Chapter II Nouns

The word 'Noun' comes from the Latin word nōmen (name) – a translation of the
Ancient Greek word ónoma. A noun is a word that functions as the name of some
specific thing or set of things such as living creatures, objects, substance, places,
actions, qualities, concepts, states of existence or ideas.

Nouns form a lexical category. Such categories are defined in terms of the ways in
which their members combine with other kinds of expressions. These combinations
call for syntactic intervention. The syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to
language. Some common structural and semantic features can be derived through
which nouns can be identified.

... in English the noun does still possess certain formal

characteristics which attach to no other class of words.
These are the prefixing of an article or demonstrative,
the use of an inflectional sign to denote possession and
plurality, and union with prepositions to mark relations
originally indicated by inflectional endings. The
presence of any of these features is sufficient to fix the
class to which a word belongs. (Zeitlin 142)

For example: this purse (demonstrative), bags (plurality), Indu's car (possession), the
mother in the kitchen (preposition)

By formation, the nouns are divided into two categories:

(1) Simple (sāduN) nouns – nouns without suffixes/prefixes presented only in the base
form and
(2) Derivative (sādhit) nouns – nouns formed by adding suffixes/prefixes.

Nouns normally do not have any fixed form or definite shape. In English, many
monosyllabic nouns cannot be identified through their forms. For example: woman,
girl, parrot, prince, goat etc. On the other hand, many polysyllabic nouns can be

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identified by suffixes used to derive nouns from other nouns, verbs or adjectives. For
example: management, agreement (-ment); producer, fighter (-er); facilitation,
appreciation (-ation); regularity, plurality (-ity); sharpness, smartness (-ness); realism,
absenteeism (-ism), humanist, artist (-ist); friendship, trusteeship (-ship); manhood,
girlhood (-hood). Gujarati also has some such suffixes creating nouns from any other
parts if speech. For example: suNdaratā (beauty), namratā (politeness) (-tā);
namaṇāsh, mīṭhāsh (sweetness) (-āsh); samjāvaṭ (persuation), sajāvaṭ (decoration) (-
vaṭ); shāṇpaṇ (wisebom, gāNḍpaṇ (old age) (paṇ).

Nouns can be classified semantically (by their meanings): common – proper, concrete
– abstract, animate – inanimate, human – non-human. They can be distinguished
morphologically (by their form): count – non-count, singular – plural, masculine –
feminine – neuter, nominative – genitive etc.

Characteristics of Nouns
Following are the common features of nouns found in both the languages:
 Nouns are generally thought to be 'naming' words. They present vast range of
reference such as person, place, thing, idea, feeling etc.
 They are normally stative in nature.
 New nouns are formed or borrowed frequently as per the requirement of the
users.
 Both the languages have nouns that are animate and inanimate; human and
non-human; proper and common; collective and mass; concrete and abstract.
 They are count or non-count. Count nouns are singular or plural. Non-count
nouns are always singular.
 They may be measurable or immeasurable.
 They are marked or remain unmarked.
 They are declinable (variable) or indeclinable (invariable).
 They trigger agreement at phrase and clause levels.
 They inflect for gender, number and case.
 They can be replaced by pronouns.

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  When placed in sentences, they turn into noun phrases. The noun or pronoun
takes the role of the head word in a noun phrase and is clustered with
determiners and modifiers.
 They change class (parts of speech) when they undergo various word-
formation processes.
 New nouns are formed through various word-formation processes such as
affixation, acronym, blending, back-formation, coinage, compounding,
clipping, reduplication, etc.
 They perform various roles in a sentence such as agent, patient, experiencer,
recipient, source, location, goal, cause, instrument, force etc. They also show
similarity or comparison.
 Nouns are used as adjectives and adjectives are used as nouns.
 Participles are used as nouns as well as adjectives.
 Many nouns can be recognised by their endings.
 A noun or noun phrase can function as a subject, object, complement and
adverbial. In addition, nouns sometimes modify other nouns to form compound
nouns.

Following are the language specific features of nouns:

 In Gujarati, the word class noun includes pronouns and adjectives. Beams
notes: "Nouns are divided into two classes: those which name objects, and are
called appellatives, or in the older phraseology substantives; and those which
describe the qualities of objects, and are called attributives, or in the older
phraseology, adjectives." (1) But in English, nouns form an exclusive class.
 Nouns, in Gujarati are divided into declensional subtypes: marked nouns
displaying characteristic declensional vowel terminations and unmarked nouns
which do not. The declension of an English noun does not have the variety a
Gujarati noun has.
 In English, nouns take articles 'a', 'an' or 'the'. But Gujarati language does not
have articles.
 In English, a proper noun is marked by a capital letter. For example: Europe,
George. Gujarati does not have any such provision for capitalisation.

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  English nouns generally agree to the natural sex, whereas Gujarati nouns have
grammatical gender.
 Gujarati nouns must undergo some kind of change (obliquing) before they are
subject to postpositions. English nouns do not require any such modifications
while taking prepositions.
 In English, adjectives and determiners do not agree with the nouns, whereas in
Gujarati, they must agree.
 English has gerunds – forms created by adding -ing to a verb, i.e. present
participles – working as nouns; whereas Gujarati has potential participle
(krudant) to serve the same purpose.
 Gujarati marked nouns take suffixes in this order: Noun + gender marker +
number marker + case marker.

Even after specifying these many features of nouns, it can be said that nouns are not
bound by them. Zeitlin appropriately comments on the nature of nouns:

…… we are not in a position to maintain that the

absence of all the features which we enumerated
excludes a word from the class of nouns. Abstract
words, for example, and words referring to qualities, do
not in English take possessive or plural inflection, nor
do they require an article unless their meaning is
specialized and made concrete. "Justice," "virtue,"
"mercy," "faith" are nouns, though they have no formal
mark. But each of these words is, in any of its
grammatical uses, susceptible of some one of the formal
modifications referred to, as "the peace of the world,"
"the mercies of heaven. (143)

Different examples of nouns representing the above mentioned features are found
during the course of this research and will be provided with appropriate description
gradually.

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Classification of Nouns
There are different types of nouns available in English and Gujarati. They differ from
each other in meaning and grammatical behaviour. It is important, both for semantic
and grammatical reasons, to distinguish between different subclasses of nouns.

Nouns are classified in pairs: common – proper, concrete – abstract, measurable –

immeasurable, animate – inanimate, human – non-human. They are count – non-count
and personal – collective. When morphological processes are discussed, nouns are
talked of as marked – unmarked and variable – invariable. They may be compounds
or reduplicatives. These noun classes do not form any impermeable partitions. Nouns
may belong to more than one class at a time. For example: 'child' is a common,
concrete, count noun. It is also animate and human noun. Gujarati paththar (stone) is
a non-human, inanimate, concrete, count, common noun.

"… પરાં પરાગત વ્યાકરણમાાં આપવામાાં આવતા પ્રકારો જેવા કે સાંજ્ઞાવાચક, જાવતવાચક,

દ્રવ્યવાચક, ભાવવાચક, સમ ૂહવાચક... વગેરેને સ્વીકારવામાાં આવ્યા નથી. કારણ કે આ

પ્રકારો ગણ્ય – અગણ્ય કે મ ૂતથ – અમ ૂતથ પ્રકારોને અવતક્રમે છે ." (Desai, Vyakranvimrsh 136)

In Gujarati, nouns are traditionally divided into five classes: proper nouns, common
nouns, material nouns, abstract (bhāvvāchak) nouns and collective nouns. But this
classification is vague and inappropriate. All these noun classes overlap each other.
Therefore, Desai attempts to give a new classification of nouns.

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 Types Gujarati English

Non-human Human
māṇas, chhokro, person, boy, girl,
chhokrī, strī, puruṣh woman, man

Animate
cow, horse, goat, tiger,
gāy, ghoḍo, bakrī, vāgh,

Concrete
lion, elephant, sparrow,
siNh, hāthī, chaklī, popaṭ
parrot
Count

Inanimate
khurshī, parvat, nadī, ṭapāl, chair, mountain, river,
kabāṭ, rasto letter, cupboard, road
Common

Human Immeasurable Measurable Abstract

vichār, lāgṇī, māgṇī, idea, feeling,

mushkelī demand, problem

ghauN, chokhā, ghī, tel, Wheat, rice, ghee, oil,

dahīN, chaṭaṇī, pāṇī curd, chatani, water
Non-count
Nouns

Love, illusion, power,

prem, māyā, shakti,
intelligence,
budhdhi, tirskār, rāh
contempt
rāhul, ramā, rājul, Rahul, Rama, Rajul,
hemāNg, mruṇoti Hemang, Mrunoti
Animate

Gauri (cow), Chetak

gaurī (gāy), chetak
Non-human

(horse), Makno
(ghoḍo), makno (hathī),
Proper

(elephant), Shakro
shakro (bakro)
(goat)
himālay, gaNgā, bhārat, Himalay, Ganga,
Inanimate

bharuch, havrā, Bharat, Bharuch,

faṇasvādī Hawra, Phanaswadi

ુ યત્વે તેનાાં એકબીજાથી જુદાાં પડી આવતાાં એવાાં ભેદક લક્ષણો પર

"સાંજ્ઞાના આ પ્રકારો મખ્

આધારરત છે . સાંજ્ઞાની આ લાક્ષભણકતાઓ અથાથત્મક છે . તો સાથે સાથે વાક્યવવન્યાસાત્મક

પણ છે . આમ, સાંજ્ઞાના આ પ્રકારો વાક્યમાાં તેના વતથનને આધારે પાડવામાાં આવ્યા છે ."

(Desai, Vyakaranvimarsh 134) The types of nouns are based on the distinctive
features of nouns. These features are semantic as well as syntactic. The classification
is done on the bases of the behaviour of the nouns in the sentences.

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Proper Nouns
'Proper' means belonging to oneself or itself. Proper nouns are labels for unique
entities. They reduce or narrow the context to a particular referent. They specialize or
limit the thing to which they are related. They name an individual, group, event, thing,
river, mountain, ocean or place. However, this does not imply that a proper name can
be applied to only one object. But each time a proper name is applied, it is fixed or
proper to that object. Even if there are several Mahatma Gandhi roads, the name of
each is an individual or proper name.

Proper nouns follow certain pattern of usage that varies language to language. English
proper nouns demonstrate the following traits of behaviour:

(1) They begin with a capital letter: Asia, Kaveri, Everest, Yahoo, Mumbai, Sahara,
Kaziranga National Park, World Bank

(2) The meaning of a proper noun may not be related to the thing to which it actually
refers. For example, Pit Blacksmith has nothing to do with a pit and he may not be a
blacksmith. For this reason, proper nouns are usually not translated between
languages, although they may be transliterated. The transliteration of the names of
places, monarchs, popes and non-contemporary authors is common. The Greek
Aristotelēs becomes Aristotle in English.

(3) They are not normally preceded by the determiners like a, an, the, this/these,
that/those, each, every, some, all, none, little, few etc. But exceptional usage is also
there:
I did not find the Manali I had visited 10 years ago.
Shakespeare is the Kalidas of England.

(4) They do not demonstrate number contrast. In other words, they do not take plurals.
However, they may be turned into plurals when a number is being specifically
referred to: I know four Poojas.
He has celebrated a few Diwalis with friends in India.

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Family names are pluralized by simply adding the suffix 's/es'. For example: the
Johnsons, the Ravals, the Dixits. The names ending in 's', 'x', 'ch', 'sh', or 'z', take 'es'
as in the Dases, the Palashes, the Rozes. If a proper noun ends in an 's' with a hard 'z'
sound, nothing is added form the plural: the Chambers (not the Chamberses); the
Hodges (not the Hodgeses).

The names of companies and other organizations are usually regarded as singular,
regardless of their ending. But when the corporate entities are thought of as a group of
individuals, the reference may become plural. For example: General Motors has
declared its new policy for dealership. Their cars will be supplied to the dealers who
accept the new terms and conditions.

The names of sports teams, on the other hand, are treated as plurals, regardless of the
form of that name. For example: Mumbai Indians are an enthusiastic cricket team.
When a team is referred to by the city in which it resides, however, we use the
singular, as in 'Punjab has tried hard to win the tournament'.

A Peculiar Usage of Proper Nouns

English proper nouns can be pluralized or used with indefinite or partitive modifiers
in certain contexts. They can be used in ways that modify their meaning to name a
unique class of common nouns. For example: Ford is the corporation with the name
Ford. It produces many Fords each year (plural usage). Each buyer is the driver of a
Ford (indefinite article usage). Many Fords are sold each year. Some Fords are newer
than others (partitive usage). Such usage is often limited to informal writing, although
grammatically it is just as correct as any formal usage. It involves a certain amount of
natural cognitive and lingual ellipsis or metonymy. For example: a Ford car → a
Ford; Ford cars → Fords).

Gujarati proper nouns demonstrate different behavioural features:

(1) Gujarati script does not have any provision for the capitalization of letters like
English. Therefore, the written form of nouns does not provide any hint for
identifying proper nouns.

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(2) The meaning of a proper noun may not be related to the actual referent. For
example: Rajkumar (literally prince) may not have any kingdom. Therefore, these
names are not translated but transliterated. For example: Jesus Christ becomes Ishu
Khrist.

(3) They do not normally take determiners like ek, darek, ā, peluN, etc.

(4) They usually do not take plurals. However, exceptions are there:
huN chār pūjāne oḷkhuN chhuN. (I know four Poojas.)
temne ghaṇī divaḷīo amārī sāthe ujavī. (They celebrated many Diwalis with us.)

Common Nouns
'Common' means belonging equally to more than one. Common nouns name a class of
persons, animals or things. These nouns are of the widest application. For common
nouns, persons, animals and things can be considered separately as well as in groups.
For example: English – house, book, pen, scooter, mobile, city, king; Gujarati – ghar,
pustak, pen, skūṭar, mobāil, shaher, rājā

The nouns like sun, moon, earth etc. seem to be the names of particular individual
objects but they are not called proper names in both the languages. The intention
behind using a proper name is to exclude all other individuals of the same class and
attach a special label to the object considered. But in the words sun, moon, earth etc.,
there is no such intention. If several bodies like the center of our solar system are
known, they also are called suns by a natural extension of the term. Therefore they
remain the common class names.

Common nouns may be either count or non-count in both the languages. For example:
marbles / lakhoṭī (count) and love / prem (non-count). The distinction according to
countability into count nouns and mass (non-count) nouns is basic in English. There
are different grammar rules for both count and non-count nouns. But some nouns can
be taken as either of them. For example: a chocolate, two chocolates, several
chocolates, some chocolate, another piece of chocolate; a cake, some cake, a slice of
cake.

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Here, the grammatical distinction cuts across the semantic distinction of nouns. That
is, the count/mass distinction intersects the concrete (tangible)/abstract (immaterial)
distinction of nouns. Generally, concrete nouns are mainly count and abstract mainly
mass. But there is a considerable degree of overlap between them. For example:
comment / ṭīkā (abstract/count), grain / dhānya (concrete/mass). This overlap does not
come from nature but is language specific. When a noun has both concrete and
abstract usage, it corresponds broadly to concreteness or particularization in the count
usage and abstractness or generalization in the non-count usage. For example:

Priya has faced many difficulties. (Count)

You would have little difficulty in doing so. (Non-count)
Priyam has a few memorable experiences to share. (Count)
The post of a principal requires experience. (Non-count)
The talks are arranged by the IIM. (Count)
My mother dislikes idle talk. (Non-count)
The hall was full of bright lights and harsh sounds. (Count)
Light travels faster than sound. (Non-count)

In Gujarati, mushkelī (difficulty), anubhav (experience), vāt (talk) may be countable

or non-countable. But sauNdarya (beauty) and prakāsh (light) cannot be used as
countable nouns.

Count Nouns
Count nouns usually have different singular and plural forms. They can be
premodified by various articles, demonstratives, adjectives, possessives, pronouns,
numerals etc. When singular, they take the definite and indefinite articles. When
plural, they take the definite article if they refer to a definite, specific group and no
article if they are used in a general sense.

Singular nouns can be preceded by numerals, quantifiers or determiners like one,

several, most, this, that, every, each, either or neither. In Gujarati, singular nouns can
be preceded by ek, darek, ā, te, pelo/peli/peluN etc. Plural nouns can be preceded by
these, those, some, any, enough, few, a few or the zero article. In Gujarati, plural
nouns can be preceded by ghaṇā, badhā, sau, keṭlāk, thodā etc.

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The phrase 'number of' is always followed by count nouns. Count nouns cannot be
preceded by the pre-modifier 'much' as well as the phrase 'amount of'.

Common nouns may be countable: a dozen apples, a lunch; be dazan safarjan (two
dozen apples)
Collective nouns may be countable: several bands, many teams; ghaṇā juth (many
groups)
Proper nouns may also be countable: two Indians, the Gandhis; traṇ bhāratiyo (three
Indians)

Non-count Nouns
Non-count nouns are also called mass nouns. They are invariable and lack number
contrast. They refer to indivisible wholes. For example: English – luggage, goal,
information, grass; Gujarati – sāmān, dhyey, māhitī, ghās

The following nouns exemplify non-count nouns:

(a) Abstract nouns –harmony, friendship, mercy, sympathy, symphony, independence
saMvāditā, maitrī, dayā, sahānubhūti, dhūn, svataNtratā
(b) Concrete nouns (in their undivided sense) – corn, wheat, pulse, cloth
makāi, ghauN, mag, kapḍuN
(c) Names of sports – cricket, basketball, hockey, golf
(d) Names of edible plants (the species) – onion, tomato, potato
(e) Names of sciences – linguistics, biology, economics
(f) Names of languages – English, Gujarati, Sanskrit
(g) Names of illnesses – malaria, chickenpox, ulcer
(h) Names of matters – steel, rubber, aluminium
(i) Names of liquids – milk, soda, oil, juice, butter-milk, tea, lemonade
dūdh, sodā, tel, sarabat, chhāsh, chā
(j) Foodstuffs – paneer, chocolate, cream, grain, mustard seeds, oat, salt, sugar,
noodles
panīr, chokleṭ, krīm, dhānya, rāi, oṭ, mīṭhuN, khāNd, nūdals
(k) Miscellaneous – opinion, hair, wealth, inquiry, news, information
abhiprāy, vāḷ, dhan, pūchhparachh, samāchār, māhitī

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Names of sports, edible plants, sciences, languages, illnesses, matters are almost the
same in Gujarati also and they are non-count one as in English.

They never take any indefinite article (a/an). Generally they appear with zero article.
But they take the definite article (the) when they are used for referring to a specific
object, group or idea: information – the information you brought; sugar – the sugar I
borrowed from you; news – the news circulated through the television

They do not combine with number words or quantifiers in both the languages. They
can be premodified by various articles, demonstratives, adjectives, possessives,
pronouns, etc. They can be preceded by some, any, enough, this, that, much, little or a
little in English and thoḍuN, keṭluNk, ā, pūrtuN, ghaṇuN in Gujarati.

They do not normally have plural forms. Exceptionally, when they are pluralized,
they suggest the types of the entity referred. For example: tasty foods, cold drinks, my
feelings, rices of Dehradoon, etc. They are used in a countable sense: art – folk arts,
religion – religions in Asia, sculpture – Mughal sculptures, recycled paper – many
papers
Gujarati examples: kalā – lokkalāo, dharm – vishvanā dharmo, sthāpatya – mughal
sthāpatyo

Non-count nouns are used with the countable containers: five mugs of coffee, two
tumblers of juice. In everyday usage, the containers are deleted and the non-countable
nouns are made countable nouns: one butter-milk, three juices
Gujarati examples: be (glas) chhāsh, chār (kap) chā

The quantity of a non-count noun can be expressed thus: Quantity + amount/container

+ of + noun
For example: two bars of chocolate, one bucket of milk, five bags of wheat, one
packet of noodles and four tins of soda. The same expressions are used in Gujarati.

Count nouns are seen as separable entities; whereas mass nouns are seen as
continuous entities. They are the substances or concepts having no natural limits.
They denote undifferentiated mass or quantity. They are subject to division only by

42
means of certain gradability expressions. Countability may be imposed by means of
partitive nouns.

Gradability
Both count and mass nouns are gradable in two respects: quality and quantity. The
quality aspect is expressed chiefly by kind or sort: a different kind of pen, a spicy sort
of dish. The quantity aspect is expressed by means of certain partitives: three bars of
chocolate, two kinds of bars of chocolate

Types of Partitives
(1) Measures
The measure partitives relate to precise quantities. They denote exact measurement of
nouns.
Length: a foot of (ribbon), a yard of (cloth), a mile of (cable), inch, metre
Area: an acre of (land)
Volume: a pint of (beer), a quart of (milk)
Weight: an ounce of (tobacco), a pound of (butter), a ton of (coal), kilogram

Almost all these measures are used in the same form in Gujarati also. A few are
transformed in Gujarati: pāsher (125 grams), sher (half kg), maṇ (20 kg) etc.

(2) Typical partitives

Typical partitives are restricted to specific lexical items. In other words, many nouns
require a typical partitive appropriate to each specific case. Such examples are found
in Gujarati also but they are few in numbers.

Concrete Nouns: a lump of clay, a slice of bread, a bottle of milk, a cup of tea, a jar of
coffee, a sheet of paper, a tin of coke, a box of pencils, a bundle of books, a blade of
grass
Gujarati: ghāsnuN taṇakhaluN, fūlno guchhchho, motīnī ḍhaglī

Abstract Nouns: an attack of fever, a fit of passion, a word of abuse, an amount of

interest, a word of advice/information/news/work/evidence/research

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(3) General partitives
General partitives are not limited to specific lexical items. For example: a piece of
chalk/coal/advice, a bit of grass/trouble, an item of information/news, a portion of
syllabus. "It is manifest from the placing of premodifiers in noun phrases consisting
of a partitive + of + mass noun that some 'typical' partitives are felt to form a closer
unit with the mass noun than 'measure' and 'general' partitives: a hot cup of coffee; a
good stroke of luck; a large pair of gloves; a nice glass of whisky." (Quirk et al. 133)

The widely used Gujarati general partitive is ṭukḍo (piece). It is invariable.

Abstract Nouns
Abstract nouns refer to ideas and emotions. They include the names of qualities,
conditions or actions. They name concepts which cannot be experienced through the
senses. In short, they are used for the things that are intangible, unobservable and
unmeasurable. For example: English – passion, opinion, optimism, victory, tension,
warmth, wish; Gujarati – āveg, mat, āshāvād, vijay, tāṇ, huNf, marjī. In Gujarati, they
are generally not pluralised.

Normally, they cannot be pluralized. But sometimes, some of them may be pluralized
in some peculiar contexts. For example:
The hardships of the family are difficult to face.
The politicians took liberties with our constitution.

But some things cannot be made countable or plural: we cannot have furnitures,
informations, knowledges, softnesses, or chaoses. As far as the premodifiers are
concerned, these nouns take all of them taken by the non-count nouns.

