side.
Let's move on to an important aspect of noun declension: noun cases.
There are eight noun cases in Pali, each of them resulting in a
different declension of the noun to represent different
functions/roles. In other languages, there may be more than eight
noun cases.
1. Nominative - represents the subject of a sentence.
Eg. /Tom/ has a dog.
2. Accusative - represents the object of a sentence.
Eg. The dog loves /Tom/.
3. Instrumental - represents the accomplishment of the action.
Eg. The dog plays /with Tom/.
4. Ablative - represents the source.
Eg. Mother takes the dog away /from Tom/.
5. Dative - represents the recipient or beneficiary of an action.
Eg. Uncle give a fish /to Tom/.
6. Genitive - expresses the possessive/associative relationship
between two nouns.
Eg. It is /Tom's/ fish.
7. Locative - represents the location of the subject.
Eg. The fish lives /in a bowl/.
8. Vocative - use when addressing (dialog).
Eg. "Tom!"
Here is an example of how a Pali noun is inflected according to
gender, number and case.
Nara - masculine noun ending with a
The gender is fixed -- masculine, only the number and case vary.