Core Morphological Terms

Morphology: The study of the internal structure of words and how they are formed from smaller meaningful units called morphemes. In Hindi, this includes the study of how words change form to indicate grammatical relationships.

Morpheme: The smallest meaningful unit of language that cannot be further divided. In Hindi, examples include "लड़क" (root) and "आ" (suffix) in "लड़का" (boy).

Root (मूल): The core meaning-bearing part of a word that remains after removing all affixes. Example: "लड़क" in "लड़का", "लड़के", "लड़की".

Affix (प्रत्यय): A morpheme that is attached to a root to modify its meaning or grammatical function. In Hindi, includes prefixes, suffixes, and infixes.

Inflectional Morphology (रूपात्मक रचना): Word formation that changes grammatical features (like number, gender, case) without changing the word's core meaning or category.

Derivational Morphology (शब्द-रचना): Word formation that creates new words, often changing the grammatical category (e.g., "खुश" → "खुशी").

Hindi-Specific Grammatical Features

Gender (लिंग): A grammatical category that classifies nouns and related words in Hindi. Hindi has three genders:

• पुल्लिंग (Masculine): लड़का (boy), घर (house)
• स्त्रीलिंग (Feminine): लड़की (girl), किताब (book)
• नपुंसकलिंग (Neuter): पानी (water), दूध (milk)

Number (वचन): Indicates whether a word refers to one (singular) or more than one (plural) entity:

• एकवचन (Singular): लड़का (boy)
• बहुवचन (Plural): लड़के (boys)

Case (कारक): Indicates the grammatical function of a noun in a sentence. In Hindi, there are two main cases:

• कर्ता कारक (Direct Case): Used when no postposition follows the noun
• कर्म कारक (Oblique Case): Used when a postposition follows the noun

Postposition (परसर्ग): A word that follows a noun to indicate grammatical relationships. Common Hindi postpositions include:

• का/की/के (of, belonging to)
• को (to, for)
• में (in, within)
• से (from, by, with)
• पर (on, upon)

Hindi Morphological Patterns

Sandhi (सन्धि): The process of combining morphemes with sound changes. In Hindi, this includes:

• स्वर सन्धि (Vowel Sandhi): Combining vowels
• व्यंजन सन्धि (Consonant Sandhi): Combining consonants
• विसर्ग सन्धि (Visarga Sandhi): Changes involving visarga (ः)

Agreement (सहमति): The requirement that related words share grammatical features:

• Gender Agreement: Adjectives must agree with nouns in gender
• Number Agreement: Verbs must agree with subjects in number
• Case Agreement: Postpositions require specific case forms

Declension (रूप रचना): The systematic variation of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives according to grammatical categories.

Conjugation (क्रिया रूप): The systematic variation of verbs according to tense, aspect, mood, person, and number.

Hindi Word Formation Patterns

Suffixation (प्रत्यय जोड़ना): Adding suffixes to roots to create new words:

• -आ: Masculine singular marker (लड़का)
• -ई: Feminine marker (लड़की)
• -ए: Masculine plural/oblique (लड़के)
• -ें: Feminine plural (लड़कियाँ)
• -ों: Oblique plural marker (लड़कों)

Compounding (समास): Combining two or more words to form a new word:

• तत्पुरुष समास: Dependent compound (राजधानी = राज + धानी)
• द्वंद्व समास: Coordinative compound (माता-पिता = mother and father)
• बहुव्रीहि समास: Descriptive compound (नीलकंठ = blue-throated)

Reduplication (द्विरुक्ति): Repeating a word or part of a word:

• Complete Reduplication: पानी-पानी (water everywhere)
• Partial Reduplication: चलते-चलते (while walking)

Computational Morphology Terms

Morphological Analysis: The process of breaking down words into their constituent morphemes and identifying their grammatical features.

Morphological Generation: The process of creating word forms from roots and grammatical specifications.

Morphological Paradigm: The complete set of inflected forms of a word, showing all possible grammatical variations.

Morphological Dictionary: A computational resource that maps word forms to their morphological analyses.

Stemming: The process of removing affixes to find the root or stem of a word.

Lemmatization: The process of finding the base form (lemma) of a word, considering its grammatical context.

Hindi Linguistic Terms

Devanagari (देवनागरी): The writing system used for Hindi and several other Indian languages.

Matra (मात्रा): Diacritical marks that modify consonants to represent vowels in Devanagari.

Halant (हलन्त): A diacritical mark (्) that removes the inherent vowel from a consonant.

Chandrabindu (चन्द्रबिन्दु): A diacritical mark (ँ) that represents nasalization.

Anusvara (अनुस्वार): A diacritical mark (ं) that represents nasalization.

Visarga (विसर्ग): A diacritical mark (ः) that represents aspiration.

Analysis and Processing Terms

Lexical Category (शब्द भेद): The grammatical class of a word (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, postposition, conjunction).

Word Form (शब्द रूप): A specific inflectional or derivational variant of a root word.

Morphological Richness (रूपात्मक समृद्धि): The degree to which a language uses inflectional morphology to encode grammatical information.

Morphological Productivity (रूपात्मक उत्पादकता): The ability of a morphological pattern to create new words.

Morphological Transparency (रूपात्मक पारदर्शिता): The degree to which the meaning of a complex word can be predicted from its parts.

Language Family Terms

Indo-Aryan Languages: A branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, and many other languages of South Asia.

Sanskrit (संस्कृत): The classical language of India and the ancestor of many modern Indian languages, including Hindi.

Prakrit (प्राकृत): Middle Indo-Aryan languages that developed from Sanskrit and gave rise to modern Indian languages.

Apabhramsha (अपभ्रंश): Late Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were the immediate predecessors of modern Indian languages.

Hindustani (हिन्दुस्तानी): The colloquial language that underlies both Hindi and Urdu, before they were standardized as separate languages.