These nouns may be simple or derived. The simple abstract nouns are not derived
from any other part of speech. They are framed directly for the expression of certain
ideas or phenomena. For example: enthusiasm, luck, joy, hope, ease, energy, day,
night, summer, winter, monsoon, shadow, lightning, thunder
Gujarati: utsāh, nasīb, ānaNd, āshā, shakti, divas, rāt, unāḷo, shiyāḷo, chomāsu,
paḍchhāyo, vījaḷī, garjanā

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Some abstract nouns are developed by figurative extension from literal roots. These
include drawback, kindness, intelligence. Gujarati examples: hatāshā, udāratā,
chaturāi

There are two main divisions of the derived abstract nouns:-

(1) Attributive Nouns (expressing attributes or qualities) – These nouns are derived
from adjectives and common nouns. For example: (a) significant → significance, pure
→ purity, clean → cleanliness
pavitra → pavitratā, garavuN → garavāī, bhīnuN → bhināsh
(b) boy → boyhood, human → humane, friend → friendship
mānav → mānavatā, strī→ strītva, māyā → māyāḷū

(2) Verbal Nouns (expressing state, condition or action) – These nouns originate from
verbs.
(a) They may be of the same form as the simple verb. The verb, by altering its
function, is used as a noun. This is called conversion. For example: English – watch,
walk, talk, drive, grip
Gujarati – chāl, fād, tol, jap, shodh
(b) They may be derived from verbs by changing the ending or adding a suffix. For
example:
English – manage → management, produce → product, create → creation
Gujarati – oḷkhavuN → oḷkhāṇ, ramavuN → ramat, gāvuN → gān
(c) They may be derived from verbs by adding -ing to the simple verb. It must be
remembered that these words are free from any verbal function. They cannot govern a
word, and they cannot express action, but are merely names of actions. They are only
the husks of verbs and are to be rigidly distinguished from gerunds. For example:
feelings, beginning, saying, drawing, meaning, blessings, awakening, reasoning,
wedding

While this distinction between the concrete and abstract nouns is sometimes
exclusive, some nouns have multiple senses, including both concrete and abstract
ones. For example:
I found a key from the class-room. – The key to success is hard work.
Gujarati: mane vargmāNthī ek chāvī maḷī chhe. – parishram safaḷtānī chāvī chhe.

45
Abstract nouns can appear with or without determiners:
Independence is the birth-right of every human being.
The independence of India was the only dream of every Indian.

Concrete Nouns
Concrete nouns name tangible things that can be experienced through the senses.
They refer to physical entities that can be observed by at least one of the senses. They
can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted or felt. For example: English – ceiling, tea, queen,
forest, goldsmith, window, sand, salt; Gujarati – chhat, chā, rāṇī, jaNgal, sonī, bārī,
retī, mīṭhuN. The things indicated by these nouns are measurable.

Material Nouns
The material nouns are common nouns in the sense that they apply to every particle of
similar substance, instead of to each individual or separate object. They may be
placed in groups as follows:

(1) The metals: silver, copper, aluminum; chaNdī, taMbu, elyuminiyam

(2) Products spoken of in bulk: coffee, salt, oat, pulse; cōfī, mīṭhuN, oṭ, mag
(3) Geological bodies: clay, marble, sand; maṭī, āras, retī
(4) Natural phenomena: fog, breeze, dew, snow; dhummas, pavan, zākaḷ, baraf
(5) Various manufactures/products: paste, manure, soda-ash, plastic, paper; khātar,
kāgaḷ

Collective Nouns
Collective nouns are words used to define a group of objects, where objects can be
people, animals, emotions, inanimate things, concepts or other things. They fall under
common nouns because each group is considered as a unit and the name applied to it
belongs to any group of its class. Thus, men in groups may be called a crowd, a
council, a mob, a committee, an audience, a congress, a band or public in English and
ṭoḷuN, sabhā, prekshakgaṇ, samiti, prajā, samudāy or saraghas in Gujarati. These are
called collective nouns. These nouns cannot be used for an individual entity forming a
group. Some more examples of collective nouns are: class, dozen, group, staff, mob,
bunch, bundle; jūth, ḍhaglo, poṭluN, sainya, ṭukḍī, vaṇjār

46
Most collective nouns used in everyday speech are commonplace and are not specific
to one kind of constituent object. For example: the phrases 'group of people', 'group of
dogs' and 'group of ideas' are all correct uses. Some other collective nouns are specific
to one kind of constituent object. For example: English – herd of sheep, swarm of
bees, bouquet of flowers, army of soldiers; Gujarati – gāyonuN dhaṇ, madhmākhīno
madhpūḍo, fūlono guchhchho, sainikonuN lashkar, shrotāoni mednī, musāfarono
kāflo.

These collective nouns refer to groups consisting of more than one individual or entity
even when they appear singular in form. These nouns have slightly different
grammatical properties than other nouns as they can serve as the subject of a
collective predicate even when they are inflected for the singular. They are singular
when we think of them as groups and plural when we think of the individuals acting
within the whole. In other words, collective nouns can function as a singular noun (a
single unit) or as a plural noun (a group of individuals).

For example:
The jury delivers its verdict. (the jury as a whole)
The jury came in and took their seats. (all individuals in the jury took seats)
The crew is prepared for difficulties. (the crew as a whole)
The crew are to be admired for their efforts. (all individuals in the crew deserve
admiration)

While using them with verbs and pronouns, the most important thing is to be
consistent. The notional concord must be maintained. This should be avoided: As the
team arrives with their trophy….(use either 'arrive…their' or 'arrives… its').
Implications help in deciding the number of the verb and pronoun. For example, 'The
crowd fought among itself' is an improper expression because it takes at least two to
fight; this implication immediately suggests the plural: 'The crowd fought among
themselves.'

'The number' is a singular collective noun as in 'The number of pilgrims is steadily

increasing'. But 'A number' is plural in form: 'There are a number of fans on the
airport. A number are here to meet their favourite hero."

47
Collective nouns are count nouns and therefore, can be pluralized. For example:
China has many sports teams.
Various committees are formed in the college to get the activities done smoothly.
The shepherd families are sensitive about their herds and flocks.

The noun following the phrase 'one of the' is always plural. The verb agrees with 'one'
which is singular; not with the object of the preposition which is always plural. For
example:
One of the best options is the last one in the list.
Jagrut is one of the most intelligent students in the class.

There are three subclasses of collective nouns:

(1) Specific – army, team, crew, family, jury
(2) Generic – the aristocracy, the clergy, the academia, the public, the elite
(3) Unique – the Muslim League, the Congress, the United Kingdom

Metonymic Merging of Grammatical Number in Collective Nouns

Collective nouns must not be confused with mass nouns or with the collective
grammatical number.

In British English, it is generally accepted that collective nouns can take either
singular or plural verb forms. This apparent number mismatch is actually a natural
and logical feature of human language and its mechanism is a subtle metonymic shift
in the thoughts underlying the words.

British English applies plural verb with names of countries and cities in sports
contexts. For example: Spain have won the competition. Mexico have lost three
consecutive matches. In American English, collective nouns almost invariably take
singular verb forms thereby showing formal agreement. For example: The team is
fighting. (The team members are fighting among themselves.) American English
recasts the whole sentence to avoid the metonymy. This shows that the instances of
metonymic shifts occur only in British English.

48
An example of a metonymic shift in the singular-to-plural direction is the following
sentence: 'The team have finished the project.' Their accomplishment is collective but
they are at the same time discrete individuals. The word choice 'team have' manages
to convey both their collective and discrete identities simultaneously.

An example of a metonymic shift in the plural-to-singular direction is the following

sentence: 'Physics is my favourite subject.' The word 'physics' may have originally
been plural in concept referring to physics related activities. But the metonymic shift
– the shift in concept from 'the activities' to 'the whole set of activities' – has produced
the usage of 'physics' as a singular entity taking singular verb forms.

Nominally singular pronouns can be collective nouns taking plural verbs, according to
the same rules that apply to other collective nouns. For example: None are so fallible
as those who are sure they're right. / None were present on the airport to receive the
guests. The plural verb is used because the context for 'none' implies more than one
thing or person. This usage is acceptable in both British and American English.

Gujarati collective nouns behave consistently. They do not function as both a singular
noun (a single unit) and a plural noun (a group of individuals). They are, when
uninflected for plural, singular nouns. Some of these nouns are marked for gender but
they do not change gender.They always take singular verb agreeing with the gender of
the noun. They take plural verb only when they are pluralized. The determiners and
verbs used with these nouns must agree to the number, gender case of the nouns. For
example:

tapās māṭe nimāyelī samiti āvī pahoNchī. (The committee appointed for the
investigation arrived.)
pelā ushkerāyelā ṭoḷāe paththarmāro karyo. (That agitated mob threw stones.)
badhāN dhan gām taraf jāy chhe. (All the flocks are going towards the village.)
vividh samitio rachavāmāN āvī. (Different committees were formed.)

49
Special Uses of Nouns
Nouns often change their class. They alter their meaning very rapidly by a widening
or narrowing of their application. Numerous examples of this shifting from class to
class are found.

(1) Proper Nouns used as Common Nouns:

(a) The origin of a thing is used for the thing itself, that is, the name of the inventor
may be applied to the thing invented: diesel (a type of internal-combustion engine
invented by him), mackintosh (garments made of the waterproof material invented by
him), zerox, sandwich
Or the name of the country or city from which an article is derived is used for the
article: as china, from China; port (wine), from Oporto; calico, from Calicut; damask,
from Damascus.
(b) The name of a person or place noted for certain qualities is transferred to any
person or place possessing those qualities. For example: a cunning and cruel man is
called Shylock, a brave warrior is called Hercules.
In Gujarati, a person making illogical swings in his decisions is called Tughlakh; a
day-dreaming person is called Shekhchallī.

(2) Material Nouns used as Class Names:

Instead of considering the whole body of material of which certain things are made,
particular uses or phases of the substance are spoken of:

(a) The individual objects made from metals or other substances capable of being
fashioned into various shapes. For example: the objects made of iron. The material
iron embraces the metal contained in them all; but 'The cook made the irons hot' refers
to flat-irons; 'The sailor was put in irons' means chains of iron. Likewise, a glass is to
drink from or to look into; a steel is to sharpen a knife on; a rubber is for erasing
marks etc.
(b) The classes or kinds of the same substance: These are the same in material, but
different in strength, purity, etc. Hence it shortens speech to make the nouns plural:
coffees, sugars, sands, butters, flours

50
(c) By poetical use of certain words necessarily singular in idea, but are made plural
or used as class nouns: waters, airs, winds, sands, etc.
(d) The detached portions of matter are used as class names: stones, slates, papers,
tins, clouds, mists
This kind of use of nouns is rare in Gujarati.

(3) Abstract Nouns used as Proper Names:

This is done through personification. The ideas are spoken of as residing in living
beings. This is a poetic usage, but not restricted to poetry. For example: Strength
wins, timidity loses.
Love heals, hatred hurts.
Gujarati abstract nouns can also be personified. For example:
pavane tenī oḍhaṇī uḍāḍī. (Wind blew her dupatta.)
shradhdhā jītī, bhay hāryo. (Hope won, fear was defeated.)

(4) Abstract Nouns are made Half Abstract:

This is achieved by using plural forms of these nouns. They, then, do not remain pure
abstract nouns or common class nouns. For example: a terror of night, the pleasures of
life, the great actions

The words proceeded by the article 'a' or made plural are still names of abstract ideas,
not material things. They widen the application to peculiar kind of terror or different
types of pleasure. They are neither class nouns nor pure abstract nouns: they are more
properly called half abstract.

This is rare in Gujarati. A few examples are kālpanik bhayo (imaginative fears),
jīvannāN sukho.

(5) Nouns used as Descriptive Terms:

Sometimes nouns are used to specify, modify or describe other nouns. In other words,
nouns function as adjectives. For example: railway track, story book, reservation
policy. But, when used so, they are better to be considered as nouns for these reasons:
they do not stop being nouns; they do not express quality; they cannot enter into
comparison as descriptive adjectives generally do. They may be regarded as elliptical

51
expressions meaning a track used for railway, a book of /having stories, the policy of
reservation.

In Gujarati also, this nouns are used to modify other nouns. For example: kuṭir meḷo,
māchhlī ghar, kārya shāḷā, rātri nivās. In the examples like these, the modifying
nouns remain nouns only as they do not express quality and they do not enter into
comparison.

Words and Word-groups used as Nouns

(1) Certain word groups used as single nouns:
As soon as I answered his 'who', 'why', 'where' and when' followed.
Too smarts are not allowed in the workshop.
ahīN 'jo ane to' ne avkāsh nathī. (There is no scope for ifs and buts.)

(2) Parts of speech:

Any part of speech may be considered simply as a word without reference to its
function in the sentence.
Your letter was full of 'buts' and 'ifs'.
Did her 'he' mean the dog or the thief?
jīvan 'athvā'no vikalp nathī āptuN. (Life does not offer alternatives.)

(3) Titles
The titles of books, movies, serials, tournaments are treated as simple nouns. For
example:
Three Idiots is a movie with a message.
The Asia Cup is won by Australia.
'sāt paglāN ākāshmāN' saras navalkathā chhe. (Sat Paglan Akashman ia a good
novel.)

Above these all, there are some words which have become pure nouns by consistent
use. They, now, do not have any bearing to their original adjectival forms. For
example: odds, goods, principal, secret, domestic, criminal. These words are entirely
independent of any adjective force.

52
All these different kinds of nouns discussed so far demonstrate gender, number and
case variations in different ways in both the languages. They need special attention
and elaborate description.

Gender-system of Nouns
Gender usually coincides with the sex of the beings or objects denoted. The
distinction of male and female in nature is called sex. The distinction between
masculine and feminine in words is called gender. Gender is a grammatical category
in which a noun, pronoun and adjective is masculine, feminine or neuter. The gender
system found in various languages can be of two types: natural gender system and
grammatical gender system. English has natural gender; whereas Gujarati has
grammatical gender. The natural gender of a noun, pronoun or noun phrase is a
gender to which it would be expected to belong based on relevant attributes of its
referent – masculine or feminine depending on the sex of the referent.

Grammatical gender is linguistically defined as a system of nouns which activates

specific types of inflections in associated words like adjectives, verbs, determiners
etc. In a language having grammatical gender, every noun belongs to one of the
gender classes and there are few that belong to several classes at once. The gender
classes are commonly called masculine, feminine and neuter gender. These terms are
used purely for linguistic classification and have no real-world implications. In order
to correctly decline any noun and any word affected by that noun, the gender of the
noun must be identified. The grammatical gender of a noun does not always coincide
with its natural gender. For example, in Gujarati, gheNṭuN is a neuter noun. But
actually, a sheep may be either male or female.

Grammatical gender is important for these reasons: In a language with explicit

inflections for gender, it is easy to express the natural gender of animate beings. It can
be a valuable tool of disambiguation providing clarity about antecedents. In literature,
gender can be used to animate and personify inanimate nouns.

The linguistic concept of grammatical gender is distinguished from the biological and
social concept of natural gender, although they interact closely in many languages.
Both grammatical and natural gender can have linguistic implications in a given

53
language. The relevance of gender system in grammar is that it affects the selection of
reference pronouns. Gendered pronouns and their corresponding inflections vary
considerably across languages. In the languages having grammatical gender system,
the gender of a noun influences the choice of determiners, modifiers (adjectives) and
verbs.

While grammatical gender was a fully productive inflectional category in Old

English, Modern English has a much less pervasive gender system primarily based on
natural gender. The only traces of the Old English gender system are found in the
pronominal system and pronoun-antecedent agreement in English that now is based
on natural gender. Anne Curzen rightly notes:

The shift from grammatical to natural gender renders

English unusual among Indo-Germanic languages.
Having lost most nominal and adnominal inflectional
endings by the Middle English period, English has
become a pronominal gender system, in which the
personal pronouns he/she/it reflect a triple – gender
system and the relative pronouns who/which distinguish
only between the animate and the inanimate. (19-20)

The concept of gender is clear and consistent in English because it is based on natural
sex rather than morphology. Animate nouns can have distinct forms reflecting natural
gender and personal pronouns are selected according to natural gender. There is no
gender agreement on modifiers. In Gujarati, the concept of grammatical gender is
based on morphology and applies not only to nouns and pronouns but also to other
parts of speech such as adjectives and verbs due to agreement rules.

In English the gender follows the meaning of the word; in Gujarati, it follows the
form. That means, in English, the gender depends on the sex of the referent; whereas
in Gujarati, the structure or shape of the spoken or written word is taken into
consideration for deciding the gender.

54
English demonstrates genders – masculine and feminine. It applies the distinction of
masculine and feminine only to the names of persons and animals. All nouns must be
divided into two main groups – gender nouns (those distinguishing the sex of the
referent) and neuter nouns (those which do not distinguish sex). The gender nouns
generally consist of the nouns applied to human beings and to some higher animals;
whereas the neuter nouns consist of the names of the lower animals and inanimate
things without having sex. The other place where gender is found displayed is the
third person singular personal pronouns.

One more thing must be considered while dealing with gender. Sinha notes: “The
words masculine and feminine can be used as adjectives to describe the looks or
qualities of human beings…. Notice that in this sense masculine/ feminine indicates
characteristics or attributes, not sex.” (10) This clearly indicates that the qualities of
masculine or feminine nouns may differ from their male and female sex. In other
words, sex may contradict gender in language. For example: a masculine woman or a
feminine man.

Categories of Gender
English nouns and pronouns are divided into the following gender categories:
1) Masculine: It denotes male beings and can be referred to by the pronouns he, him,
himself. For example: husband, master, bridegroom, priest, king, bull, dog

2) Feminine: It denotes female beings and can be referred to by the pronouns she, her,
herself. For example: wife, mistress, bride, priestess, queen, cow, bitch

3) Neuter: It denotes inanimate objects, substances, abstractions and can be referred to

by the pronoun it, itself. For example: marble, wall, silver, friendship, freedom,
manhood

Collective nouns also take third person pronouns – either singular (it) or plural (they)
– as pronoun substitutes without change of number in the noun. For example: the
team – it/they; the teams – they. Subsequently, the verb may take plural form after a
singular noun.

55
The different shades of meaning of a noun determine the pronoun substitution for that
noun. The choice between singular and plural cannot be in complete free variation.
The distinction made within collective nouns is one of number rather than gender.
However, it also involves gender, since "The difference in substitution reflects a
difference in attitude: the singular stresses the non-personal collectivity of the group
and the plural the personal individuality within the group." (Quirk and Greenbaum 92)
English gives the speaker many such choices to express his attitude to the content of
his message.

4) Dual: It denotes beings which have only one form for both masculine and feminine.
In other words, nouns that belong to this gender are either male or female. For
example: artist, doctor, person, guest, advocate, relative, member, cousin, cook,
partner, leader, colleague, librarian, speaker, musician, neighbour, teacher, fool,
novelist, writer, foreigner etc. These nouns are used when no gender specification is
required. Unless suggested otherwise, they are taken as masculine singular by default
for the purpose of agreement.

The gender of such nouns becomes obvious in the context: Meet my friend Swapna.
She is an engineer. Generally, woman or lady is used with these masculine nouns
when gender identification is needed.

Sometimes it becomes necessary to use a gender marker in order to avoid ambiguity:

boy friend – girl friend, man servant – woman servant, male student – female student.
The dual class is on the increase as more and more positions in society are opened up
to both sexes. For example: engineer and nurse are now dual gender nouns, but they
were not so formerly.

(5) Common: It denotes a common generic term for both male and female. Some
masculine-feminine pairs representing kinship are referred to with this type of nouns.
For example: parent for father/mother, child for son/daughter as well as for boy/girl.

Common gender nouns are intermediate between

personal and non-personal. The wide selection of
pronouns (who, he/she/it) should not be understood to

56
 mean that all these are possible for all nouns in all
contexts. A mother is not likely to refer to her baby as
it, but it would be quite possible for somebody who is
emotionally unrelated to the child or is ignorant of or
indifferent to its sex. (Quirk and Greenbaum 91-92)

Here, the mother, talking subjectively about her child, will use 'he' or 'she' for the
child. On the other hand, the person, talking objectively about a young child whose
sex does not make any difference to the matter, will use 'it' for the child.

The higher animals with which man comes in contact often or which arouse his
interest most are named by gender nouns: I have a dog and a cow at my farm. His
name is Sheru and hers is Gauri. Other lower animals are not distinguished as to sex,
but are spoken of as neuter, the sex being of no consequence: I saw a chicken. It was
running after its mother.

Gujarati nouns are divided into masculine, feminine and neuter gender-classes. No
noun can exist outside these three classes. The gender inflections – -o for masculine, -
ī for feminine and -ũ for neuter – are integral to words. The construction of a Gujarati
noun runs like this: Noun stem + gender marker + number marker

chokr + o + ø = chokro (masculine singular)

chokr + ī + ø = cokrī (feminine singular)
chokr + ũ + ø = chokrũ (neuter singular)

This is the general rule for gender inflection in Gujarati. But many exceptions are
found. For example: gho, ṭapālī and pāṇī belong to feminine, masculine and neuter
gender classes respectively. -o and -ī are not masculine and feminine gender-markers
here.

Gujarati dual gender nouns behave in a different way. They normally take masculine
gender for agreement. If required, they take strī or bahen to form feminine. Some
such nouns are masculine singular and some others are masculine plural. The first

57
group includes: kalākār, pravāsī, mitra, kartā, shikshak. The second group includes:
atithi, dātā, sambaNdhī, mahemān. The noun sagāN is treated as neuter plural.

Gujarati common gender nouns are referred to as neuter singular. For example:
daMpatī, saNtān

In English, inanimate objects fall under the category of neuter gender. Whereas in
Gujarati, an inanimate object can also have masculine or feminine gender, for
example, khāṭlo (masculine) and bārī (feminine).

Gujarati nouns are marked or remain unmarked for gender. The marked nouns carry
gender inflections as their integral part. For example: bakro – bakrī – bakrũ (goat).
The unmarked nouns do not have any gender inflections. For example:
 Unmarked masculine – patra (letter), dhobī (washerman), mukhī (headman),
sābu (soap), eru (snake), shabda (word), vāḷ (hair), pāṭh (lesson), mahimā
(fame), ātmā (soul), sādhu (hermit), ḍāku (rogue)
 Unmarked feminine – jamīn (land), vārtā (story), shāḷā (school), jaḷo (leech),
gho (lizard), daro (young grass), sāsu (mother-in-law), ābru (fame), jībh
(tongue), āNkh (eye), sān (sense)
 Unmarked neuter – ghar (home), moN (mouth/face), paNkhī (bird), bī (seed),
ghī (clarified butter), lohī (blood), dahīN (curd), pāṇī (water), motī (pearl),
kapāḷ (forehead), faḷ (fruit), shāk (vegetable)

Booij’s comment is true for Gujarati nouns which are unmarked for gender: “…there
is no direct morphological marking of gender on a noun. We can only observe the
presence of gender on nouns indirectly, through the morphological effects of gender
on the form of dependent words such as adjectives and determiners.” (110) The
gender of these unmarked nouns can be decided by the words (verb, adjective,
determiner or participle) used with them. That is to say, the context plays an important
role in deciding the gender of the noun. For example: ghar banāvyuN (neuter). The
other way of knowing the gender of a noun is to ask a question with an interrogative
pronoun to the noun under consideration, for example, ghar kevũ? jamīn kevī? patra
kevo?

58
Gender Expression
English has no live productive gender-markers. There are only a few traces of gender
marking found in Modern English. The English nouns that inflect for gender are a
very small minority – typically loanwords from non-Germanic languages.

In order to avoid repetition, it is necessary to mention here that in all the pairs
indicating gender distinctins, the first word is masculine and the other is feminine.
This is pattern is followed throughout the work.

Means of Expressing the Gender of Animate Nouns in English and Gujarati

1) Different words for masculine and feminine nouns (words of independent origin):
The masculine and the feminine are entirely different words in these pairs. They have
no overt marking that suggests morphological correspondence between masculine and
feminine. For example: bachelor – maid, boy – girl, brother – sister, earl – countess,
father – mother, horse – mare, husband – wife, king – queen, lord – lady, wizard –
witch, nephew – niece, ram – ewe, sir – madam, son – daughter, uncle – aunt, bull –
cow, gander – goose, drake – duck

Gujarati examples: puruṣh (male) – strī (female), nar (male) – mādā/nārī (female),
marad (man) – orat (woman), pitā/bāp (father) – mātā/mā (mother), bhāī (brother) –
bahen (sister), var (husband) – vahu (son’s wife), varrājā (bridegroom) – kanyā
(bride), sasaro (father-in-law) – sāsu (mother-in-law), mor (peacock) – ḍhel (peahen)

2) Composition with the help of words denoting sex:

This type of noun pairs take certain gender words like male – female, boy – girl, he –
she etc. For example: boyfriend – girlfriend, he-goat – she-goat, peacock – peahen,
male teacher – female teacher

In Gujarati, we can also show gender by prefixing a gender word to another word. For
example: nar koyal – mādā koyal

59
3) Suffixation:
Some gender words are marked by suffixes. Here, the two gender forms have a
derivational relationship. English suffixes for gender belong only to masculine and
feminine nouns. As the native suffixes are insufficient, English has readily accepted
several foreign suffixes.

The native suffixes showing the feminine were '-en' and '-ster'. They are restricted to
the words 'vixen' (vox = fox) and 'spinster' (feminine of spinner). But these words
have lost their original meanings. One more rare and unproductive feminine gender
suffix is '-ine' as used in hero – heroine.

The foreign suffixes are of two kinds:

(1) Some of these suffixes are attached to the borrowed words. For example: czarina,
señorita, executrix, donna, usherette. These are connected to foreign words and are
never used with English words.

(2) There is one regular and frequently used foreign feminine suffix '-ess'. The
corresponding masculine may have the ending -er (-or), but in most cases it does not
have. Whenever a new masculine word is adopted, the feminine is formed by adding
this termination '-ess'.

Sometimes the suffix '-ess' is added to a noun already having the suffix '-ster': seam-
str-ess, song-str-ess. The suffix '-ster' has lost its force as a feminine suffix; it has
none now in the words like huckster, gamester, trickster, punster, gangster

The feminine suffix '-ess' is added to many words without changing the original
masculine form: shepherd – shepherdess, baron – baroness, count – countess, lion –
lioness, Jew – Jewess, heir – heiress, host – hostess, priest – priestess, giant – giantess

The feminine suffix '-ess' is added to some other words after a minor change in the
original masculine form: abbot – abbess, Negro – Negress, sorcerer – sorceress

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The feminine '-ess' is added after removing the vowel which appears in the masculine:
adulterer – adulteress, actor – actress, master – mistress, benefactor – benefactress,
emperor – empress, tiger – tigress, enchanter – enchantress

English has very few masculine nouns derived from feminine nouns. They are widow
– widower, bridegroom – bride.

Nowadays some words in the masculine gender are used as common gender words.
The purpose is to avoid gender bias about which people are very conscious today. For
example: A woman ruler of a province would not like to be called 'governess' lest she
should be thought of as someone employed in a rich family to teach its children. In
the same way, a modern clergywoman would not like to be called a 'priestess,' since
the word reminds people of temple prostitution in ancient cultures.

A large majority of feminines in Gujarati are formed from the corresponding

masculine nouns through suffixation. This is most common in the names related to
trades and castes. For example: darjaṇ, mochaṇ, kaṇbaṇ, sheṭhāṇī, bhīlḍī, gorāṇī
(tailor, shoe-maker, farmer, master, bhilman, Brahmin). These words are used to
indicate female traders/caste-fellows as well as the wives of the respective
traders/caste-fellows. The feminine nouns taking -ṇ suffix are unmarked for gender.
The rest of them ending in -ī are marked for gender.

Feminine Nouns Originated from Masculine Nouns in Gujarati

(1) If a masculine noun ends in -iyo or -io, its feminine is formed by substituting for
the final -o either -eṇ,
-aṇ or -āṇī. For example: bhāgiyo (partner) – bhāgiyeṇ, vāṇiyo (man of the merchant
caste) – vāṇiyāṇī

(2) If a masculine noun ends in -ī, the feminine is sometimes formed by the addition
of -āṇī or by substituting for the final -ī either -ṇī or -eṇ or -aṇ. For example: dhaṇī
(master) – dhaṇiāṇī, hāthī (elephant) – hāthṇī, dhobī (washerman) – dhobaṇ

(3) If a masculine ends in -u, this -u is changed into -v before a suffixed feminine
termination. For example: sādhu (saint) – sādhvī

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(4) If a masculine ends in a consonant, the feminine is formed by adding one or other
of the terminations -ā, -ī, -ḍī, -ṇī, -āṇī, -eṇ, -ṇ or -vī. For example: paNḍit (teacher) –
paNḍitā, dev (god) – devī, bhīl (Bhilman) – bhīlḍī, rajpūt (Rajput man) – rajpūtāṇī,
vāgh (tiger) – vāghaṇ, naṭ (acrobat) – naṭī

Irregular Feminines in Gujarati

ṭhākor (a title of honour) – ṭhakrāṇā or ṭhakrāṇī, paṭel (village officer) – paṭalāṇī,
sonī (goldsmith) – sonāraṇ, desāi (native land-official) – desāṇ, fuo (husband of foi) –
foi or faibā (aunt, father's sister)

As noted by Taylor, "-ī as a masculine termination frequently occurs in nouns

indicating male members of castes, trades, or professions, also in some nouns
expressing nationality." (13) For example – pūjārī (prist), kaṇbī (farmer), mochī
(shoe-maker), darjī (tailor), vepārī (trader), māchhī (fisherman), gujarātī (a language
as well as a native of Gujarat) likewise baNgālī, chīnī, afaghānī.

Gujarati Nouns Classified According to Gender

Gujarati nouns take one or more gender markers. They are classified as under:
 Nouns taking all the three gender markers: chokro – chokrī – chokruN (boy –
girl – child), goṭlo – goṭli – goṭlũ
 Nouns taking only one gender marker: kūvo (well), mogro, ghaḍo (pot),
paḍchhāyo (shadow), rasto (path), nadī (river), sāḍī, baNgaḍī (bangle),
chhāpuN (newspaper), kariyāṇuN (grocery), chavāṇuN
 Nouns taking two gender markers:
o Nouns taking -o and -ī: garbo – garbī, dīkro – dīkrī (son – daughter),
roṭlo – roṭlī
o Nouns taking -ī and -ũ: tapelī – tapeluN, zuNpḍī – zuNpḍuN (hut), kaḍī
– kaḍuN
o Nouns taking -o and -ũ: fodo – foduN, zumkho – zumkhuN (cluster),
kerdo – kerḍuN
 Pairs of nouns in which one is not taking gender marker and the other is
taking:

62
 Unmarked for masculine: (1) Feminine: prasād – prasādī,
laNgoṭ – laNgoṭī
(2) Neuter: kārbhār – kārbhāruN
Unmarked for feminine: (1) Masculine: khāNch – khāNcho,
chhāNy – chhāNyo
(2) Neuter: goth – gothuN
Unmarked for neuter: (1) Masculine: hruday – rudiyo
(2) Feminine: eNdhāṇ – eNdhāṇī

A peculiar feature of Gujarati gender system is that a single noun may have two forms
with the same gender in which one form takes gender-marker and the other does not
take. For example: kinār – kinārī (frill), ghuNghaṭ – ghuNghaṭo, zāNzar – zāNzaruN

Grammatical Gender in Gujarati

A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent
such as sex, animacy, shape, etc. In some instances, a noun can be placed in a
particular class according to only its grammatical behaviour. Gender is one such class.
In linguistics, grammatical gender is a system of noun classification. In the languages
having grammatical gender, every noun inherently carries one value of
the grammatical category called gender. Gender of nouns gets reflected in the
behaviour of associated words.

Grammatical gender manifests itself when words related to a noun like determiners,
pronouns or adjectives change their form according to the gender of noun they refer to
(agreement/concord). The parts of speech affected by gender agreement, the
circumstances in which it occurs and the way words are marked for genders vary
cross-linguistically. Gender inflection may interact with other grammatical categories
like number or case. In some languages the declension pattern followed by the noun
itself may be dependent on its gender.

In a few languages, the gender assignment of nouns is solely determined by their

meaning or attributes, like biological sex, humanness, animacy. However, in most
languages, this semantic division is only partially valid and many nouns may belong
to a gender category that contrasts with their meaning. In Gujarati, this can be found

63
often. For example: puruṣh (man) and sajjan (gentleman) are masculine nouns. But
their derivations – pauruṣh / puruṣhtva and sajjanta – are neuter and feminine
respectively. In this case, the gender assignment can also be influenced by
the morphology or phonology of the noun or in some cases can be apparently
arbitrary.

સમગ્ર ભલિંગ વ્યવસ્થાનો વવચાર કરીએ તો જોવા મળે છે કે

સાંજ્ઞા પર ભલિંગના આરોપણ માટે જાવત એકમાત્ર માપદાં ડ

નથી. જાવત ઉપરાાંત સજીવતા/વનજીવતા, કદ, આકાર,

અમ ૂતથતા, પરરભચતતાની કક્ષા, સામાજજક મોભો, પોત, રાં ગ,

ખાદ્ય પદાથો ... વગે રે અનેક ભેદક લક્ષણોના આધાર પર

જુદી જુદી ભાષામાાં ભલિંગન ાંુ આરોપણ કરવામાાં આવે છે . આ

ભલિંગન ાંુ આરોપણ શબ્દાથાથત્મક રીતે યાદ્રચ્ચ્છક પાયા પર

કરાયેલ ાં ુ હોય છે , પણ તેન ાંુ સમથથન રૂપગત છે . ... એટલે

ભલિંગની કોરટ માત્ર ભાષાકીય, વ્યાકરભણક કોરટ જ છે .

(Desai, Rupshastra 59)

The gender system is not dependent only on sex. Different languages assign gender on
the bases of animacy, size, shape, abstractness, social status, texture, colour, etability
etc. the gender-assignment is arbitrary but their realisation is morphological. Thus, the
category of gender is only linguistic or grammatical.

Unlike English, the neuter gender in Gujarati does not include all nouns that
correspond to genderless realities. Some of these may be designated by nouns that are
grammatically masculine or feminine. The grammatical gender of a word does not
always coincide with real gender of its referent. For example: paththar (stone)
masculine, khurshī (chair) feminine

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In Gujarati, gender is marked quite explicitly and in different ways. The grammatical
gender of a noun here manifests itself in two ways: in the modifications that the noun
itself undergoes and in modifications of other related words (agreement).

1) Inflection – Many words have different forms for different genders and they are
morphologically marked for that. For example: chhokro – chhokrī – chhokruN

The gender of a noun may affect the modifications that the noun itself undergoes
particularly the way in which the noun inflects for number and case. For example:
chhokr + -o = chhokro (boy – masculine singular); chhokr + -ā + -o = chhokrāo
(boys – masculine plural)

Both English and Gujarati show various designations for married women according to
the rank or profession of their husbands mostly through suffixation. English: duchess,
baroness, princess, etc. Gujarati: sonāraṇ, gorāṇī, darajaṇ etc.

2) Agreement – Gujarati determiners, adjectives and pronouns change their form

according to the noun they refer to. In a phrase or clause, words that refer to a given
noun inflect to match the gender of that noun. For example: sāro chhokro (good boy),
chhokrī āvī (girl came), peluN chhokruN (that child)

In some cases the gender of a pronoun is not marked in the form of the pronoun itself,
but is marked on other words by way of agreement. In Gujarati, te gayo (he went); te
gaī (she went); te gayuN (it went).

Additionally, in many languages, gender is often closely correlated with the basic
unmodified form (lemma) of the noun, and sometimes a noun can be modified to
produce masculine and feminine words of similar meaning. For example: in Gujarati,
chhokr + -o and chhokr + -ī

The grammatical gender of Gujarati language affects the perception of the native
speakers heavily. Webb Phillips and Lera Boroditsky correctly put it:

65
 Previous evidence also suggests that the same
grammatical distinction affects people’s decision
making (e.g., assigning voices to animated characters),
personification of nouns (as in the Russian days of the
week), and ratings of object characteristics (e.g.,
potency). In short, speakers of different languages
behave differently in a wide range of cognitive tasks in
ways that are consistent with the grammatical
distinctions made in their languages. (932)

Gender Agreement in English and Gujarati

Agreement or concord is a grammatical process in which certain words change their
form so that values of certain grammatical categories match those of related words.
Gender is one such category which frequently requires agreement. In this case, nouns
may be considered the triggers of the process, because they have an inherent gender,
whereas related words that change their form to match the gender of the noun can be
considered the target of these changes.

As Gujarati has grammatical gender, every noun must belong to one of the three
categories. Nouns referring to sexless entities must also be either masculine or
feminine or neuter even though this assignment may appear arbitrary. Beames notes,
“Not only have the substantives three genders, but the adjectives also, and the greater
part of the tenses of the verb, being participial in form, have also three genders.” (148)
All words in a noun phrase must agree with the head noun. Gender is marked on the
noun. In addition, it is also marked on other constituents in a noun phrase or sentence.
The constituents include determiners, pronouns, numerals, quantifiers, possessives,
adjectives, participles, verbs, adverbs, complementisers and adpositions. If the noun is
explicitly marked, both trigger and target may feature similar alternations.

English does not generally require gender agreement between related words except
third personal pronouns. The use of adjectives like 'handsome' for male referents and
'beautiful' for female referents is exceptional. But Gujarati gender is an all-
encompassing phenomenon. The agreement it triggers can be seen in the following
examples:

66
  pelī chokrī lakhe chhe. (determiner) (That girl is writing.)
 kai chhokrīnī vāt karo chho? (pronoun) (Which girl are you taking about?)
 paridhi sārī chhokrī chhe. (adjective) (Paridhi is a good girl.)
 preyā ramtī hatī. (verb) (Preya was playing.)
 prekshā mārī bahen ane pratham māro bhāi chhe. (possessives) (Preksha is
my sister and Pratham is my brother.)
 pāNchmo khelāḍī sātmī vakhat jītyo. (numerals) (The fifth player won seventh
time.)

In Gujarati, determiners, modifiers and verbs do not have inherent gender as nouns.
But they take various gender indicating forms according to the noun to which they are
closely related in a phrase or a clause. There are some exceptions also where they
remain unmarked.
For example:
Adjectives – sāro, sārī, sāruN; līlo, līlī, līluN
Exception – prāmāṇik, kesarī
Pronouns – pelo, pelī, peluN; kevdo, kevdī, kevduN
Exception – ā, te, huN, tame, shuN

The use of plural to show respect requires another kind of agreement. As Tisdall
notes, "The predicate, whether it be a verb or an adjective, may be put in the plural to
show respect, even if the subject be in the singular. In such cases, if the subject be
masculine the predicate is also masculine; but if the subject be feminine, respect
requires that the predicate be NEUTER plural. As, (1) Rājā āvyā chhe, ‘the king has
come’; but, (2) temnī sāthe rāṇī paṇ āvyā chhe, ‘with him the queen has also
come’." (96)

English gender may be generally described as covert in contrast to the overt gender
system of many languages. Pronouns agree in gender with the noun or noun phrase to
which they refer (their antecedent). Sometimes, however, there is no antecedent – the
referent of the pronoun is deduced indirectly from the context. In such cases, the
pronoun is likely to agree with the natural gender of the referent. For example: in

67
English, the personal he, she, it and impersonal one are used depending on whether
the referent is male, female or inanimate / non-human or common / dual.

When a noun with conflicting natural and grammatical gender is the antecedent of a
pronoun, it may not be clear which gender of pronoun to choose. There is a certain
tendency to keep the grammatical gender when a close back-reference is made but to
switch to natural gender when the reference is further away.

Only personal, possessive, reflexive and interrogative pronouns show gender in the
English noun phrase. The gender distinctions in personal pronouns, inherited from
Old English, are selected according to the physical sex of the items to which they
refer rather than any strictly linguistic classification. In other words, the gender of an
English pronoun, with few exceptions, coincides with the real gender of its referent
instead of the grammatical gender of its antecedent. The selection of pronoun is
determined according to semantics (perceived qualities of the thing being referred to)
rather than on any conventional assignment of particular nouns to particular genders.
The choice between 'he', 'she' and 'it' invariably comes down to whether they
designate a male or female, human or animal of a known sex or something else. The
third person singular pronouns and their possessive forms are the only modifiers that
are gender specific. But these are negligible features compared to a typical language
with grammatical gender. There are two manifestations of gender-based pronoun
selection:

 The third person singular pronouns are chosen according to the natural gender of
the antecedent. These pronouns include personal pronouns (he/him, she/her, it);
possessive pronouns (his, her(s), its); reflexive and intensive pronouns (himself,
herself, itself)
 The relative pronouns who/whom and which are chosen according to the personal
or animate vs. impersonal or inanimate status of the antecedent.

English has no pronoun to use for common gender third person singular (someone
else than you and I). Even no third person singular pronoun is universally accepted as
appropriate for referring to a human when one does not want to specify sex. To solve

68
the problem, 'they' is used as a third person singular common gender pronoun. Sexless
object nouns are assigned the neuter gender.

Indefinite and Dummy Pronouns in English and Gujarati

A dummy pronoun is used when a particular verb argument like the subject is non-
existent but a reference to the argument is syntactically required. In languages with a
neuter gender, a neuter pronoun is usually used. English behaves similarly, because
the word 'it' comes from the Old English neuter gender.For example: It is raining
today. It is fun to read comics.

A similar, apparently arbitrary gender assignment may need to be made in the case
of indefinite pronouns. Here, the gender assignment becomes problematic as the
gender of the referent is unknown and is still required for different kinds of concord in
the sentence. In Gujarati, for example, koī/koṇ āvyuN/gayuN (neuter) is used.

Gender Assignment in English

The natural gender system of English leaves no scope for any complication as far as
the gender assignment to human beings and pronoun selection for inanimate nouns are
concerned. Yet some peculiar features and exceptions found in the usage of the
gender system need to be noticed.

A peculiarity of gender-assignment in English is “While a great many special names

for human beings are applicable to both sexes, e.g. liar, possessor, inhabitant,
Christian, aristocrat, fool, stranger, neighbour, etc. others, though possessing no
distinctive mark, are as a matter of fact chiefly or even exclusively applied to one sex
only, because the corresponding social functions have been restricted either to men or
to women. This is true of minister, bishop, lawyer, baker, shoemaker and many others
on the one hand, nurse, dressmaker, milliner on the other.” (Jespersen 232) These
linguistic difficulties are emerged because of the recent extension of the activities of
women to the spheres that used to be set aside for men.

Mixed and Indeterminate Gender in English

Sometimes a group of mixed gender is referred to or a reference to people or things of
unknown or unspecified gender is made. In languages with a masculine, feminine and

69
neuter gender, the masculine is generally employed by default to refer to persons of
unknown gender. For example: There is someone at the door. Bring him inside.

In English, the problem of gender determination does not arise in the plural, because
gender in this language is reflected only in pronouns and the plural
pronoun 'they' does not have gendered forms. In the singular, 'he' is used as the default
gender. However, the singular 'they' may also be used, as an alternative, for the same
purpose. Another option is to use two nouns: ladies and gentlemen.

In the plural, the masculine noun is often used to refer to a mixed group of people. For
example: a group consisting of actors and actresses – a group of actors; a group
consisting of poets and poetesses – a group of poets; a group consisting of male
doctors and female doctors – a group of doctors; a family of tiger and tigress – a
family of tiger.

In languages with a neuter gender, the neuter is often used for indeterminate gender
reference, particularly when the things referred to are not people. In some cases this
my even apply when referring to people, particularly children. For example, in
English, one may use 'it' to refer to a child, particularly when speaking generically
rather than about a particular child of known sex.

Inanimate Nouns in Personification in English and Gujarati

Beames has rightly said, "The human mind has, however, not rested content with this
simple and natural use of gender, but has, by an effort of imagination, extended the
distinctions of sex to inanimate objects, abstract ideas, and, in short, to all nouns of
every kind." (145) The languages having grammatical gender and the languages
having natural gender refer to various inanimate objects and abstract ideas with
gendered nouns and pronouns. The nouns thus used have masculine or feminine
gender instead of neuter gender. This is called personification. A poet refers the sun as
'he' and the moon as 'she'. He addresses various things/objects calling them 'you'. This
may be considered a stylistic feature. The fact that in English the distinction of gender
is confined to difference of sex makes such departures more effective.

70
This practice is not restricted to only poetic use or rhetorical style. In everyday
speech, continents, nations, cities, ships, airplanes, cars and some organizations are
sometimes referred to as 'she' and are associated with 'her' in the possessive.
Especially, vessels or vehicles are assigned feminine gender out of affection. When
used, the terms 'she', 'her' and 'hers' apply regardless of the referent's name. For
example: The I.N.S. Vikrant has created a history. She has been converted into a
museum now. The gender is marked by the pronoun and not by the form of the noun.

Names of countries show different gender reference depending on their use: (1) As
geographical units, they are treated as neuter (inanimate): The map of India reveals its
natural wealth. (2) As political/economic units, the names of countries are often
feminine: India is proud of her martyrs. (3) The sports teams representing countries
can be referred to as 'they' (personal collective): India have won the final match.

Looking at this kind of gender assignment to the inanimate nouns, Beames comments,

… thus, in deciding what gender should be ascribed to a

word which indicates an object from its nature
incapable of classification by sex, the form of the word
is the only guide; and if it happen to be of a form
similar to that which is appropriated to the male sex in
living beings, it will be classed as masculine; if to the
female sex, as feminine; and if to neither, as neuter.
(146)

There are some inanimate or abstract nouns in both the languages that are frequently
personified and assigned gender according to this criterion.

(1) Nouns which can be masculine denote:

 Natural elements and phenomena characterized by force: wind, sun, winter,
ocean, sleep, death; pavan (wind), vaNṭoḷ (storm), dariyo (ocean), shiyāḷo
(winter), unāḷo (summer), sūrya (sun)

71
  Violent passions and actions: anger, fear, crime, war; gusso (anger), bhay
(fear), tirskār (neglect), guno (crime), badlo (revenge), dhikkār (hatred), kām
(lust), mad (arrogance)
 Rivers and mountains: Danube, Thames, Mount Everest, Himalay, Alps,
Girnar
Gujarati mountain names are masculine and river names are feminine. When
the words tekrī (hill) or girimāḷā (a range of mountains) are used with the
mountain names, they become feminine.
 Names of the days of the week, months, the heavenly bodies, oceans, seas in
Gujarati: somvār (Monday), kārtak, yaksh, hiNd mahāsāgar, arbī samudra

(2) Nouns which can be feminine denote:

 Natural elements and phenomena implying fertility or attachment: earth,
moon, sea, spring, morning, evening; dhartī (land), pruthvī (earth), vasaNt
(spring), varshā (rain), savār (morning), sāNj (evening)
 Gentle feelings or abstractions: hope, modesty, devotion, friendship, peace,
truth, fame; karunā (mercy), bhakti (devotion), nishṭhā (integrity), shāNti
(peace), kshamā (forgiveness), jignāsā (curiosity)
 Negative passions and feelings: jealousy, ambition, revenge, pride, treason;
īrshyā (envy), ghelchhā (crase), mahechchhā (ambitition), lālach (temptation)
 Names of rivers, lunar days (except padvo (m)), divisions of the day (except
pahor(m)) and some body parts: bīj, āṭham, savār, rāt, āNkh (eye), nas (vein),
pāNpan (eye-lashes), khāNdh (shoulder), jībh (tongue)

(3) Nouns which can be neuter denote: (Gujarati)

 Names of classes of animals, villages, cities and most names of fruits:
gadheḍuN (donkey), rāmpur, chīkhalī, amadāvād, vaḍodarā, keluN (banana),
tarbūch (watermelon)

The gender assignment to the country or city names in Gujarati is noteworthy. The
words for country and city – desh and shaher – are masculine and neuter respectively.
When a country name comes with the word desh, it is masculine. For example: bhārat
desh (m), amerikā desh (m). But when it appears without the word desh, it becomes a

72
neuter noun. For example: bhārat (n), amerikā (n). The case is a bit different with the
city names. They are always neuter either used with the word shaher or not. For
example: surat, landan

Gender Assignment in Gujarati

Gujarati is a natural language having grammatical gender. Natural languages classify
nouns, marked or unmarked, into genders in three ways: (1) according to logical or
symbolic similarities in their meaning (semantic); (2) by grouping them with other
nouns that have similar form (morphological) and (3) through an arbitrary convention
(lexical or historical). Usually, a combination of the three types of criteria is used,
though one is more prevalent.

1) Semantics
This kind of gender assignment is done according to logical or symbolic similarities
in the meaning of the nouns. Thus, the meaning of a noun determines its gender and
the gender of a noun sheds light on its meaning in turn. The assignment of natural
gender falls under this principle. For example: English gender corresponds with
natural sex of the referent.

In the language having grammatical gender like Gujarati, the gender assignment to
non-human nouns depends on the shape or appearance of the referent. If these
qualities are found similar, the nouns are assigned a particular gender. Beames writes,
"… the masculine is used to denote large, strong, heavy and coarse objects; the
feminine small, weak, light and fine ones; and the neuter, where it exists, represents
dull, inert, and often contemptible things. So far is this carried, that in cases where the
original word was only masculine or neuter, a feminine form has been invented to
express a smaller or finer article of the same kind; and, conversely, where only a
feminine form existed, a masculine to express a larger or coarser object has been
struck out." (148) In Gujarati, the masculine gender includes males and things which
are tall, long, slender or narrow such as kāchbo (tortoise/turtle), magar (crocodile),
sāp/nāg (long snake), bhālo (spear) and tall, slender trees like pīpḷo (papal), līmḍo
(neem), āMbo (mango), āsopālav; while the feminine gender includes females and
things which are short, squat or wide such as māchhlī (fish), khurshī (chair), thālī
(dish)

73
Inanimate objects in Gujarati can come in differently gender-marked versions based
on their size: masculine is big, getting smaller down through neuter and then
feminine. Neuter can sometimes be pejorative. For example: chamcho (big spoon) and
chamchī (small spoon), vāṭko (big bowl) and vāṭkī (small bowl). The same can be
applied to animates (non-human). One would think saslo to be a male rabbit but it is
more so a big rabbit.

2) Morphology
This kind of gender assignment is done by grouping the nouns with other nouns that
have similar form. Here, the morphological and phonological structures of a noun
play an important role in determining its gender. The assignment of grammatical
gender falls under this principle. In Gujarati, grammatical gender is most obviously
noticeable by noun morphology. Since nouns that refer to male persons usually end in
-o or a consonant and nouns that refer to female persons usually end in -ī, most other
nouns that end in -o or a consonant are also treated as masculine and most nouns that
end in -ī are treated as feminine.

Nouns ending in some other vowel are assigned a gender either according to
etymology, by analogy or by some other convention. Morphology may in fact
override meaning in some cases. For example, in Gujarati, vyakti (f) may be used for a
man.

In Gujarati, gender can often be guessed from morphological clues (suffixes -o, -ī or -
ũ). On the other hand, the correlation between grammatical gender and morphology is
usually not perfect. For example: vidyārthī (m), gho (f), lohī (n)

Booij observes: “Morphological structure may also be involved in computing the

gender of a noun. The heads of nominal compounds, and most suffixes determine the
gender of the words they create.” (133) In Gujarati, vājuN (a musical instrument) is
neuter and peṭī is feminine. When they combine to form a nominal compound
vājāpeṭī, the word takes feminine gender.

74
3) Lexicon
Some of the Gujarati nouns are assigned gender through an arbitrary lexical or
historical convention. Any rule or generalization cannot be found for such gender-
assignment. Even the native speakers do not find any semantic or morphological clue
for that. These nouns are to be memorized with their gender. For example: masculine
– samay, prem, sāth; feminine – sobat, musībat; neuter – peṭ, nāk

Since all nouns must belong to some gender class in a language having grammatical
gender, many end up with genders which are purely conventional. For example: irādo
(intention – m), māthuN (head – n) and mahenat (effort – f) are neither animates
possessing biological gender nor a part of a set of differently-sized variants; their
gender is essentially inexplicable.

Two nouns denoting the same concept can also differ in gender within a single
language. For example: in Gujarati – chappu (n) and chharī (f) (knife); māṇas (m)
and vyakti (f) (person); ochhāḍ (m) and chādar (f) (bed sheet)

Moon is neuter in English and masculine in Gujarati. There is nothing inherent about
the moon which makes it objectively 'male' or 'female'. In these cases, gender is quite
independent of meaning and a property of the nouns themselves rather than of their
referents.

Gujarati has a peculiarity in gender-assignment. The same referent is referred to by

more than one gender. “There are a number of substantives which are assigned
different genders in the speech of different individuals or areas. For example, cāh
‘tea’ is either masculine or feminine; ghaḍiāḷ ‘clock’ is either neuter or feminine.”
(Cardona 65-66) This can be viewed as an effect of provinciality on the use of
language. The dialects of various regions cause such results. Some more examples are
– kalāk (hour) (m/f), nāv (boat) (f/n), vay (age) (f/n), savār (morning) (f/n), pataNg
(kite) (m/f), magar (crocodile) (m/f)

Gender of Animals – Birds – Insects in English and Gujarati

In the case of languages having masculine, feminine and neuter genders, the relation
between biological sex and grammatical gender tends to be less exact in the case of

75
animals than in the case of people. It tends to be more arbitrary for animals in both
English and Gujarati. In fairy-tales and children tales, the gender of animals or plants
often depends on the author's choice or intention.

Different names for the male and the female of a species are more frequent for pets,
farm animals and a few wild animals in both the languages. For example: bull and
cow, horse and mare, rooster and hen in English and gāy and baḷad in Gujarati.

In English, cattle and chickens have different words for male and female animals and
'he' and 'she' are therefore used correspondingly. The gender of other animals is not
generally known. Therefore these animal names are considered to be neuter nouns and
referred to as 'it' except in some veterinarian or literary contexts. In other words,
lower animals do not differ from inanimate nouns in terms of pronoun substitution.
The use of 'it' for an animal may imply that the speaker lacks or despise emotional
connection with the animal.

However, in personifications, animals and birds are referred to by the pronouns 'he' or
'she'. Big and strong animals are said to be masculine. For example: horse, lion,
elephant, dog, eagle etc. Small animals are looked upon as feminine. For example:
squirrel, cat, mouse, hare etc. When the sex of an animal is known, it will normally be
referred to using gendered pronouns consistent with its sex; otherwise the pronouns
will correspond to the gender of the noun denoting its species. For instance: some
speakers tend to refer to dogs as 'he' and to cats as 'she'.

In Gujarati, the names of animals, birds and insects are assigned gender without
rhyme or reason. They are used in their conventional gender. The pronouns used to
refer to animals generally agree in gender with the nouns denoting those animals
rather than the sex (natural gender) of that animal. For instance: chitto (cheetah) is
masculine and garoḷī (lizard) is feminine and pataNgiyuN (butterfly) is neuter
regardless of their biological sex. The names of animals are rarely used with reference
to their biological sex. A few more examples are: shiyāḷ (he fox – n), ūNṭ (he camel –
n), gheNṭuN (he sheep – n), kabūtar (he pegion – n). Here, the pairs of male and
female animals, birds and insects have neuter and female combination in most of the

76
cases. For example: rīNchh (he bear – n) – rīNchhaṇ (she bear – f), sasaluN (he rabbit
– n) – sasalī (she rabbit – f), kabūtar (he pigeon – n) – kabūtarī (she pigeon – f)

Some of these creatures have only single gender reference. If required, they take the
words nar or mada to refer to the creature of the other gender. For example: samḍī
(he/she eagle – f), khiskolī (he/she squirrel – f), kīḍī (he/she ant – f), machchhar
(he/she mosquito – n), koyal (he/she cuckoo – f), garuḍ (he/she eagle – n)

Some animals/birds/insects have the propensity to be addressed and cast as being of

one gender over the others regardless of the biological gender of the specific organism
being referred to. For example: spiders are masculine: karoḷiyo, cats feminine: bilāḍī
and rabbits neuter: sasluN. These three can be cast into other genders if such
specificity is desired but as explained that would be deviation from the default rather
than a scenario of three equally valid choices.

Implications of Gender-system in Gujarati

Gender system of any language may have more than one implication. The first and
foremost function of the gender system of any language is to signify natural sex
distinction. This refers to the animate nouns only. The inanimate nouns do not specify
any sex differences. They indicate the grammatical gender imposed on them
conventionally.

Gujarati nouns have peculiar gender implications. They are as follow:

 One of the major connotations of gender in Gujarati is the size of the referent.
The gender markers also include the dimension of size. Masculine is big,

getting smaller down through neuter and then feminine. "એટલે કે 'ઓરડો –

ઓરડી' માત્ર પચ્ાંુ ્લિંગ – સ્ત્રીચ્્લિંગ નથી દશાથવતા પણ 'ઓરડો' મોટો અને 'ઓરડી'

નાની એવો પરરમાણનો અથથ પણ એમાાંથી નીકળે જ છે .... આમ, સ્ત્રીચ્્લિંગની વવરુિે

પચ્ાંુ ્લિંગ – નપસ ુ રાં ુ બ ૃહત – મોટાંુ અથથ દશાથ વે, જ્યારે
ાંુ કભલિંગનાાં અંગો ઘણખ

ુ રાં ુ લઘ ુ – નાન ાંુ એવો અથથ દશાથ વે." (Desai,

સ્ત્રીચ્્લિંગનાાં અંગો ઘણખ

Vyakranvimarsh 144) orḍo – orḍī do not show only masculine – feminine

77
 distinction but indicate size: orḍo is big and orḍī is small. Thus, masculine and
neuter forms opposed to feminine forms generally mean something big/large;
whereas feminine forms usually mean small. Some more examples are māṭluN
(big earthen pot – n) – māṭlī (small earthen pot – f), pyālo (big glass – m) –
pyālī (small glass – f).
 Taylor notes, "... should an inanimate object have a name ending in -o (or -ũ),
and an object of the like kind a name ending in -ī, the former is generally the
larger, stronger, coarser of the two, and the latter, the smaller, weaker, finer."
(P. 14) For example: ṭekro (hill – m) – ṭekrī (a small hill –f), khīchḍo (khichdi
of inferior quality – m) – khīchḍī (a savoury dish of rice and pulse – f), gāḍuN
(a cart – n) – gāḍī (a carriage – f). Note, however, that the masculines vāḍo
(yard) and khāḍo (pit) indicate objects, coarser indeed, yet smaller than their
corresponding feminines vāḍī (garden) and khāḍī (creek). In same way, doro
(thread) – dorī (string, cord); ṭeṭo (berry of the banyan tree) – ṭeṭī (musk
melon)
 Masculine and neuter nouns express serenity, sublimity, pride, force, grandeur
and loftiness. For example: pagluN (step), nagar (town), paṭāro (big bag).
Feminine nouns express tenderness, tidiness, beauty and gracefulness. For
example: paglī, nagarī, peṭī.
 Sometimes feminine and neuter nouns express hatred, triviality or crudeness.
Masculine nouns express awkwardness, clumsiness, bulkiness or
stubbornness. For example: ruparḍī (feminine), pāghḍo (masculine), jībhaḍo
(masculine), beṭuN (neuter), ḍāḍhuN (neuter), laḍuḍī (feminine).
 Yogendra Vyas notes the use of gender-markers as diminutives:

…સામાન્ય રીતે સાંજ્ઞાસ ૂચક મતુ ત રૂપોમાાં પણ તચ્છતા

ુ કે

ુ ાનો ભાવ ઉમેરવા નપસ

વતરસ્કારનો કે લઘત ાંુ કભલિંગના રૂપને

એ રૂપ સાથે જોડવામાાં આવે છે . દા.ત. બામણ + ઉં =

બામણ.ાંુ વળી, જો સાંજ્ઞાસ ૂચક રૂપ નપસ

ાંુ કભલિંગના રૂપ સાથે

સામાન્ય રીતે રચનામાાં પ્રવેશત ાંુ હોય તો તચ્છતા

ુ કે

વતરસ્કારનો અથથ ઉમેરવા એ સાંજ્ઞાસ ૂચક રૂપ સામાન્ય રીતે

78
 જે ભલિંગના રૂપ સાથે રચનામાાં ન પ્રવેશત ાંુ હોય તે ભલિંગ

સરહતન ાંુ વનમાથણ કરવામાાં આવે છે . દા.ત. પાઘડી/પાઘડુાં,

પોટલી/પોટલ ાં ુ એવી રચનાઓ સામાન્ય રીતે સાાંભળવા મળે

ુ
છે પણ પાઘડો કે પોટલો એ રચના તચ્છતા કે વતરસ્કારનો

ભાવ વ્યતત કરે છે . (164-165)

Neuter-marker is used to show triviality, hatred or neglect. If a noun has a

neuter form, masculine or feminine forms of that noun are used for the same
purpose. For example: poṭlī – poṭluN are found. Here, the masculine poṭlo
indicates negative feeling.
 One of the peculiar uses of gender-markers is to create tree-fruit pairs. In these
pairs, sometimes one noun comes with a gender-marker and the other does
not. They are of three types:
(i) Unmarked and feminine nouns: khajūr – khajūrī, sītāfaḷ – sītāfaḷī, bor – borḍī
(ii) Neuter and feminine nouns: kāreluN – kārelī, riNgaṇuN – rīNgaṇī
(iii) Neuter and masculine nouns: keraḍuN – keraḍo, baheḍuN – baheḍo
In these pairs, neuter and unmarked nouns are fruits and masculine and
feminine nouns indicate trees producing those fruits. The only exception is bhīNḍī –
bhīNḍo. Here, the masculine noun indicates the fruit.
 The difference of raw material of the referent is indicated through different
gender nouns. For example: doro – dorī, tāvḍo – tāvḍī, roṭlo – roṭlī, gāḍī –
gāḍuN, pīNchhī – pīNchhuN, kuNḍī – kuNḍuN, bīḍī– bīḍuN
 Sometimes, the neuter – feminine pair of nouns show that the referent
(feminine) is made of particular material (neuter). For example: patruN –
patrī, loḍhuN – loḍhī, lākaduN – lākadī
 Some nouns with different gender-markers indicate different shapes. The
referents also have different use. For example: kāNsko – kāNskī, pahoNcho –
pahoNchī, tavo-tavī, tāvḍo – tāvḍī
 The words related to the earth are feminine as the earth is thought of as a
mother producing plants. For example: pruthvī, dharatī, dharā

79
 Some nouns take different gender-markers to show some typical/specific
meaning. For example: āNchko – āNchkī, vāḍo – vāḍī, pathāro – pathārī,
chāmaḍī – chāmḍuN
 These gender suffixes are sometimes used as stem-enlarging suffixes. When
thus used, they express a variety of meanings related to feelings/emotions like
tenderness, inferiority, love, caress, hatred, irritation, contempt,
hardness/shrewdness, coarseness, jealousy etc. For example: dāḍhuN (n –
triviality); badāmḍī (f – contempt); bahenḍī (f – love); pāghdo (m –
coarseness)
 The gender-markers, sometimes, completely change the meaning of words.
For example: dāNt – dāNto, ghar – gharuN, bhār – bhāro, khāḍo – khāḍī,
ṭhekaḍo – ṭhekaḍī, hāth – hātho, peṭ – peṭī, pān – pānuN, nāk – nākuN, goḷ –
goḷo, ḍhāNkṇuN – ḍhāNkaṇī.
 Some nouns taking two gender-markers only show provincial difference in
pronunciation. For example: bājro – bājrī, goḷo – goḷī, sāsarī – sāsaruN,
līmḍo – līmḍī
 Some unmarked nouns are assigned more than one gender due to provincial
speech differences. For example:
Masculine and feminine – chā (tea), pataNg (kite), magar (crocodile)
Feminine and neuter – ghaḍiyāḷ (watch), āḷas (lethargy), savār
(morning), agatya (importance)
Masculine and neuter – kharch (expense), nīm (resolution), ghaṭak
(component), ekam (unit), vrutāNt (story)
 Some nouns take two gender-markers even if they do not show any difference
in meaning. For example: joḍī – joḍuN, ḍokī – ḍokuN, pāNsaḷī – pāNsaḷu,
māchhalī – māchhaluN
 The gender of adjective and participle used with animate nouns show gender
of the referent noun. But the same used with inanimate nouns only suggest the
grammatical gender.
 Kothari notes the usage of gender-markers thus:

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 પરરમાણની સાથેસાથે આ સાંજ્ઞાઓમાાં ભલિંગભેદ અન્ય

ભાવછાયાઓ પણ દશાથ વે છે . પચ્ુ ્લિંગ અને

ાંુ કભલિંગની સાંજ્ઞાઓ પ્રબળતા, ભવ્યતા, ગાંભીરતા,

નપસ

ગૌરવ, ભારે પણાંુ વગેરે ભાવો વ્યતત કરે છે . તો

સ્ત્રીભલિંગની સાંજ્ઞાઓ કોમળતા, નાજુકપણ,ાંુ સઘ

ુ ડપણ,ાંુ

લાભલત્ય વગે રે ભાવો વ્યતત કરે છે . ... પણ જયારે

પ્રશસ્યતા અભભપ્રેત ન હોય ત્યારે સ્ત્રીભલિંગ વનબથળતા,

તચ્ુ છતા, અ્પતા દશાથવે છે ; પચ્ુ ્લિંગ દોદળાપણ,ાંુ

અણઘડપણ,ાંુ કઢાં ગી રીતે મોટા હોવાપણાંુ દશાથ વે છે અને

ાંુ કભલિંગ
નપસ વ્યક્તતત્વહીનતા, જડતા, કઢાં ગાપણ,ાંુ

તચ્ુ છતા, વતરસ્કાર દશાથ વે છે . (194)

Masculine and neuter nouns show force, grandure, serenity, pride, solidity; whereas
feminine nouns indicate tenderness, softness, tidiness, modesty. On the other hand,
some negative implications are also there. Feminine nouns show triviality, meekness,
inadequacy; whereas masculine nouns show bulkiness, coarseness, awkwardness and
neuter nouns indicate crudeness, hatred, pettiness, stubbornness.

Correlation between Gender and the Form of a Noun in English and Gujarati
In many other languages, nouns are assigned gender largely without any semantic
basis – that is, not based on any feature (such as animacy or sex) of the person or
thing that a noun represents. However in many languages there may be a correlation,
to a greater or lesser degree, between gender and the form of a noun (such as the letter
or syllable with which it ends). For example, in Gujarati, nouns that end in -o or a
consonant are mostly masculine, those that end in -ī are mostly feminine and those
ending in -ũ are mostly neuter regardless of their meaning.

81
In fact, nouns in Gujarati generally follow the gender of the Sanskrit words from
which they are derived. When nouns deviate from the rules for gender, there is usually
an etymological explanation.

Suffixes often carry a specific gender. For example: the Gujarati suffix -tā in
suNdartā (beauty), ṛujutā (tenderness), sajjantā, komaḷtā (gentleness) gives feminine
nouns. Gender may also be predictable from the type of derivation. For example:
adjective to noun derivation gives feminine nouns in Gujarati – mīṭhāsh (sweetness),
lālāsh (redness), niyamittā (regularity), chokhkhāī (cleanliness).

Although gender inflection may be used to construct nouns and names for people of
opposite sexes in languages that have grammatical gender, this alone does not
constitute grammatical gender. Distinct words and names for men and women are also
common in languages which do not have a grammatical gender system for nouns in
general. English, for example, has feminine suffixes such as '-ess' and also
distinguishes male and female personal names.

Gender Correspondence between Languages

Nouns which have the same meanings in different languages need not have the same
gender. This is particularly so in the case of things with no natural gender, i.e., sexless
objects. For example, chair, in English, is a neuter noun but, in Gujarati, it is a
feminine noun khurshī. Even within a given language, different nouns that denoting
the same concept may vary in gender – for example, in Gujarati, vidyā is feminine and
gyān (knowledge) is neuter; chharī is feminine and chappu is neuter.

Gender Assignment in Borrowed Words

In Gujarati, tatsam and tadbhav nouns carry the gender from Sanskrit language. For
example: bhāshā (language), āshā (hope), īcchā (wish) (all feminine). As Gujarati has
grammatical gender, each loanword has to be assigned a gender. These loanwords
have often been Gujaratized. For example:, the Perso-Arabic words dāvo, fāydo,
natījo, humlo become masculine and shardī, kharīdī, jindgī become feminine and
khānuN becomes neuter. In the same way, genderless English words must take one.
Though often inexplicable, gender assignment may follow the same basis as it is

82
expressed in Gujarati; vowel type and the nature of word meaning, for example,
reḍīyo (masculine), pārṭī (feminine) and kavar (neuter).

Sometimes the gender of a word changes with time. There are several processes by
which a language assigns a gender to a newly borrowed word. These processes follow
patterns by which even children, through their subconscious recognition of patterns,
can often correctly predict the gender of a noun: (a) The default assignment is the
borrowing language's unmarked gender. (b) The borrowed word tends to take the
gender of the native word it replaces. (c) If the borrowed word happens to have a
suffix that the borrowing language uses as a gender marker, the suffix tends to dictate
gender. (d) If the borrowed word rhymes with one or more native words, the latter
tend to dictate gender. (e) If the noun is animate, natural gender tends to dictate
grammatical gender. (f) Rarely, the word retains the gender it had in the donor
language.

Nouns in both the languages inflect for number. Nouns inflect variously for plural in
both of them.

Number-system of Nouns
The concept of number in nouns means the manner in which the singularity (one
entity) or plurality (more than one entity) of the referent is indicated. It is a
grammatical category which encodes quantification over entities or events denoted by
nouns. It is the ability to differentiate between one and more than one instance of the
referent. It is less arbitrary than the other arbitrary grammatical categories. Yet, one
must not forget that it is not a natural category. It is the most wide spread and
expressed category. Countability is, in a way, integral to nouns.

Expression of Number
As noted by Anna Kibort and Greville G. Corbett: "Nominal number can be found
expressed on the noun/nominal element, on or in the noun phrase or on the verb.
When it is found on the noun/nominal element or the noun phrase, it can be thought of
as inherent and when it is found on other elements of the noun phrase or the clause,
for example as a result of agreement with the noun, it can be thought of as
contextual." For example: the plural forms 'bats' and 'vāhano' (vehicles) have inherent

83
number expression; whereas 'The cattle were grazing' and 'faḷ khātāN chhe' (The fruits
are savour.) have contextual number expression.

There are various ways for the number expression: (a) special number words – two,
dozen, hundred; (b) syntactic means – agreement found on demonstratives, verbs,
articles, adjectives, pronouns, nouns especially in possessive constructions, adverbs,
adpositions, and complements; (c) a variety of morphological means – inflections,
various types of stem change, zero expressions, clitics; (d) lexical means – suppletion.

Moreover, number is often marked in more than one way within one language. It may
be marked by two different means.
For example:
(a) by morphological and syntactic means – For example: He eats an apple. – They eat
apples.
meN bārṇuN kholyuN. – meN bārṇāNo kholyāN. (I opened the door/doors.) (nouns
and verbs)
(b) by morphological means and by a number word – For example: two apples; das
bārṇāNo (ten doors)
(c) by two or more morphological means – For example: kāgdā/o (crows) (-ā and -o),
bakrī/o (goats) (zero plural and -o)

It is common for number marking to appear on the head noun. The number
information can also be conveyed through the determiner as in English and Gujarati.
Certain determiners have different forms depending on the number of their head noun:
this car – these cars; pelo chhokro – pelā chhokrāo. An example of another agreeing
element within the noun phrase is the adjective, as in Gujarati sāro chhokro – sārā
chhokrāo. It is also possible, although relatively uncommon, for nominal number to
be marked exclusively on the verb. For example, in Gujarati, mor nrutya karī
rahyo/rahyā chhe. ((A) peacock/s is/are dancing.)

Syntactic test is equally significant as the morphological test as far as the number
expression is concerned. The English noun 'sheep' triggers the following agreement:
This sheep is black. Those sheep are white. pataNg chagyo (A kite flew). pataNg
chagyā (Kites flew).

84
Expression of Number in English
The singular nouns are pluralized in three ways: (1) Plurals formed by the suffix -s or
-es: This is the most modern method and considered to be the standard one. This kind
of plural-marking requires careful consideration of the final vowel or consonant of the
noun. Various forms are found for the nouns ending in sibilants, -o, -y, -f, -fe. (2)
Plurals formed by the suffix -en: this method is now obsolete. Very few illustrations
of plural forms created by this suffix are found. (3) Plurals formed by vowel change:
The mode of forming plurals by changing the mid vowel is also outdated. Only seven
examples are found.

Expression of Number in Gujarati

Gujarati has the same dual number system as English. Gujarati plural marking suffix
is -o.

As Guajarati language has grammatical gender, the number system also gets displayed
differently depending on the nouns taking gender markers and those not taking gender
markers. In fact, while talking about the number of a noun, one has to mention the
gender in Gujarati. Bare reference to the number of a noun is meaningless. While
deciding the concord, the gender of a noun is considered first and then the number.

ુ રાતી ભાષામાાં વચનની અભભવ્યક્તત ભલિંગની સાથે જોડાયેલ એકવત્રત છે . તેમાાંય વળી
"ગજ

ભલિંગવાચક પ્રત્યયો લેતી સાંજ્ઞાઓ અને ભલિંગવાચક પ્રત્યયો ન લેતી સાંજ્ઞાઓની વતથણક
ાં ૂ પણ

જુદી છે ." (Desai, Rupshashtra 64)

(1) Masculine nouns taking -o: For pluralizing these nouns, the suffix -ā is attached to
the stem after removing the word final vowel -o. The plural marker -o is added
optionally. For example: chhokro – chhokr + -ā + (-o) = chhokrā(o) (boys)

(2) Neuter nouns taking -ũ: For pluralizing neuter nouns, the suffix -ā is attached to
the stem after removing the word final vowel -ũ. The plural marker -o is added
optionally. For example: chhokruN – chhokr + -ā + (-o) = chhokrāN(o) (children)

85
(3) Feminine and unmarked nouns take -o as a plural marker without any change of
form, however, optionally. For example: chokrī – chokrī(o) (girls), faḷ – faḷ(o)
(fruits), pataNg – pataNg(o) (kites), lāt – lāt(o) (kicks)

Peculiarity of Gujarati Number

The plural marker -o attached to the nouns is not mandatory. It is used alternatively. If
it is not attached to a masculine or a neuter noun, the noun still suggests pluralization
through the final vowel -ā or -ā. For example: kutrā (dogs), bakrāN (goats).
Contrarily, if it is not attached to a feminine or an unmarked noun, the noun remains
unmarked for number. In such cases, the determiners, adjectives and verbs display
numbers of the noun. For example: pāNch chokrī (five girls), ghaṇāN faḷ (many
fruits). Here, the addition of -o after -ā or -ā is the case of stem expansion.

Gujarati speakers normally avoid using plural marker with consonant ending words, if
the plurality is taken care by agreement morphology or numeral. For example: be
ghar, traṇ vruksh

English Number-system
English nouns are variable or invariable depending on the number system. Variable
nouns have one singular form and one plural form. Generally, variable nouns form
regular plurals. That means, the plural is fully predictable from the singular. If the
plural cannot be predicted from the singular, it is an irregular plural. Invariable nouns
do not show any number contrast. They have only one form – either singular or plural.
And therefore, they take either a singular or a plural verb. As far as the category of
number is concerned, English nouns are put into various groups according to the
following table:

86
 -s/-es plurals
Nouns ending in -f/-fe

Nouns ending in -y

Regular
Nouns ending in -o

Letters, abbreviations and numerals

First element plural
Compounds Final element plural
Variable

Both the elements plural

Mutation
-en plurals
Zero plurals
Irregular

Latin
Greek
Foreign plurals French
Italian
Nouns

Hebrew
Concrete uncountable nouns
Abstract uncountable nouns
Singular

Proper nouns
Nouns ending in -s

Abstract substantivized adjectives

Nouns denoting parts of the body

Nouns denoting mental state

Invariable

Nouns denoting articles of dress

Nouns denoting tools and

Plural

instruments consisting of two parts

Proper nouns
Verbal nouns in -ing
Other 'pluraliatantum'
Substantivized adjectives

Unmarked plurals (Collective nouns)

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(1) Variable Nouns
(i) Regular Plurals
"The regular plural is formed by means of an -s suffix (the 's plural'). The realization
of this -s noun suffix in speech and writing follows the same rules as the 3rd person
singular verb suffix -s and, in speech, as the contracted forms of is and has as well as
the genitive." (Quirk et al. 172) This pattern of pluralisation triggers morphological
and phonological changes. The formation of such plurals is – singular noun +
inflection -s/-es.

The suffix -s is written -s after most nouns including those ending in silent -e. For
example: bats, mugs, caps, sticks, pens, colleges, gates, prizes, pots, cars, plans

The suffix -s is spelled -es after nouns ending in sibilants. For example: gases, bushes,
classes, buzzes, churches, dishes, buses, beaches, boxes, bosses, guesses

Sometimes the doubling of the last consonant occurs while forming a plural. For
example: quiz – quizzes
This also takes place in some abbreviation plurals: MS – MSS (manuscripts)

Nouns ending in -o
These nouns take -s or -es for forming plurals. The nouns take -s when
(a) the final -o is preceded by another vowel: bamboos, folios, kangaroos, radios,
studios, zoos stereo – stereos (exceptions are goes and noes)
(b) they are proper names: Filipinos, Neros, Romeos, Eskimos
(c) they are abbreviations: kilos (kilogramme), photos (photograph), pianos
(pianoforte)
(d) miscellaneous: memos
The nouns taking -es: tomatoes, heroes, echoes, potatoes, buffaloes
Both forms: banjos/banjoes, cargos/cargoes, tornados/tornadoes, volcanos/volcanoes

Nouns ending in -y
These nouns take -s or -es for forming plurals.

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When a noun ends in -y preceded by a consonant, the -y is replaced by -i and followed
by -es. For example: folly – follies, ally – allies, daisy – daisies, fairy – fairies, baby –
babies, reality – realities, spy - spies

When a noun ends in -y preceded by a vowel, it directly takes -s for forming a plural.
For example: boy – boys, day –days, bay – bays, prey – preys

Proper nouns ending in -y also take -s without changing -y into -i. For example:
Kennedy – Kennedys

Nouns ending in -f/-fe

The nouns ending in -f or -fe take the plural marker -es. Before attaching the plural
suffix, -f or -fe is replaced by -v. For exapmle: wife – wives, half – halves, shelf –
shelves, loaf – loaves, knife – knives, leaf – leaves, life – lives, self – selves, elf –
elves

However, exceptions are also found.

Regular plurals: roofs, handkerchiefs, chiefs, beliefs,
Both forms: scarfs/scarves, hoofs/hooves, staffs/staves, dwarfs/ dwarves

Plurals of Letters, Figures and Abbreviations

The plurals of the letters and figures are formed by adding -s or the apostrophe -s. An
apostrophe can be used to create plural forms in limited situations – for pluralizing
figures, letters of the alphabet and words quoted merely as words without reference to
their meaning. For example:

His 4's (or 4s) look like 9's (or 9s).

My son does not write r's and g's properly.
Juhi got five A's in her last result.
There are ten or's on the first page of your article.
Capitalize all the r's in this letter.

The apostrophe + -s construction is not used to create the plural of a word-in-itself.

For instance: the 'ins and outs' of a mystery, the 'yeses and nos' of a vote

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The apostrophe + -s construction is also not used to create the plural of acronyms. For
example: IITs, NRIs, SBIs, LICs, MOUs, IQs, Ph. D.s

Plurals of Numerical Expressions

Numerical expressions are usually singular. They can be plural if the individuals
within a numerical group are acting individually. For example:
 Two thousand rupees is not a small amount. (singular)
 One-third of the team is fresh in this organization. (singular)
 One-fourth of the students work on this project. (plural)
 Half of the citizens have got themselves registered for the municipal
record. (plural)

Nouns naming books, serials, films, companies, firms etc. might end in -s. But these
nouns have singular reference. For example: Only Parathas (a restaurant), Three Idiots
(a movie), Two States (a novel), Packers and Movers (a company), Naples (a bay)

Compound Nouns
(a) The compounds having very closely connected constituents – the plurals can be
formed by adding the suffix '-s' to the final element. Here, the whole word gets
pluralized. For example: footballs, churchyards, waterfalls, compound walls,
postscripts, forget-me-nots, spoonfuls, typewriters, breakdowns
Some compounds ending in an adverb also follow the regular rule. For example:
close-ups, take-overs, stand-ins, lay-bys, stand-bys, grown-ups, sit-ins, stand-bys,
take-offs
The compounds having 'man' or 'woma'n as their final constituents – the plurals can
be made by replacing these words by 'men' or 'women' respectively. For example:
washermen, milkmen, business women
(b) The compounds having pairs of initial main constituents and final modifying
subordinate constituents – the plurals can be formed by adding the suffix '-s' to the
first element. Here, the first chief component gets pluralized. This happens when
 The first elements in compounds end in -er or in -ing: passers-by, goings-out,
hangers-on

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  The two elements are linked with a preposition: editors-in-chief, daughters-in-
law, attorneys at law, grants-in-aid
 The compound construction is noun + adjective: courts martial, attorneys
general, poets laureate, heirs apparent, notaries public
(c) The compounds having 'and' as a link between its two constituents – the plurals
can be formed by making both elements plural. For example: ins-and-outs, pros-and-
cons
(d) The compounds having 'man' or 'woman' as their first constituents – the plurals
can be formed by making both elements plural. For example: women drivers, men
singers, menservants
Exceptions: woman-haters, man-eaters
Some words ending in -man are not compounds. They are simple nouns taking the
suffix -s for plural: talisman, firman, ottoman

(ii) Irregular Plurals

Irregular plurals are by definition unpredictable.

Whereas the plurals /iz/ in horses, /z/ in dogs, and /s/ in
cats can be inferred from the final sound in the singular
of the nouns, there is no indication in the written or
spoken forms of, say, ox, sheep, and analysis to suggest
that their plurals are oxen, sheep, and analyses. The
particular plurals of these nouns have to be learned as
individual lexical units. In many cases where foreign
words are involved, it is of course helpful to know
about pluralisation in the relevant languages,
particularly Latin and Greek. (Quirk et al. 175)

On the pattern of analysis – analyses, we can infer the correct plurals: axis – axes,
basis – bases, crisis –crises. But we cannot rely on etymological criteria: plurals like
areas and villas, for example, do not conform to the Latin pattern (areae, villae).

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The irregular plurals in English are as follows:

Mutation
Mutation involves a change of the medial vowel. The mode of forming plurals is
outdated. Seven nouns and their compounds change their root vowel in plural: man –
men, woman – women, foot – feet, tooth – teeth, goose – geese, mouse –mice, louse –
lice
Exceptions: mongoose – mongooses, German – Germans, Norman – Normans

-en plurals
This suffix has become unproductive and out of date. Very few illustrations of plural
forms created by this suffix are found. For example: ox – oxen, child – children,
brother – brethren

Zero plurals
Nouns having the same form for singular and plural are said to have zero plural.
"Note the difference here between, on the one hand, invariable nouns, which are
either singular (This music is too loud) or plural (All
the cattle are grazing in the field), and, on the other, zero plural nouns, which are
variable in taking both singular and plural verb (This sheep looks small. All those
sheep are mine)." (Quirk et al. 178)

Several types of nouns have zero plural:

Animal names –
 Regular Plurals: dogs, cats, hens, sparrows, eagles, monkeys, hawks, larks,
rabbits
 Zero Plural: grouse, sheep, salmon, plaice
 Two Forms: antelope/antelopes, crab/crabs, duck/ducks, deer/deers, elk/elks,
pike/pikes, moose/mooses, trout/trouts, fish/fishes

Animal names often have zero plurals. They tend to be

used partly by people who are especially concerned
with animals, partly when the animals are referred to in

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 mass as food or game. With animal names that have two
plurals, the zero plural is the more common to denote
hunting quarries, eg: We caught only a few fish,
whereas the regular plural is used to denote different
individuals, species, etc: the fishes of the
Mediterranean. (Quirk et al. 178)

Nationality names or other proper nouns ending in -ese: Chinese, Lebanese,

Portuguese, Vietnamese

Nouns denoting quantity premodified by a numeral or other quantifier and attached to

a noun head: two thousand students, three dozen oranges, a few million dollars. These
quantifying nouns are used as plurals when not preceded by numerals: dozens of
mangoes, hundreds of flowers

Nouns denoting measure preceded by a number optionally take zero plurals: five
pound, ten foot

Nouns denoting measure and quantity used as premodifiers in noun phrases: a five-
second pause, a five-dollar bill, a ten-minute conversation, a twelve-inch ruler, a
sixty-acre farm, a five-yard space, a six-lane highway, a six-cylinder car
Nouns invariably ending in -s: alms, barracks, gallows
These nouns are also used as singulars: species, headquarters, series
Other nouns: aircraft, hovercraft, spacecraft

Foreign plurals
Some borrowed nouns have altered their shape by prolonged usage in order to
conform to English words. They are said to be naturalized or Anglicized or Englished.
They are frankly acclimated in the English language and one of the conditions of this
acclimatizing is the shedding of their original plurals. They are assimilated in English
in such a way that they have the plural only in -s. In other words, these foreign words
are fully naturalized and form their plurals in the regular way. For example: album-s,
bandit-s, dilemma-s, dogma-s, idea-s, enigma-s, focus-es, genius-es, index-es, apex-
es, demon-s, electron-s, soprano-s.

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Brander Matthews writes:
The imported word which we really require we had best
take to ourselves, incorporating it in the language,
treating it thereafter absolutely as an English word, and
giving it the regular English plural. If the word we use
is so foreign that we should print it in italics, then of
course the plural should be formed according to the
rules of the foreign language from which it has been
borrowed; but if it has become so acclimated in our
tongue that we should not think of underlining it, then
surely it is English enough to take an English plural.
(174)

On the other hand, some other borrowed nouns are less incorporated than the previous
ones and have both the foreign plural and the plural in -s/-es. These nouns with two
plural forms have peculiar usage. The foreign plural is preferred in the technical
language and the -s plural in the everyday language. For example: medium –
mediums/media, radius – radii/radiuses, stratum – strata/stratums, appendix –
appendices/appendixes, tempo – tempi/tempos, bureau – bureaus/bureaux, cherub –
cherubim/cherubs.

There are a number of foreign words accepted into English without any change of
form. These are said to be domesticated and retain their original plural forms. For
example: stimulus – stimuli, bacterium – bacteria, crisis – crises, criterion – criteria,
phenomenon – phenomena.

 Latin plurals: bacillus – bacilli, genus – genera, corpus – corpora, larva –

larvae, alga – algae, erratum – errata, codex – codices
Both forms: cactus – cacti/cactuses, nucleus – nuclei/nucleuses, vertebra –
vertebrae/vertebras, formula – formulae/formulas, sanatorium –
sanatoria/sanatoriums, memorandum – memoranda/memorandums,
ultimatum – ultimata/ultimatums, matrix – matrices/matrixes

94
  Greek plurals: analysis – analyses, basis – bases, thesis – theses, oasis – oases,
parenthesis – parentheses
Both forms: automaton – automata/automatons
 French plurals: Both forms: adieu – adieux/adieus, trousseau –
trousseaus/trousseaux, plateau – plateaus/plateaux
Some nouns in -s and -x have zero plural. In French, the zero plural is
restricted to writing. The plural is regular in speech. For example:
chamois, corps, patois
 Italian plurals: graffito – graffiti
Both forms: virtuoso – virtuosi/virtuosos, libretto – libretti/librettos, solo –
soli/ solos
 Hebrew plurals: Both forms: seraph – seraphim/seraphs

(2) Invariable Nouns

(i) Singular Invariable Nouns (+ Singular Verb)
(a) Concrete uncountable nouns: baggage, crockery, luggage, cutlery
(b) Abstract uncountable nouns: success, dance, acquaintance, trouble, art, efficiency,
practice, task, effort, nutrition, emergence, expectation, music, dirt, homework
(c) Material/Mass nouns: tea, wheat, rice, platinum, silver, butter
(d) Proper nouns: Arundhati, Ajmer, December, Henry, Thames
(e) Nouns ending in -s: news
 diseases: measles, mumps, rickets, shingles
 sciences: physics, mathematics, economics, linguistics, classics, athletics,
ceramics, ethics, gymnastics, politics, tactics
 games: cards, billiards, bowls, darts, dominoes, draughts, checkers (But, a
dartboard, a billiard-room)
 proper nouns: Algiers, Athens, Brussels, Flanders, Marseilles, Naples, Wales;
the United Nations and the United States (have a singular verb when
considered as units).
(f) Substantivized adjectives: the rich, the powerful, the bold, the beautiful, the evil,
the good.
Sometimes, these singular invariable nouns are used as plurals. For example:
The statistics show low imports.

95
After many efforts, she could succeed.

(ii) Plural Invariable Nouns (+ Plural Verb)

(a) Nouns denoting parts of the body: bowels, tonsils, entrails, intestines, guts
(b) Nouns denoting mental state: hysterics, blues, spirits
(c) Nouns denoting articles of dress (summation plurals): trousers, shorts, flares,
tights, braces, pyjamas, tails, pants, jeans, briefs
Number contrast is achieved by means of 'a pair of' – She bought three pairs of jeans.
When used attributively, these nouns are singular – a trouser leg
(d) Nouns denoting tools and instruments consisting of two parts (summation plurals):
scales, scissors, glasses/spectacles, tongs, pincers, bellows, binoculars
Number contrast is achieved by means of 'a pair of' – Bring me a pair of earphones.
When used attributively, these nouns are singular – a spectacle case
Many of them can take the indefinite article, especially with premodification – a
garden shears
(e) Proper nouns: the Highlands, the Alps, the Netherlands, the Himalayas, the
East/West Indies
(f) Verbal nouns in -ing: savings, earnings, belongings, proceedings, surroundings
(g) Other 'pluraliatantum': clothes, customs, wages, premises, stairs, eaves,
congratulations, annals, arms, arrears, ashes, brains, fireworks, manners
(h) Substantivized adjectives: riches, valuables, goods, the rich, the poor, the helpless,
the needy
Their riches were donated to charities.
The poor are suffering.
(i) Unmarked plurals (Collective nouns): cattle, clergy, people, police, military,
vermin

English nouns display variety in form and number. That can be summerised as under:

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 Form Number Examples
progress, clothing, advice, wealth, information,
Singular Singular entertainment, furniture, evolution, happiness, humanity,
health, nonsense, singing
Singular Either spacecraft, sheep, deer, aircraft, fish, swine, trout
Singular Plural cattle, police, people, crew
glasses, nippers, pliers, scissors, pants, clothes, thanks,
Plural Plural
customs, savings, jeans, trousers, spectacles
Plural Either corps, means, crossroads, series, species
news, billiards, gymnastics, statistics, phonetics, optics,
Plural Singular politics, molasses, summons, outskirts, annals, nuptials,
premises, gallows

Gujarati Number system

Gujarati number system is simpler than that of English. Generally, the number of a
noun is marked on itself but sometimes it is inferred from the context. In other words,
when a noun is unmarked for number, the number is marked on adjectives,
determiners or verbs. In some rare constructions, the number remains covert. For
example: gammaN hindu ghar chhe. (There is/are Hindu house/s in the village.) Here,
ghar (house) may be singular or plural.

Gujarati number system works like this:

(a) Non-count abstract nouns used only in singular: prem (love), dāyā (mercy), buddhi
(intelligence)
(b) Non-count abstract nouns used only in plural: samāchār (news), shukan,
sogan/kasam/shapath/sam (oath), khamaiyā, karāN (hailstones), kāṭlāN (weights of a
balance), chashmā (glasses), vakhāṇ (praise), abhinaNdan (congratulations), kālāvālā,
praṇām, tarfaḍiyāN, fāNfāN, forāN, dhampachhāḍā, hāl, lāḍ, vaNdan
(c) Non-count concrete nouns used only in singular: ghī (clarified butter), tel (oil),
chhāsh (buttermilk), māṭī (clay), makāi (corn), juvār, bājro
But they are measurable: be liṭar dūdh (two litter milk), traṇ kilo mākhaṇ (three
kilogram butter), chār kap chā (four cups tea)

97
These nouns are used in plural to show different kinds of the referent: gām-gāmnāN
pāṇī (waters of different places), keṭlaN anāj? (how many types of grains?)
(d) Non-count concrete nouns used only in plural: chokhā (rice), choḷā (a kind of
pulse), chaṇā (a kind of pulse), ghaũ (wheat), tal (sesame), mag (a kind of pulse)
In the idiomatic usages, the plurals come in singular: khālī chaṇo vāge ghaṇo.
(e) The provincial differences also get reflected in the number system. The same
words are used either as singulars as plurals in various regions. For example: bhāt
khādho/khādhā (rice was/were eaten); vivāh karyo/karyā (betrothal was/were done);
lagna thayuN/thayāN (marriage was/were done).

The nouns indicating materials, metals, emotions, feelings are used in singular unless
otherwise required.

Such nouns of materials as retī (sand), vāḷ (hair), rū

(cotton), māṭī (soil, earth), dhānya (corn); also names of
metals, as sonu (gold), rūpu (silver); and moreover all
abstract nouns, as nyāy (justice), satyatā (truth),
śuddhatā (purity), pāp (guilt), etc., are generally used
only in the singular. The plural is, however, used when
either (1) different kinds of the thing specified are
meant, or (2) when something special is implied. Thus
dhānyo means ‘various kinds of corn’. … “ mārā pāp
ghaṇā chhe,” ‘our sins are many’. Here pāp is plural,
as its adjective shows, though it has not assumed a
plural ending. (Tisdall 29)

māṇas is a masculine singular noun. But if is also used as a neuter singular and it
suggests plurality. For example: ghaṇuN māṇas. In the same way, lok used in neuter
singular also suggests plurality. For example: ghaṇuN lok. Another similar word "jaṇ
(a person) is used only after an adjective expressing number. In the singular, it may
appear as jaṇ or jaṇo (m), jaṇī (f) or jaṇuN (com) and in the plural as jaṇ or jaṇā (m),
jaṇīo (f) or jaṇāN (com)." (Taylor 23)

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Plurals of Letters and Abbreviations
Letters: The alphabetical letters are all masculine singular. For example:
mārāthī 'k' barābar lakhāto nathī. (I cannot write 'k' properly.)
When referred to as plurals, these letters do not take -o. Only agreement indicates
pluralisation. For example: tārā 'kh' to jo keṭlā vichitra thāy chhe! (Your 'kh's are very
strange.)

Abbreviations: The abbreviations are usually singulars unless required otherwise.

For example:
āropī virudhdh POT nī kalam lagāḍvāmāN āvī. (He was arrested under POTA.)
el eNḍ ṭī sārī rīte sāmājik javābdārī nibhāvī rahī chhe. (L & T is carrying out the
social responsibilities very well.)
When referred to as plurals, these abbreviations do not take -o. Only agreement
indicates pluralisation.
For example: suratmāN ghaṇī es. bī. āi. (SBI) chhe. (There are many SBIs in Surat.)

Numerals Showing Plurality

Count nouns coming with cardinals (pūrṇāNk) show plurality. For example: be keḷā
(two bananas), chār pustak/o (four books). But when they come with fractional
(apūrṇāNk), they behave differently. The nouns with savā (1¼) and doḍh (1½)
indicate singular. For example: savā roṭlo, doḍh roṭlī. But the nouns with savā be
(2¼), aḍhī (2½), sāḍā traṇ (3½) suggest plural. For example: aḍhī roṭlā, sāḍā traṇ
roṭlīo.

Compounds (Samas)
Some compounds are always plural. Two masculine nouns form masculine plurals.
For example: masculine – kāvādāvā, hārtorā, bhāībhatrījā, vārtahevār.

When two feminine nouns are put together to form a compound, the resultant word
takes neuter plural. For example: mābahen, saMpattisaNtati. In the like manner, when
one feminine noun comes together with a masculine or a neuter noun, the resultant
word takes neuter plural. For example: shāk(n)bhājī(f), mā(f)bāp(m), geḍī(f)daḍo(m),
chaṇiyā(m)choḷī(f)

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Two neuter nouns from a compound noun that is neuter plural. For example:
shākbakāluN, lohīpāṇī

Some compounds are always singular: masculine – rājkuNvar, sāsarvās; feminine –

devdivāḷī, āMbāvāḍī; neuter – gulābjaḷ, matdān

Foreign Nouns
In Gujarati, the borrowed words are given a gender and then they are pluralised in the
manner the native words are pluralised. Some such words are dāvo (masculine
singular), kharch (masculine/neuter singular), baṭāṭā (masculine plural), sābu
(masculine singular), fon (masculine singular), beNk (feminine singular), faraj
(feminine singular), ṭebal (neuter singular), sṭeshan (neuter singular).

Number and Meaning

The following situations are possible in English:
(a) Nouns with two plural forms, each having its meaning(s):
 brother – (1) brothers (by blood); (2) brethren (of a society or church)
 cloth – (1) cloths (kinds of cloth); (2) clothes (garments)
 die – (1) dies (stamps for coins, etc.); (2) dice (for gaming)
 genius – (1) geniuses (men of genius); (2) genii (spirits)
 index – (1) indexes (to books); (2) indices (signs in algebra)
 penny – (1) pennies (separately); (2) pence (collectively)

(b) Nouns with one meaning in the singular and a different meaning in the plural: air
(breeze, wind) – airs (affectation, pretensions), advice (counsel) – advices (formal
notification of facts), content (emotional satisfaction) – contents (chapters of a book),
wood (cut tree) – woods (forest), inning (batting turn of a team) – innings (land
reclaimed from the sea), mean (middle point between limits) – means
(income/resources), link (connecting piece) – links (golf links)
(c) Nouns with one plural form having different meanings, one corresponding to the
singular and the other unlike it:
 custom – customs: (1) habits, ways; (2) revenue duties
 letter – letters: (1) the alphabet, or epistles; (2) literature

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  pain – pains: (1) suffering; (2) care, trouble
 part – parts: (1) divisions; (2) abilities, faculties

Some Gujarati nouns having similar meaning show different number: prashaNsā
(feminine singular) – vakhāṇ (masculine plural) (admiration), ājījī (feminine singular)
– kālāvālā (masculine plural) (urge)

Functions of the Number System

The number system of English and Gujarati fulfils the following purposes:
 The plural-markers demonstrate plurality.
 The 'we' used by editors, writers, poets (editor's we) shows collectivity or
common opinion.

One additional function performed by the Gujarati number system is that of showing
respect. Cardona and Suthar note: "…number distinctions can be associated not only
with actual counting but also with differences in how a person is treated, a plural
being used as an honorific." (670) A plural verb used with singular nouns signifying
human beings displays deference. For a masculine noun a masculine plural verb and
for a feminine or a neuter noun a neuter plural verb is used. The second and third
person plural personal pronouns used for a singular noun also show respect. For
example: bā āvyāN. (plural verb) (The grandma came.) tame kāle āvjo. (second
person plural pronoun and plural verb) (You come tomorrow.)

In every language, forms associated with counting include several grammatical

elements: the declension of nouns and other nominal parts of speech in number;
conjugation of verbs; numerals themselves with their peculiarities and different
adverbial derivatives from numerals. That means the number system of any language
affects not only nouns but also some other grammatical elements coming together
with nouns in order to form higher grammatical units. This requires some rules and
brings in syntax along with morphology.

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Grammatical Number
All languages specify the quantity of referents. But every language does not have a
grammatical category of number. Some languages use lexical means with words
meaning a few, some, one, five, two hundred etc. Languages that express quantity
only by lexical means lack a grammatical category of number. Languages having
grammatical number express the same by morphological and/or syntactic means. It is
indicated by certain grammatical elements like affixes or number words. It may be
thought of as the indication of semantic number through grammar.

In a language having grammatical number, the number has to be identified in the

absence of numerals or other quantifiers. Thus, the number system should not be
confused with the numeral system in a language.

In linguistics, grammatical number is a morphological category of nouns/pronouns

and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions such as one, two or
three or more. It is also used to describe the distinction between certain grammatical
aspects that indicate the number of times an event occurs.

The most widespread distinction found in many languages involves a simple two-way
number contrast between singular and plural. In most languages with grammatical
number, nouns have two forms – the singular for one occurrence of a concept and the
plural for more than one occurrence. Languages have formal means to express
differences of number. Usually, the singular is the unmarked form of a word and the
plural is obtained by inflecting the singular. Many modern Indo-European languages
show residual traces of the dual. There is a hierarchy among number categories: no
language distinguishes a trial unless having a dual and no language has dual without a
plural.

Generally, the number contrast in English and Gujarati is expressed in this way: the
singulars are unmarked base form of nouns and the plurals are marked inflected form
of nouns. For example: bag – bags; pustak (book) – pustako (books). There may be
exceptional nouns the plural of which is identical to the singular: one sheep – two
sheep; ek ghar (one house) – anek ghar (many houses)

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As far as the remaining traces of the dual number is concerned, English distinguishes
between both and all, either and any, neither and none.

English makes the division after 'more than one', i.e., the expression 'one and a half'
requires a plural referent. But in Gujarati, the plural implies 'two or more', i.e., the
expression doḍh (1½) takes a singular referent. It is important to note that the Gujarati
expression poṇā be (1¾) requires a plural referent.

The count distinctions normally correspond to the actual count of the referents of the
marked noun or pronoun. But sometimes the singular and plural values are assigned
on the basis of the formal properties of the nouns. For example: wealth, milk
(singulariatantum) and mumps, jeans (pluraliatantum)

Grammatical number is also a morpho-syntactic category realized by the expression

of quantity through inflection or agreement. The grammatical notion of concord
requires a verb to follow the subject in a given sentence. The verb, therefore, follows
the subject in number and parson. When a noun phrase is formed, the number system
of nouns affects the co-occurrence patterns between determiners and nouns heavily.
The number is not only marked on the nouns but also on the other elements of a
sentence. In a language having grammatical number, the nouns are divided into
morphological classes according to the quantity they express. Every noun belongs to a
unique number class. Noun modifiers and verbs have different forms for each number
class and must be inflected to match the number of the nouns to which they refer since
number demands for agreement.

In English, every noun is either singular or plural and some modifiers of nouns –
demonstratives, personal pronouns, articles and verbs – are inflected to agree with the
number of the nouns to which they refer.

For example: This pen is mine. – These four pens are yours. The number of 'pens' is
variously marked: (1) on the noun – 'pen' singular (one item) / 'pens' plural (more than
one item); (2) on the demonstrative – 'this' singular / 'these' plural; (3) on the verb –
'is' singular / 'are' plural. In the second sentence, all this information can seem

103
redundant since quantity is already indicated by the numeral 'four'. If any of the words
in the second sentence is used in singular, the sentence becomes incorrect.

In English, count nouns normally have singular and plural forms, whereas non-count
nouns (mass) lack the number distinction and have only singular form. 'Count' and
'mass' are morpho-syntactic categories. The meaning of a noun can be found by
keeping in mind both its lexical meaning and the syntactic context in which it appears.

At the level of syntax, the count – mass distinction is drawn on the basis of the
context. A large number of English nouns can be used both as count nouns and as
mass nouns. They appear with the appropriate determiners, articles and quantifiers
when used in different categories. For example: a cake/some cake, a tea/little tea

Mandatory Number Marking

Some languages limit number expression to certain classes of nouns like animates or
referentially prominent nouns. In some other languages, number marking is not
consistently applied to most nouns unless a distinction is needed or already present.

In English, number is mandatory for every grammatical context. All English nouns
display either of the numbers but they do not necessarily exhibit the singular – plural
contrast. Many nouns have only a singular or a plural form.

Material nouns and abstract nouns are always singular. They are made plural to
indicate various types of the referent. Proper nouns are commonly singular. They are
made plural to speak of several persons or things bearing the same name. For
example: the Washingtons, the Americas.

In Gujarati, "When a cardinal numeral (two, three, etc.) or an adjective denoting all or
many, precedes a noun, and when plurality is in this way sufficiently indicated, the
noun commonly remains in the singular form, though with a plural meaning. E.g.,
Tamāre gher vīs māṇas (for māṇaso) āvase, ‘twenty men will come to your house’."
(Tisdall 29-30) In such cases, the plural number is not marked (-o is not required) as
there is some other overt indication of number. A few more examples – be ghoḍā (two
horses), traṇ sāḍī (tree sarees), sāt saNtrāN (seven oranges)

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Number Agreement
As number is a grammatical category, it triggers agreement of verbs, adjectives,
determiners and numerals. Nominal number is inherent to nouns and contextual to all
other elements in the clause which express number due to agreement. Normally a
singular noun demands singular agreement and a plural noun requires plural
agreement. But in some exceptional cases, this rule is altered. On some nouns,
number is lexically supplied – this is the case with nouns which have one lexically
determined number value that they impose on the agreeing elements. For example, in
English, 'health' is singular and 'trousers' is plural. In Gujarati, āgrah (insistence) is
singular and abhinaNdan (congratulation) is plural.

Sometimes, a singular subject comes with a plural predicate:

A normal North Indian dinner is paratha, sabji, pickle and buttermilk.
My favourite breakfast is cereal with fruit, milk and toast.

Plural subject with singular predicate:

Rice, fish and curry is the usual lunch of the Bengalis.
Milk tea, dried roti, cheese and honey is my favorite breakfast.

The noun applying to more than one person remains in the singular when it represents
a quality or thing possessed in common. For example: The audience's curiosity was
aroused. Even the noun remains singular when it is an abstraction. For example: The
judges applied their reason to the problem. And the same happens when the noun is a
figurative word. For example: All ten children had a sweet tooth.

'The girls clean their room/rooms.' In this sentence, the plural would indicate that each
girl has a separate room, whereas the singular would suggest that the girls have a
single room in sharing (which is quite possible). It is also possible that each girl has
more than one room. It is also possible that the girls together have more than one
room.

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In many languages, verbs are conjugated according to number. English verbs
distinguish singular from plural number only in the third person: He goes / They go.
The verb 'to be' displays conjugation according to number and person.

In Gujarati, the verbs demonstrate number contrast along with gender and tense. For
example: huN āvuN chhuN (I am caming – first person singular). But ame āvīe chhīe
(we are caming – first person exclusive plural). te hasto hato (He was laughing). teo
hasta hatā (They were laughing).

Adjectives often agree with the number of the noun they modify. For example, in
Gujarati, sāro chhokro (good boy) – sārā chhokrāo (good boys); ūNchuN vruksh (tall
tree) – ūNchaN vruksho (tall trees). But all adjectives do not show the number. For
example: safed gāḍī (white car) – safed gāḍīo (white cars). English adjectives do not
reflect the number of the noun to which they are attached.

Other determiners may also agree with number. In English, the demonstratives
'this/that' change to 'these/those' in the plural and the indefinite article 'a/an' is either
omitted or changes to 'some'. In Gujarati, the distant demonstrative pelo/pelī/peluN
(that – singular) becomes pelā/pelāN (those – plural).

Though Gujarati adjectives, determiners and verb follow nouns in person, gender and
number, they do not take the plural marker -o. For example: ghoḍāo doḍyā. (Horses
ran.) chhokrāo sārā chhe. (Boys are good.) pelī bakrīo chare chhe. (Those goats are
grazing.)

Sometimes, grammatical number does not represent the actual quantity. The plural
form of a pronoun may also be applied to a single individual as a sign of importance,
respect or generality. In English, the singular 'they' (third person plural) is used for
showing gender neutrality. In Gujarati, the second person plural personal pronoun
tame/aap is used in singular reference to show respect.

Collective Nouns
A collective noun is a word that names a group of objects or beings regarded as a
whole. For example: army, mob, swarm, jury, crowd, committee, flock, team. Some

106
languages treat collective nouns as singular but some others interpret them as plural.
In British English, a collective noun is considered to be singular when the individuals
forming the group are referred to as a single unit; whereas it is considered to be plural
when the group is referred to as a collection of individuals. Thus, the agreement takes
into account the meaning rather than the form of a collective noun. The use of this
type of construction varies with dialect and level of formality. For example: The team
have dined. The team was determined to win.

In Gujarati, collective nouns are always considered to be singular only. For example:
Masculine – ḍāyro, madhpūḍo (swarm), saNgh, kāflo
Feminine – samiti (committee), ṭoḷī (team), maNḍaḷī, vaṇjār
Neuter – ṭoḷuN (mob), dhaṇ (cattle), kuṭuMb (family), jūth (group), zuNḍ

The discussion can be concluded with Desai's comment:

આમ, વચનની કોરટ સાંજ્ઞા, વવશેષણ, સવથનામ, રક્રયાપદ

વગે રે વગોમાાં ભચન્ન્હત થાય છે . પારાં પરરક રીતે વચનને

ુ ધમથ – વસ્તઓ
સત્વ (entity)નો ગણ ુ અને વ્યક્તતઓન ાંુ

લક્ષણ ગણવામાાં આવે છે . સામાન્ય રીતે તેને સાંજ્ઞાની

પદસાધક કોરટ ધારવામાાં આવે છે . જ્યારે વચનનો ભેદ

બીજા વગો જેવા કે રક્રયાપદ કે વવશેષણોમાાં દે ખાય ત્યારે

આપોઆપ એને આ વગોના અંતવનિરહત લક્ષણો તરીકે

લેવાાં કરતાાં આ વગો અને સાંબવાં ધત – જોડાયેલી સાંજ્ઞા

વચ્ચેના વાક્યવવન્યાસાત્મક સાંબધ

ાં ના સ ૂચક તરીકે

વગીકૃત કરવામાાં આવે છે . (Rupshashtra 66-67)

Thus, the number gets displayed in nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs etc. It is the
characteristic of persons and things. It is considered to be an inflectional category of

107
nouns. But when it gets reflected in the other parts of speech, it is not the inherent
feature of those words but the result of concord or the syntactic relationship of the
words coming together to form a sentence.

After getting inflected for gender and number, nouns are inflected for case in both the
languages. The case-system finds more importance in Gujarati than in English as
Gujarati has various case-suffixes to show the relationship between nouns and verbs.

Case-system of Nouns
Case is one more category related to nouns like gender and number. It may be a
morphological category or a syntactic one or a morpho-syntactic one in different
languages. Gujarati nouns decline for case. Therefore it becomes all the more
necessary to discuss the case-system in detail.

In grammar, case is a system of marking dependent nouns for the type of relationship
they bear to their heads. It expresses a number of different relationships between
nominal elements or a noun and a verb in a sentence. It is a grammatical category
calling for the modification of nouns in order to define its role in the sentence. The
case of a noun or pronoun is an inflectional form indicating its grammatical function
in a phrase or clause. It is the expression of semantic relationship at the syntactic
level. It is expressed through some typical forms of nouns or some case-markers. For
example: a pronoun may play the role of subject (He caught the ball), of direct object
(She called him) or of possessor (This is his car). A case cannot be repeated in a
sentence. Some case-relations are essential and some others are not; some are
obligatory and the others are voluntary.

The nouns used in a sentence play various roles required to convey the desired
meaning. These roles can be classified as semantic (thematic) roles and syntactic
(grammatical) roles. They can also be called functional and structural roles
respectively. They are interrelated to each other but they must not be taken as the
same or confused as one. Mishra notes:

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its

grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such

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 as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor.
Usually a language is said to "have cases" only if nouns
change their form (nouns decline) to reflect their case.
Others indicate cases in different ways, e.g. by adding
some particle before it, as in English preposition. Cases
are related to, but distinct from, thematic roles such as
agent and patient; while certain cases in each language
tend to correspond to certain thematic roles, cases are a
syntactic notion whereas thematic roles are a semantic
one. (186)

Languages demonstrate cases in different ways. English, for example, uses

prepositions in front of a noun to indicate functions which, in Gujarati, would be
indicated by changing the ending of the noun itself. Some languages use different
systems to mark case instead of, or in addition to, declension: (a) Positional: Nouns
are not inflected for case; the position of a noun in the sentence expresses its case. (b)
Ad-positional: Nouns are accompanied by words that mark case. Languages having
cases often exhibit free word order, since thematic roles are not dependent on position
in a sentence.

The chances of confusion or misconception arise as both the syntactic and semantic
roles are commonly referred to as cases. Previously the case was syntactic and the
role was semantic. But with Fillmore's Case Grammar, the notion got changed. He
referred to the thematic roles as cases. The same happened in Gujarati which had
Sanskrit base. The concepts of vibhakti and karaka are often confused with each
other. Adding to the complexity of the issue, several karakas have an associated
vibhakti. In order to avoid misinterpretation, it is necessary to clarify the matter of
applying the correct terms.

Cases are extensively analyzed in Sanskrit. The grammarian Pāṇinī has identified six
semantic roles or karakas namely agent (kartri), patient (karmaṇ), means (karaṇa),
recipient (saMpradāna), source (apādāna) and locus (adhikaraṇa). These karakas are
related to the six Sanskrit grammatical cases or vibhaktis namely nominative,

109
accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative and locative respectively. But the vibhaktis
and karakas do not have any one-to-one relationship.

Following the Sanskrit tradition propounded by Pāṇinī, the concepts of vibhaktis and
karakas are described in Gujarati. They indicate the word-relationships at different
levels. vibhakti demonstrates syntactic relationships in a sentence whereas karaka
displays semantic relationships. The discussion of vibhaktis fall under morphology
and the discussion of karakas fall under syntax. This fact indicates that vibhaktis deal
with the form of a noun and karakas deal with the relationships expressed in a
sentence through these forms of nouns. Syntactic relationships are limited in number
whereas semantic relationships are many.

The concept of vibhakti (syntactic case) discussed in Sanskrit is one of the oldest
notions of language structure. The linguists and grammarians found it inadequate as it
described the superficial relations expressed at only surface level. Then the concept of
karaka (semantic case) was rejuvenated in order to explain the internal relations.
Fillmore used the term 'deep cases' for the same. The elements helping in the
accomplishment of the action denoted by the verb are called cases. The cases, also
referred to as the karakas, are deeper than they actually seem. They display the
internal relations of words in a sentence. As syntactic cases are insufficient to express
the underlying relations, the study of semantic cases becomes vital and inevitable.

Arvind Bhandari observes: "અથથકક્ષાએ પદાથથની પરરક્સ્થવતમાાંની ભ ૂવમકાને આપણે કારક

કહ્યા છે . કારકત્વને દશાથવનાર નામનો ઘટક વવભક્તત પ્રત્યય છે . સામાન્ય રીતે કારકો વૈવિક

હોય છે જ્યારે વવભક્તતઓ જે તે ભાષાની પોતાની વ્યવસ્થા છે .... કારકોની સાંખ્યાના

પ્રમાણમાાં વવભક્તત પ્રત્યયોની સાંખ્યા ઓછી હોય છે ." (Gujarati Vakyarachna 58)

Semantic role of a noun in a sentence is called a case. Cases (karakas) are universal
and vibhaktis are language specific. A case is expressed through case-suffixes. Cases
are numerous but case-suffixes are limited in numbers.

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In Indo-European languages, each case often contains several different endings, some
of which may even be derived from different roots. A suffix is chosen depending on
gender, number, whether the word is a noun or a modifier. The lemma forms of
words, which is the form chosen by convention as the canonical form of a word, is
usually the most unmarked or basic case, which is typically the nominative singular.

Historically, the Indo-European languages had eight morphological cases, though

modern languages typically have fewer. The modern languages use prepositions and
word order to convey information that had previously been conveyed using distinct
noun forms. The eight historical Indo-European cases with examples of the English
and Gujarati cases or of the syntactic alternative to case are given below:

No. Case Meaning / Function English Examples Gujarati Examples

Nominative
1 subject of a finite verb I received the guests. huN nishāḷe gayo.
case
Accusative
2 direct object of a verb The students respect her. smitāe patra lakhyo.
case
indirect object of a The teacher gives them some nināde mārgīne fūl
3 Dative case
verb projects. āpyuN.
The train moved away from
movement from
4 Ablative case the station. She is happy due te gharethī nīkḷyo.
something or cause
to her excellent result.

5 Locative case a location They live in Delhi. te agāshīe chaḍyo.

Instrumental an object used in He sharpened a pencil with a meN chapputhī shāk

6
case performing an action sharpener. sudhāryuN.
Rutu's dress is gorgeous. The
possessor of another
7 Genitive case success of the team is an māro kāgaḷ maḷyo?
noun
occasion for celebration.
Vocative Mother, are you there? Hi, mā, tame kyāN
8 an addressee
case Sanya! chho?

This is a general explanation. The precise description of cases varies from language to
language and is often quite complex.

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Cases in English
Languages such as Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit had ways of altering or
inflecting nouns to mark roles which are not marked in English. Cases are not very
prominent in Modern English. It has largely abandoned the inflectional case system of
Indo-European in favour of analytic constructions. Old English demonstrated an
extensive case system from which only personal pronouns of Modern English retain
morphological case. For other pronouns, all nouns, adjectives and articles, the
grammatical function is indicated only by word order, by prepositions and by the
genitive clitic -s'. For example: The ablative case – He threw the ball away from the
line. The instrumental case – She cuts an apple with a knife.

With the passage of time, English case inflections have been eroded and the number
of case forms has been greatly reduced. Modern English now demonstrates a two-case
distinction in nouns and a three-case distinction in pronouns. "English nouns have a
two-case system: the unmarked common case (boy) and the marked genitive case
(boy's); six pronouns have in addition an objective case, thus presenting a three-case
system, where common case is replaced by subjective and objective case (he~him)."
(Quirk et al. 192) The nouns in common case remain uninflected and are used for all
the other cases except the genitive one. The nouns in the genitive case change their
form. They display possession by taking the clitic -'s rather than by declension of the
nouns themselves.

The English pronouns have retained three case forms: nominative, objective and
genitive. Mishra writes:

Taken as a whole, English personal pronouns are

typically said to have three morphological cases: the
nominative case (such subjective pronouns as I, he, she,
we), used for the subject of a finite verb and sometimes
for the complement of a copula; the accusative/ dative
case (such objective pronouns as me, him, her, us), used
for the direct or indirect object of a verb, for the object
of a preposition, for an absolute disjunct and sometimes
for the complement of a copula; and the genitive case

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 (such possessive pronouns as my/mine, his, her(s),
our(s)), used for a grammatical possessor.

These pronouns often have more than three forms; the

possessive typically has both a determiner form (such as
my, our) and a distinct independent form (such as mine,
ours). Additionally, except for the interrogative
personal pronoun who, they all have a distinct reflexive
or intensive form (such as myself, ourselves). (186)

English personal pronouns have three case-forms: (1) nominative: I, we, you, he, she,
it, they; (2) objective: me, us, him, her, them; (3) possessive: it has both a determiner
form (my, your, our) and a distinct independent form (mine, yours, ours). The
exceptions must be noted here. For the third person singular masculine, there is no
distinct independent form: his pen, it was his. The third person singular neuter it does
not have the possessive independent form.

Genitive Case in English

Genitive case denotes possessiveness of a noun. It means 'it belongs to someone or
something'. Showing possession in English is a comparatively easy matter; whereas
showing the same in Gujarati is relatively complex because of the availability of
various suffixes for different genders. The genitive form of nouns in English has two
forms: (a) -s genitive and (b) of-genitive

(a) -s Genitive
The singular nouns get transformed into genitive forms taking an apostrophe followed
by the suffix '-s'. For example: a day's rest, the book's cover, Margi's purse, mother's
blessings. If the words end in 's', the suffix '-s' is skipped and only the apostrophe is
added. For example: Charles', Paras', Eris'

Many non-English words that end with a silent 's' or 'x' will form their genitives with
only an apostrophe. For example: Alexander Dumas' first novel, Camus' existential
novels

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There are certain expressions that end in -s or the /s/ sound that require an apostrophe
only: for appearance' sake, for conscience' sake, for goodness' sake"

If a word ends in 'double s', its genitive only takes an apostrophe: the boss' chair, the
witness' clarification. Sometimes, it becomes a matter of the writer's choice or style of
writing whether to use only an apostrophe or an apostrophe + s with 'double s' in the
word-final position: the boss's chair, the witness's clarification.
The genitive of a pluralized family name can be formed by simply adding an
apostrophe. For example: the Bansals', the Ozas', the Players'

Genitive Forms of Plural Nouns

Most plural nouns already end in the suffix '-s'. Their genitives are formed by simply
adding an apostrophe after the plural-marker '-s'. For example: boys', birds', cars',
gases'

The nouns having irregular plurals are made genitive by adding an apostrophe
followed by an '-s'. For example: men's, children's, teeth's, feet's

The words that do not change their form when pluralized can be made genitive by
adding an apostrophe + s: fish's, sheep's, deer's

The Forms of the -s Genitive

The -s genitive has different realizations. In writing, there are two forms: one with
apostrophe + s (girl's) and the other with apostrophe only (girls'). In speech, there are
four forms: /s/, /z/, /iz/, and zero. These are the allophonic variants. They are in
complementary distribution, i.e. where one occurs, the others cannot. Their
occurrence depends on the phonetic environment (the preceding sound).

Since the genitive inflection has the same speech form

as the regular plural, it is necessary to make a
distinction between those modifying nouns that have the
-s plural and those that do not, i.e. singular nouns and
irregular plurals not ending in -s (eg: children). Regular
-s plurals have the zero genitive (written with

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 apostrophe only: dogs', cats', horses'). Other nouns
regularly take /iz/ if they end in sibilants (horse's), \z\ if
they end in other voiced sounds (dog's), and /s/ if they
end in other voiceless sounds (cat's). (Quirk et al. 195)

The zero form is also used with other than plural nouns:
 With Greek names of more than one syllable: Euripides' /-diz/ plays, Socrates'
/-tiz/ wife, Xerxes' /-siz/ army
 With some names ending in the voiced sibilant /z/: Here, the normal
pronunciation appears to be the /iz/ form, but the normal spelling comes with
apostrophe only. For example: Burns' poems, Dickens' novels, Jesus' and
Moses'. These names normally have the zero form of the spoken genitive but
are written with apostrophe or with apostrophe + s.
Names ending in other sibilants than -/z/ have the regular /iz/ genitive: Ross's
/-siz/ theories
 In fixed expressions with for…sake where zero is used for euphony: for
goodness' sake, for conscience' sake

"The effect of this syncretism is that, for example, /boiz/ can correspond to any one of
the following three written forms: (i) Boys, i.e. plural number/common case (ii)
Boy's, i.e. singular number/genitive case (iii) Boys', i.e. plural number/genitive case."
(Quirk et al. 198)

(b) Of-genitive
Possession can also be shown by using the 'of-phrase'. The of-genitive is not an
inflection but a structure of postmodification. It is also called the periphrastic genitive.
For instance: the list of invitees, the gardens of Chandigadh, the airport of Mumbai

This construction allows both the modifier and head to have modification. For
example: the wonderful thoughts of the genius mind, Museum of Modern Art's new
Director

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In the last example, the inflection is added to the last word of the postmodification
instead of the head (Museum). It is the noun head that determines the choice of
genitive. Only those with the personal noun head can take the -s genitive irrespective
of modification. For example: the director's books – the director of the museum's
books (correct); the bookshelf's books – the bookshelf of the museum's books
(incorrect)

Compound Genitive
When two nouns are joined with the conjunction 'and', the placement of an apostrophe
depends on whether the nouns are acting separately or together. For example:
Madhav' and Megha's new uniforms (each has a separate one); Madhav and Megha's
new house (both share a single house)

In other words, the coordinated noun phrases may have a coordinated genitive or a
group genitive. For example: Rutuja's and Rutul's toys (some are Rutuja's and some
are Rutul's) Rutuja and Rutul's toys (all are jointly owned)

When one of the possessors in a compound possessive is a personal pronoun, both the
possessors must be put in the genitive form. For example: Keya's and my house is to
be painted soon. (not 'Keya and my house')

Group Genitive
In this construction, the '-s' suffix is added to the last element of a noun phrase
consisting of a postmodified noun head. For example: your daughter-in-law's office,
someone else's book, in a month or two's time, an hour and a half's talk, the Queen of
England's palace, the University of Nalanda's Vice-chancellor

In pluralized structures, the apostrophe and '-s' can be used: the sons-in-law's house.
But in order to avoid confusion, the 'of-genitive' is used: the house of the sons-in-law.

Genitive with Appositive Forms

An appositive is a word that renames or explains a noun already mentioned in the
sentence. When a genitive noun is followed by an appositive, the apostrophe + s
added to the noun becomes ambiguous. For example: Mihir repairs his best friend,

116
Nihar's scooter. In order to avoid misunderstanding, the use of of-genitive is
preferable. For example: Mihir repairs the scooter of his best friend, Nihar.

In compound expressions, appositional phrases or constructions having nouns with

modifying phrases, the possessive sign usually comes last, though instances are found
with both appositional words marked. The practice of turning the genitive into an
equivalent phrase is more common: the Narmada's project's last phase – the last phase
of the Narmada's project or the last phase of the project of Narmada.

Elliptic Genitive
In this construction, the head is not expressed but it is explicit or implicit in the
context. The genitive is sometimes used without belonging to any noun in the
sentence. For example:
We shall meet at Kaki's (dhaba).
He has left from Maria's and gone to Maurya's (place).
Your house is bigger than Mitra's (house).
His agility is like a dog's (agility).
Kirtan's (suit) is a nice suit, too.

Local Genitive
Local genitive is used for certain institutionalized expressions where no head needs to
be mentioned. It is used in the following three cases:
 For normal residence: your uncle's, the Ravals'
 For institutions such as public buildings where the genitive is usually a saint's
name: St. Paul's (Cathedral), St. James's (Palace)
 For a place where business is conducted: the photographer's, the barber's, the
baker's, the druggist's, the tailor's, the chemist's, the butcher's, the grocer's

Double Genitive
The double genitive construction is also known as the post-genitive or 'of' followed by
a possessive case or an absolute possessive pronoun. It is formed by using both an of-
phrase and an apostrophe -s in a single construction. This construction helps to

117
distinguish between certain usages like: 'a photograph of my father' (in which the old
man is seen) and 'a picture of my father's' (which he owns).

The 'of' in a double genitive is followed by a noun that is definite and human: 'an
admirer of Christ's' but not 'an admirer of the Christianity's' instead, it is 'an admirer of
the Christianity'. The 'of' is preceded by a noun that is usually indefinite: a friend, not
the best friend. Or it may be preceded by a noun with a demonstrative 'this' or 'that', as
in 'this fan of my sister's'. Some more examples are – a follower of my Guru's, a
friend of mine's achievement, a fan of Aishwarya's blog, a work of Milton's, this great
nation of ours, several pupils of mine, a friend of my parents'

The reasons for using double genitives are:

(1) When a word is modified by a, the, this, that, every, no, any or each, and at the
same time by a genitive form of noun, it is distasteful to place the genitive before the
modified noun. It would also alter the meaning therefore it is placed after the
modified noun with 'of'.
(2) It is more emphatic than the simple genitive, especially when used with 'this' or
'that', for it brings out the modified word in strong relief.
(3) It prevents ambiguity. For example, 'the picture of my sister's' means the picture
owned by my sister whereas 'the picture of my sister' means the picture in which my
sister is seen.

Genitive and Gerunds

The genitive form of a noun or pronoun is used to modify a gerund. For example:
Swati's swimming is marvellous.
Mr. Kapoor's cooking is excellent.
I am worried about his lying.

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Meanings of the Genitive Case

Meanings Examples
Possession the father's mobile, my son's wife
Origin the king's history, the girl's story
Attribution the girl's simplicity, the teacher's commitment
Partition the brain's two hemispheres, the body's five major systems
Subjective the candidate's application, the driver's judgement
Objective the country's freedom, the family's support
Description children's shoes, a women's college

The central but far from the only use of the genitive is to express possession. The
genitive case is also used for a variety of other relationships more or less remotely
analogous to possession. The kind of relation may usually be found by expanding the
genitive into an equivalent phrase.

For example:
A day's work – the work that lasted for the whole day
Nirja's book – the book Nirja owns
Mother's care – the care that the mother takes
Country's problem – the problem the country faces
Students' participation – the participation done by the students

Choice of the Form of Genitive

The choice of the genitive construction depends on gender and style. The regular
genitive case-marker (apostrophe) -s is used with animate nouns – particular persons
and higher animals with personal gender characteristics; whereas of-genitive is used
with inanimate nouns and titles. The two forms of the genitive are not normally in free
variation. For example: 'the car's price' and 'the pen of Jagat' – both are incorrect. But
'the mother's choice' and 'the choice of the mother' – both are correct.

The main factor governing the choice of the one or the

other genitive form is the animate, or rather personal

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 quality of the modifying noun. Nouns denoting persons,
whether proper names (John's car) or ordinary count
nouns (the student's car), can always take the inflected
genitive. It can also be used with animals. The rule-of-
thumb here is that the higher animals are more likely to
have the -s genitive than the lower animals. (Quirk et al.
198)

The following four animate noun classes normally take the -s genitive, but the of-
genitive is also possible in most cases:
 Personal names: Mr. Pandya's daughter, Sardar Patel's statue
 Personal nouns: the girl's gorgeous dress, his brother-in-law's house
 Collective nouns: the Government's policy, the society's conviction, the
majority's decision, the parliament's elder statesmen, the company's working
capital, the nation's food security bill
 Higher animals: the cow's legs, the dog's bark, the lion's skin, the tiger's stripes
The inflected genitive is also used with certain kinds of inanimate nouns:
 Geographical names:
Continents: India's future, Japan's development, the United States' attitude,
Pakistan's colonial period
Cities/towns: Bombay's theatres, Chennai's water supply
Universities: Nalanda's Sanskrit Department
 Locative nouns (regions, heavenly bodies, institutions, etc.): the earth's
exterior, the Church's mission, the theatre's entrance, the hotel's closed door, a
country's growth, the city's cosmopolitan population, the town's taxpayers, the
world's history, the nation's water resources, the school's success story
 Temporal nouns: the decade's major events, a day's work, a week's activities, a
moment's thought
 Nouns of 'special interest to human activity': the brain's function, the game's
record, the mind's growth, this year's turnover, today's newspaper, the season's
greetings, the body's needs, in freedom's name, the treaty's approval, the duty's
call, the novel's plot, the car's performance, the poll's results

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Some other nouns taking -s genitive denote parts of the body (brain, mind), cultural
activities (orchestra, play), means of transport (ship, radio) etc.

A peculiar usage of genitive must be noted: there are some constructions with the
inflected genitive having specific lexical noun heads. Some of them permit of-genitive
while others are idiomatized and do not permit of-genitive. Quirk et al. note the
examples:

Edge: the water's edge, the river's edge Length: at arm's length
End: at his journey's end, at his wits' end Reach: within arm's reach
Surface: the water's surface Throw: at a stone's throw
For ... sake: for charity's sake, for God's sake Worth: their money's worth" (200)

Here, the first set allows of-genitive but the second does not allow it.

The use of the -s genitive is very common in headlines where brevity is essential. It
gives prominence to the modifying noun. For example: Government's Rehabilitation
Centres Empty

The of-genitive is mainly used with nouns denoting lower animals and inanimate
things. Inanimate nouns regularly take the of-genitive. But as noted above, there are
many exceptions.

Some nouns admit both genitive constructions. For example:

the city's population, the earth's centre, the bike's engine, the book's title
the population of the city, the centre of the earth, the engine of the bike, the title of the
book,

The -s genitive is not acceptable with some nouns but it is acceptable with the
corresponding pronoun: the depth of the ditch – its depth, the door of the house – its
door

About the choice of the type of genitive, it can be concluded that there is considerable
overlap in the uses of the two genitives. Either may be possible in a given context.

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However, one of them is generally preferred by native speakers for reasons of
euphony, rhythm, emphasis, or implied relationship between the nouns.

Genitive Case in Gujarati

This is the only case survived in English; whereas in Gujarati, it is not considered as a
case at all by some linguists. The names used for this case are saMbaNdh vibhakti,
ṣhaṣhṭhī vibhakti or sheṣh vibhakti. Gujarati cases demonstrate the relationship
between a noun and a verb in a sentence. But genitive case does not show any such
relationships. It is used to indicate the relationship between two nouns. Here, one
noun or pronoun works as an adjective modifying, or rather, specifying the other
noun.

The other noteworthy aspect of genitive in Gujarati is the use of gender-markers. All
the other cases having various suffixes -ne, -thī, -e, -māN do not take gender-markers.
For example:
rājāthī hasī na shakāyuN. (masculine singular) (The king could not laugh.)
sitāthī āNsu khāḷī n shakāyā. (feminine singular) (Sita could not help crying.)
vidyārthīothī javāb na āpī shakāyo. (masculine plural) (Students could not answer.)
Here, the gender and number of the nouns to which the case-markers are attached are
ignored. But in genitive case, it is not so.

"A noun in the Genitive Case is in reality of adjectival meaning (cf. in English ' a ship
of wood ' and ' a wooden ship) and accordingly all genitives admit of adjectival
inflexion as to gender, number and case." (Taylor 140) Gujarati genitive has various
forms of the suffix -n- according to different genders and numbers. They are -no, -nī, -
nuN, -nā, -nāN. The suffix is attached to the oblique form of the noun. If a suffix is
added to the second noun, that noun also takes indirect marker -ā or -ā. For example:
bāpujīnā khāṭlāmāN (in the bed of the grandfather), chhokrānā ramakḍāne (to the toy
of the boy).

As in the noun, so also in the pronoun, the genitive is really an adjective agreeing with
the governing noun in gender and case. The -n- suffix has an allomorph -ār-. It is used
with pronouns.

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 First person singular: ma- + -ār- + -o/ī/ũ (māro, mārī, māruN) (my)
First person plural (exclusive) am- + -ār- + -o/ī/ũ (amāro, amārī, amāruN) (our)
Second person singular: ta- + -ār- + -o/ī/ũ (tāro, tārī, tāruN) (your)
Second person plural: tam- + -ār- + -o/ī/ũ (tamāro, tamārī, tamāruN) (your)

All these may be used in plurals if the following noun is a plural.

First person plural (inclusive) also takes gender and number markers: āpṇo, āpṇī,
āpṇuN, āpṇā, āpṇāN (our)

One more thing to be taken into consideration is this: the genitive case-marker is
decided according to the gender and number of the noun that follows it; not according
to the noun to which it is attached. For example: rāmnī patnī (Ram's wife), sītāno
putra (Sita's son), rāvaṇnuN sainya (Ravan's army)

Few generalizations are available about the usage of this case in Gujarati as it
expresses numerous relations. The most common are –

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 Meanings / Relations Examples
Partition or portion aḍdhī roṭlī (half chapati), vrukshnuN pāNdḍuN (a leaf of a tree)
Parent – child relationship savitābānī dīkrī (Savitaba's daughter)
Product – producer kolsānī khāṇ (a coal mine), gāynuN dūdh (cow milk)
Person/thing – quality hīrānuN tej (luminousness of a dimond)
Appositive (Proper – common) gulābnuN fūl (a rose flower), līmḍānuN vruksh (a neem tree)
Simile chaNdranī kaḷā, bhavno sāgar, vidyanuN dān
Uniqueness ekno ek (one and only), enuN e (that same)
Dependency kūNdīnuN pāṇī (water in a tank), ḍabbāno loṭ (flour in a container)
Material – thing chokhāno loṭ (rice flour), sonānī vīNṭī (golden ring)
Value/cost sāmyiknuN lavājam (subscription of a magazine)
Similarity pariṇāmno māpdaNḍ (criterion of result), purīno loṭ (flour of puri)
Cause and effect pravāsnī majā (fun of picnic), vidāynuN dukh (pain of departure)
Equality of Measure fūṭnā bār īNch (12 inches of a foot)
Quality/feature svabhāvno udār (generous by nature)
Origin, source or cause pitānī shikhāmaṇ (father's teaching)
Possession: a) natural īshvarnī krupā (grace of God), strīnī lāgṇī (feelings of a woman)
b) acquired māruN ghar (my house), mihirnī gāḍī (Mihir's car)
‘in whom or which’ (from a source internal): mitrano bharoso (a
Subjectiveness
friend's trust)
‘on whom or which’ (from a source external): rājānī bīk (the fear of
Objectiveness
the king)
Price pāNch rupiyānī pāghḍī (a turban costing five rupees)
Place: (a) at or in which dariyānuN pāṇī (sea water)
(b) from which goānāN kāju (cashew nuts of Goa)
Contents pāṇīno pyālo (a glass of water)
Purpose annanī koṭhī (a large earthen vessel for holding grain)
Age pāNch varasno dīkro (a five-year-old son)
nidhi nāmnī ek chhokrī (a girl of the name Nidhi)
Descriptive adjuncts
Brāhman jātino ek māṇas (a man of the Brahman caste)

Genitives are sometimes ambiguous in both the languages. For example: ā ravi
varmānuN chitra chhe. (This is Ravi Varma's picture.) In this sentence, Ravi Varma
may be considered as the owner of the picture or the object of the picture.

Some verbs can be transformed into noun + auxiliary constructions. The object with
such a verb takes genitive form.

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 In many cases a simple definite verb may have as its
equivalent an allied noun coupled with some
appropriate verb. Thus shodhvuN – shodh karvī (to find
out); saMbhāḷvuN – saMbhāḷ karvī (to take care). When
such equivalent is employed, the Objective of the
definite verb is changed to a Genitive in agreement with
the allied noun. (Taylor 141)

For example: bele telīfonnī shodh karī. (Bell invented telephone.)

A few verbs are sometimes construed with the same case. For example: sāMbhaḷvuN
(to hear) and mānvuN (to regard, believe, obey). However, in these sentences, some
neuter word such as kahyuN (said) or kaheluN (spoken) is understood after the
genitive. For example: enuN sāMbhḷo (Listen to him) = enuN kahyuN sāMbhḷo
(Listen to what he says); māruN māno (Believe me) = māruN kahyuN māno (Believe
what I say).

Some adjectives expressing desireor wish are construed using the genitive
construction. For example: annano bhūkhyo (hungry for food), pāṇīno tarsyo (thirsty
for water), dhanno lobhī (covetous of wealth), dravyano lālchu (grasping after
treasure), satyano bhāvik (zealous for the truth)

‘Time from when’ is put in genitive: be divasnuN kām (work of two days). Also,
‘time at which or during which’ stands in genitive: be divasno bhūkhyo (hungry for
two days)

The genitive case-marker may follow the locative case marker -māN. For example:
dikrāomāNno ek (one of the sons), naḍīmāNnī māchhalī (fish in the river),
tāNkīmāNnuN pāṇī (water in the tank). Again, instrument case-marker may follow
locative case-markers. For example: ākāshmāNthī (from the sky)

Gujarati also has another genitive form – keruN. It is used like a postposition. It is
written separately instead of pasting to the noun. It cannot be used with pronouns. It

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inflects for gender, number and case (instrumental – kere). The forms produced are
kero, kerī, keruN, kerā, kerāN.

Vocative Case
Anna Kibort notes about the vocative case:

Thus, a morphologically marked vocative does not have

to participate in a case paradigm. This situation is
somewhat similar to that in languages in which the
genitive is paradigmatically isolated and the existence
of the genitive is the only reason to posit that the
language has the feature of case. In sum, a purely
semantic case is not determined by a rule of syntax, and
a morphological vocative can be considered a semantic
case.

Vocative case does not show any relationship between a noun and a verb in a
sententence. It often stands outside the clausal syntax being parenthetically inserted.
As it does not encode any syntactic relationship of a dependent to a head, it is often
not considered as a case at all. It is a morphological category which rarely triggers
special agreement. The vocative can be considered a purely semantic case, since
semantic cases are not dependent on a syntactic head. In English, this case does not
cause any form change and in Gujarati, the nouns are used in oblique form in this
case.

Gujarati Vibhakti (Syntactic Cases)

Coming out from the traditional Sanskrit pattern of describing cases, the modern
Gujarati linguists have given a new model of case-description peculiar to Gujarati
language. According to that, Gujarati has three vibhaktis and many karakas. The
vibhaktis are related to the forms of nouns. And basically, only three noun forms are
found. Of course, the suffixes give a range of noun forms but they are of secondary
character as they do not cause form change; they are only additions. On the other
hand, karakas are related to the meanings or relationships expressed through the
forms of nouns. Therefore, they can be many.

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 વવભક્તત એટલે નાવમક અંગોનો રક્રયાપદ સાથે વ્યતત થતો

વવવવધ પ્રકારનો સાંબધ

ાં . આ સાંબધ ુ ો કે
ાં પ્રત્યયો, અનગ

નામયોગી જેવાાં વવવવધ વ્યાકરભણક તત્વો દ્વારા પ્રગટ થાય

છે . પ્રત્યયો નાવમક અંગોને સીધા જ લગાડવામાાં આવે છે ,

ુ ો અને નામયોગીઓ નાવમક અંગના પરોક્ષ

જ્યારે અનગ

રૂપને લગાડવામાાં આવે છે . વવભક્તત ત્રણ પ્રકારની છે : (૧)

પ્રત્યક્ષ વવભક્તત, (૨) પરોક્ષ વવભક્તત અને (૩) -એ

વવભક્તત." (Desai, Vyakranvimarsh 154)

In Gujarati, the relationship between a noun and a verb can be shown by using a clitic
(indirect case-marker), suffixes and postpositions. The indirect cas-marker is attached
to the root of a noun but suffixes and postpositions are attached to the oblique form of
a noun.

As far as the declension is concerned, Gujarati nouns are divided into two classes: (1)
those that end in -o (masculine) and -ũ (neuter) and (2) those that do not end in either
of these. "The former class has two forms, the Absolute and the Oblique. The Oblique
is formed from the Absolute by changing the -o or -ũ into -ā; and is used before all
postpositions, and also as the Vocative. As nouns belonging to the second class do not
end in -o or -ũ, it is evident that they remain unchanged in the singular. In the plural
of all nouns the Absolute and the Oblique cases are one and the same in form."
(Tisdall 30) For example: kūtro (dog) (absolute/singular) – kūtrā (oblique/plural),
kūtruN (absolute/singular) – kūtrā (oblique/plural), kūtrī (absolute/singular) – kūtrī
(oblique/plural), khetar (field) (absolute/singular) – khetar (oblique/plural)

The cases are as under:

(1) Direct Case – Nouns in this case do not take any suffix. They remain unchanged
irrespective of different linguistic environments. They, in their bare or unmarked

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forms, express their relationship with verbs. The case is considered to have zero
suffix. The relationships expressed are that of agent, patient, location, instrument,
time etc. For example: chhokro lakhe chhe. (The boy is writing.) mā surat gayāN.
(Ma went to Surat.)

(2) Oblique/Indirect Case – Nouns in this case inflect for case. These nouns cannot be
used in their pure unmarked forms in sentences. The relationship-markers cannot be
attached to the original forms of these nouns. They vary according to the linguistic

environment. "કેટલાાંક વ્યતતભલિંગવાચક પચ્ુ ્લિંગ અને નપસ

ાંુ કભલિંગનાાં નાવમક અંગોમાાં

રક્રયાપદ સાથેના સાંબધ ુ ો કે નામયોગી જેવા અંશો લગાડતાાં પહેલાાં

ાં ો વ્યતત કરનાર અનગ

તેનાાં મ ૂળ અંગોને (એટલે કે ભલિંગવાચક પ્રત્યય બાદ કરતાાં બાકી રહેલા અંગને) જે પ્રત્યય

લગાડવામાાં આવે છે તે પરોક્ષ વવભક્તતનો પ્રત્યય કહેવાય છે ." (Desai, Vyakranvimarsh

155) For example: ghoḍā + thī = ghoḍāthī (correct) ghoḍo + thī = ghoḍothī
(incorrect)

The declinable masculine and neuter nouns take the indirect case-marker before
taking any other suffix or postposition showing their relations to verbs. Masculine and
neuter singular nouns take -ā as an indirect case-suffix. For example: vāNdarāe
dhamāl machāvī. āNgṇāmāN tulsīnā kyārā pāse dīvo karo. The plural forms of
masculine and neuter nouns do not change their forms while inflecting for case.

The indeclinable nouns and feminine nouns do not take any such indirect case-
markers. This is true for both the singular and plural nouns. They are said to have zero
case-suffix. For example: benne ghī joie chhe. kākīthī chalātuN nathī. uNdarne
pakaḍvā shuN karvuN?

Pronouns do not take any indirect case-markers but they have different forms for
direct and indirect cases. For example: teN tāḷuN māryuN? (Did you lock?) huN jaish.
(I will go.) teṇe tane pen āpī? (Did he give you the pen?)

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-ā is a plural marker and it is also used as an indirect case-marker. "Nouns ending in -
o, masc., take as their plural -ā instead; the plural thus corresponding in form with the
Oblique Singular. To this, -o may be added as a further sign of plurality." (Tisdall 30-
31) Both of them have the same form and pronunciation but their functions are
different.

Gujarati has a vocative case. It is morphologically equivalent to the oblique case of

nouns.

In a Gujarati noun phrase, when a noun takes any suffix and gets changed, the rest of
the words also get changed accordingly. But in English, it is not so. For example: pelo
ūNcho chhokro (that tall boy), pelī ūNchī chhokrī (that tall girl). The determiners or
demonstrative pronouns and adjectives agree to the noun in Gujarati, but it is not so in
English. When the noun takes a case-suffix, all the modifiers take the oblique form in
Gujarati. For example: pelā ūNchā chhokrāne (to that tall boy)

(3) -e vibhakti – This case-suffix is attached to the base form of the noun directly.
This case is used for indicating instrument and location. For example: pele vāNdare
mane khūb pajvī. te ghoḍe chaḍīne āvyo. sāre gaḷṇe pāṇī gāḷ.

In Nouns of Class I (masculine and neuter), the -ā of the

Oblique form is usually omitted before the addition of -
e: we have therefore both dīkrā -e and dikre to mean ‘by
a son’. With this class of nouns, -e means only ‘by’,
denoting the Agent: but with nouns of Class II
(feminine and unmarked), it also means ‘at’ and in this
case may be compounded with thī, as niśāḷethī. More
than one postposition may be attached at the same time
to a noun. (Tisdall 32)

Before attaching the suffix -e, the gender-marking suffix is removed from a masculine
or neuter noun. The suffix -e becomes an integral part of the masculine and neuter
nouns. It appears as a diacritic sign. If the noun is a feminine or an unmarked one, the
-e suffix is attached to the noun without any change in its form. In such cases, the

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suffix -e appears in the same form as a suffix. For example: ghoḍo – ghoḍe
(masculine), ṭekrī – ṭekrīe (feminine)

This construction is rarely used these days. It is losing relevance. Instead, the noun
form having an indirect case-marker -ā along with the suffix -e is widely used. For
example: pelā vāNdarāe mane khūb pajvī.

Gujarati Case-marking System

Case is typically found on noun phrases and expresses the relationship that the noun
phrase (the dependent) bears towards the verb (the head). This is referred to as
dependent marking. Gujarati has dependent marking.

"Case is a grammar category of nominal parts of speech which expresses their

syntactic relation to other words of the sentence. This definition fits well not only
nouns, as primary users of cases, but also pronouns, adjectives and numerals, which
can also be subject to declension – change of cases." (Cases in Indo-European
Languages) Gujarati cases operate at phrase level. They change the form of nouns as
well as trigger changes in the forms of determiners and modifiers. For example: māro
dīkro (my son – agentive) – mārā dīkrāne (to my son – recipient)

Gujarati has one indirect case-marker, a few case-suffixes and a wide range of
postpositions. Beames, while analyzing the seven modern Aryan languages of India,
writes about the case marking system:

It must be borne in mind that there are three grades of

formative additions to a noun in these languages. First,
and oldest, those affixes which are remains of the
Sanskrit case-endings and are fully and completely
incorporated with the stem and inseparable from it.
Second, and next in point of time, those affixes which
have been adopted to supply the place of case-endings
when these latter had become so much abraded as no
longer to mark case-relations with sufficient accuracy,
and which are not integral portions of the stem-word,

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 but are attached to its oblique form. Third, and latest,
those adverbs, particles, and postpositions which are
recognized as independent words, and are attached to
the stem word after it has already received its case-affix.
(Beames P. 271)

Nouns in direct case do not accept suffixes or postpositions. It is also not compulsory
to attach any suffix or postposition to the nouns in indirect case. These nouns may
stand alone. For example: chhokrāN āvyāN. (Children came.) chapaḷ ghoḍā doḍyā.
(Active horses ran.) suNdar māḷā banāvī. (Beautiful garland was prepared.) But these
nouns may or may not take any one or both of them. For example: bārīthī, bārī nīche,
bārīthī nīche.

The case-marker suffix is added to the oblique form if the noun is masculine or neuter
as they always have oblique forms. The indeclinable nouns and feminine nouns do not
have any oblique forms. Therefore, the case-marker suffixes are directly attached to
their nominative forms. For example: kūtro – kūtrāe, gadheḍuN – gadheḍāne, strī –
strīthī, pavan – pavanthī

A case can be displayed with the help of one of the following forms of nouns:
 Citation (Without any attachments) (Masculine, Feminine, Neuter)
 Stem + Indirect case-marker (Masculine and Neuter)
 Stem + Indirect case-marker + Suffix (Masculine and Neuter)
 Stem + Indirect case-marker + (kaḍī suffix) + Postposition (Masculine
and Neuter)
 Stem + Indirect case-marker + Suffix + Postposition (Masculine and
Neuter)
 Stem + Suffix (Feminine and Invariable Nouns)
 Stem + (kaḍī suffix) + Postposition (Feminine and Invariable Nouns)
 Stem + Suffix + Postposition (Feminine and Invariable Nouns)
Gujarati cases and case-suffixes do not have one to one relationships. There is no
specific case-suffix for a particular case. Consequently, one case may be expressed

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with the help of different case-suffixes and one case-suffix may be used to express
more than one case.

Gujarati Case-markers

ુ રાતી ભાષામાાં કારકસાંબધ

"ગજ ાં ો નામપદબાંધની પાછળ આવતા અંશો જેવા કે: પ્રત્યય,

ુ ો કે નામયોગી દ્વારા વ્યતત થાય છે તેથી તે અનગ

અનગ ુ ાત્મક કારકવાળી ભાષા

(postpositional case language) કહેવાય. અંગ્રેજી જેવી ભાષામાાં કારકસાંબધ

ાં ો પ ૂવથસગો

(prepositions) દ્વારા વ્યતત થાય છે તેથી તે પ ૂવથસગાથત્મક કારકવાળી ભાષા (prepositional

case language) કહેવાય." (Desai, Vyakaranvimarsh 403) Gujarati is called a

postpositional case language as the cases are expressed through the elements that
follow the noun. English is called a prepositional case language as cases can be
expressed through the elements that precede the noun.

The Gujarati case system utilizes a number of grammatically functional suffixes and
postpositions which parallel the prepositions of English.

... Gujarati expresses the relation of the nouns to the

other words in a sentence by certain small words
corresponding to our English prepositions. The only
difference is that (1) these words follow instead of
preceding the nouns which they govern, and are hence
styled postpositions: and (2) that they are united in
writing to their nouns, forming one word with them.
The postpositions are attached to the oblique form of
the noun." (Tisdall 32)

The nouns and pronouns take oblique form when these suffixes and postpositions are
attached to them in order to express various kinds of case-relationships. They take an
indirect case-marker before taking the suffixes and postpositions. This applies only to
masculine and neuter nouns as feminine and indeclinable nouns do not have oblique
forms.

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The elements expressing the case-relations between a noun phrase and action are
called case-markers. There are a few one-syllable primary suffixes and a large number
of postpositions serving the purpose of case-marking. Gujarati language has two types
of case-markers: the first type of case-markers does not have meaning of their own.
They are called primary case-markers. The indirect case-marker (clitic) and suffixes
are the examples. They are attached to the roots and bases respectively. They are
bound forms.

The second type of case-markers has lexical meanings. Of course, when used as case-
markers, they show case-relations instead of showing their lexical meanings.
Postpositions are the examples. They follow the bases and are free forms.

Orthographically, the suffixes are bound to the words they follow. But the
postpositions are written apart. In other words, the suffixes get agglutinated to the
nouns but postpositions do not.

The suffixes are -e, -ne, -thī, -māN, -n-/-r-. Some postpositions are madhye, māfak,
heṭhaḷ, samaksh, sāthe, vaḍe, pachhī, prati, nīche, pāchhaḷ, dvārā, aNdar, bahār etc.
The suffixes can be attached to the postpositions to have various meanings. For
example: thī (from) – upar/parthī (from above), nīchethī (from below), aNdarthī
(from inside), bahārthī (from outside), pāchhaḷthī (from behind), āgaḷthī (from front)

Difference between Adpositions and Suffixes

English prepositions and Gujarati postpositions are commonly called adpositions.
Adpositions and suffixes are the most common ways to express cases in various
languages. The former are called analytic means as they are not stuck to the nouns;
whereas the latter are called synthetic means as they are bound to the nouns. As noted
by Anna Kibort:

In most languages adpositions play at least some part in

marking the relationship of dependent nouns to their
heads and/or indicate the semantic function of the
element in the clause. Thus, adpositions can be thought

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 of as functioning in much the same way as cases in
languages, the main difference being that they are
analytic means of expression, as opposed to synthetic.

Adpositions and suffixes (case-markers) are different despite their functional

similarity:
 A language may have numerous adpositions but the number of suffixes is
always limited.
 Adpositions combine syntactically with their complement phrase. Suffixes
combine with a noun morphologically.
 Two adpositions can usually be joined with a conjunction and share a single
complement, but this is normally not possible with suffixes. For example:
English – of and for the people vs. Gujarati – bhāratmāN ane thī (incorrect);
gharnī aNdar ane bahār (correct)
 One adposition can usually combine with two coordinated complements, but
this is normally not possible with suffixes. For example: of the city and the
world vs. Gujarati – desh ane duniyā māṭe (for the country and the world),
deshmāN ane duniyāmāN (country-Loc. and world-Loc.).

As far as Gujarati postpositions are concerned, they have some peculiarities:

 Postpositions are simple or derived. But suffixes cannot be derived.
 Suffixes do not have lexical meaning. They only have grammatical meaning;
whereas postpositions have both the types of meaning. They can be considered
as lexical words as well as functional words. They are structural markers
expressing word-relationships, performing, that way, their grammatical
functions.
 A postposition may be followed by a suffix but it cannot follow a suffix. The
reason for this is that suffixes come at the word final positions or at terminals.
For example: pāsethī, uparthī, sāmenī, bājunī. None of these can be altered –
thī pāse, nī bāju (unacceptable)
 kaḍī suffix can be put between a noun and a postposition. But it cannot occur
between a noun and a suffix. Suffixes do not need kaḍī suffix.

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Suffixes Showing Different Relationships

"કારકોની સાંખ્યા વધારે છે . જેની સામે એમને વ્યતત કરતા પ્રત્યયોની સાંખ્યા ઓછી છે .

મયાથરદત ભચહ્નો દ્વારા અમયાથદ અથો વ્યતત કરવાની જરૂર પડે છે . આથી સ્વાભાવવક રીતે

વવભક્તતના પ્રત્યયો જેવા ભચહ્નો પર અથોન ાંુ ભારણ એક કરતાાં વધ ુ હોય છે ." (Bhadari,

Gujarati Vibhakti Vichar 57) There are many cases but only a few case-markers
available in Gujarati. Infinite case-relationships are to be expressed through a limited
set of case-markers. Therefore these case-markers display more than one
relationship. Some important relationships demonstrated through these case-markers
are given below:

agent, patient, instrument, destination/location, duration, distance,

Direct Case
address (vocative), measure of patient

Oblique Form address

agent, instrument, destination/location, time (duration/point), value/cost

-e Suffix of patient, departing point of action, purpose, physical feature, manner,
things taking part in action
Indirect Case/Oblique Case

patient, experiencer, ownership/possession, duration, purpose, things

-ne Suffix
happening to participant

location, ownership/possession, duration, condition, value of patient,

-māN Suffix comparison of participants, superiority of participant, instrument,
measure complement, things taking part in action

agent (passive), instrument, point of time, source (place from),

-thī Suffix comparison of participants, departing point of action, cause/purpose,
manner, location, condition

Relationship between two nouns

-n-/-r- Suffix
Takes number and gender markers

Suffixes are bound morphemes and postpositions are free or partially free morphemes
in Gujarati. Suffixes are classified into two classes:
(i) Gender-specific (marked for gender) – the suffix -n-/-r-
(ii) Gender-neutral (unmarked for gender) – the suffixes -e, -ne, -thī, -māN

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The suffix -n-/-r- expresses the relations between two nouns or a noun and a
participle. For example: māro kān (my ear), pīvānuN pāṇī (drinking water), gharnī
bārī (window of the house)
The suffixes -e, -ne, -thī and -māN show the relationship between a noun and a verb.

Combinations of Suffixes
Suffixes may come alone or in combination with other suffixes:
-e + -thī = gharethī (from home)
-māN + -thī = rasoḍāmāNthī (from the kitchen)
-māN + -n- = temnāmāNnuN (from them)
-n-/-ar- + -thī = tenāthī / tamārāthī (by him/you)
-n-/-ar- + -māN = marāmāN / tenāmāN (in me/in him)
-n-/-ar- + -māN + -thī = tamārāmāNthī / temnāmāNthī (from you/from them)

Relationships Expressed through Postpositions

Gujarati postpositions require special attention as they behave in a peculiar way while
showing various case-relatioships. Beames, while studying the seven modern Aryan
languages of India, comments:
In addition to the case-affixes above noticed, which are
specially attached to definite cases, there is a very large
number of particles which serve to modify the noun, but
which cannot have any definite place assigned to them
in the narrow range of cases to which the grammarians
have bound down the Aryan declension. They fall into
two classes, according as they are attached to the crude
form of the noun, or to the genitive case. The
classification cannot, however, be carried out very
thoroughly, because some of them fall into different
categories in different languages. (Beames 295-296)

These postpositions have various forms and meanings. They can be used with the bare
form of the noun or with the form of noun having a suffix. They also do not have any
one to one relation with cases like the suffixes. They are used to indicate different
relationships in different contexts.

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Tisdall writes about the nature of these postpositions:
Except the simple and genuine Postpositions, -ne, -e, -
thī, -thakī, -vatī, -no, -nī -nu , -mā , all the rest were
originally nouns in the locative case. In consequence of
this they (1) possess gender, and (2) require the oblique
case of -no, -nī, -nu , to interpose between them and the
noun they govern. Frequently, however, this possessive
postposition may be omitted, though when not
expressed it is understood. E.g., sathe ‘along with’; te
sipāī-nī sāthe, ‘along with that sepoy’; ā rīti-nī.
pramāṇe, or a rīti pramāṇe, ‘according to this method’.
(80)

In Gujarati, there is a large number of compound postpositions composed of the

suffixes plus a noun, adjective or adverb. The suffixes involved in such constructions
are -ne and -n-/-r-. The former does not change its form but the latter takes various
forms like no, nī, nũ, nā, nāN, ro, rī, ruN, rāN. These suffixes are termed as genitive
suffixes by the early writers of Gujarati grammar like Beames and Tisdall. But all of
them are not the genitive ones. The suffix -ne is not a form of the genitive suffix -n-.
An inclusive term kaḍī pratyay (link suffix) is used to mention them collectively.
Postpositions optionally take kaḍī suffix added before them. For example: shobhāne
līdhe (because of Shobha), tenī pāse (near him), mārā kartāN (than I)

These suffixes are often omissible with nouns, but not with pronouns. "નામયોગીઓ

જ્યારે સવથનામની સાથે આવે ત્યારે અચ ૂક કડી પ્રત્યય લે. પ્રથમ પરુ ુ ષ અને દ્ધદ્વતીય પરુ ુ ષ

સવથનામનાાં અંગો '-આરી', '-આરા' કે '-આરે ' કડી પ્રત્યય લે. 'આપણ-' સાવથનાવમક અંગ '-આ',

'-ઈ' કે '-એ' કડી પ્રત્યય લે. બાકીનાાં સાવથનાવમક અંગો '-ની', '-ના' કે '-ને' કડી પ્રત્યય લે."

(Desai, Vyakaranvimrsh 173) When these postpositions occur with the first and
second person personal pronouns, they take the kaḍī suffixes -ārī, -ārā or -āre. The
first person inclusive plural āpaṇ- takes the kaḍī suffixes -ā, -ī or -e. the other

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pronominal forms take the kaḍī suffixes -nī, -nā or -ne. For example: ene badle, māre
khātar, amāre māṭe

The postpositions used with or without the 'kaḍī' affix are as follows:
-nā thakī, kartā, sarkho (-o, -ī, -ũ, -ā, -āN)
-ne arthe, aNge, kāje, khātar, māṭe, vāste, sāru
Postpositions Optionally
āgaḷ, pāchhaḷ, joḍe, taraf, nīche, pachhī, māfak,
taking kaḍī -nī
samaksh
suffix
-ne kārṇe, taḷiye, badle, līdhe, sthāne
Obligatorily
-nī aNdar, āspās, najīk, peṭhe, bahār, bāju, rubaru, samīp
agāu, anusār, chhatāN, tarīke, daramyān, dīṭh, paikī,
Postpositions not taking kaḍī affix
bhaṇī, mujab, lagī, vaḍe, vinā, sivāy, paryaNt, pramāṇe

Classification of Postpositions
(I) Structural Point of View
(1) Simple/Pure: Some nouns, adjectives or adverbs, without any change in forms,
are used as postpositions. When these words appear in sentences independently, they
function as nouns, adjectives or adverbs. But when they come with nouns or
pronouns, they function as postpositions.

2) Derived – Some postpositions are derived from nouns, adjectives or adverbs. They
are created by adding the suffix -e to the base forms of the respective nouns,
adjectives or adverbs.
Noun bāju, taraf
Simple Adjective sarkhuN
Postpositions

Adverb aNdar, bahār, najīk, jem, pachhī

arthe, aNge, kāje, joḍe, pramāṇe, taḷiye, paḍkhe, pāse, vāste,
Noun
tarīke, badle, māthe, rue, vishe, sāthe, sthāne
Derived
Adjective nīche, pūrve, farte, madhye, vacche, sāme, līdhe
Adverb māNhe, heṭhe, peṭhe

In this reference, Taylor writes: "Prepositions (postpositions) were originally nouns in

an oblique case, and the words they govern were regarded as in adjectival agreement

138
with them. Hence the governed words, even to the present day, are put in the oblique
genitive -nā or -nī or -ne." (142)
When postpositions are derived from nouns, they do not carry the same meaning. For
example: kāraṇ (reason) – ne kārṇe (due to), kāj (work) – ne kāje (for), vishay
(subject) – ne vishe (about)

II) Form Point of View

From the form point of view, the postpositions are variable or invariable like nouns.
The variable postpositions agree for gender and number to the nouns they are attached
to whereas the invariable postpositions do not do that.

Marked for
Variable sarkho, jevo, taṇo (no/nī/nuN/nā/nāN)
Postpositions

gender

aNge, aNdar, upar, nīche, āgaḷ, pāchhaḷ, kartā, kārṇe,

Unmarked
Invariable taraf, tarīke, najīk, darmyān, pāse, badle, pramāṇe,
for gender
līdhe, māṭe, vinā, sivāy, sudhī, sāthe, vagar

III) From Meaning Point of View

Many postpositions show more than one meaning.
Direction āspās, taraf, upar, nīche, sanmukh, pratye, madhye, sāme,
Location aNdar, bahār, upar, nīche, āgaḷ, pāchhaḷ, taḷe, sthāne, heṭhe
Sequence agāu, pachhī, pahelā, pūrve, āgaḷ, pāchhaḷ, bād (time/place)
Limit/Boundary paryaNt, samīp, sudhī, lagī, ver
Method/Manner/Similarity tarīke, peṭhe, pramāṇe, barobar, māfak, mujab, sarkhuN
Cause & effect/ Purpose aNge, arthe, kāraṇe, līdhe, māṭe, khātar, vāste, sāṭe, sāruN
Association joḍe, bhego, bheḷo, sāthe
Postpositions

Accompaniment joḍe, sahit, sāthe, vere

Possession kane, keruN, tāṇī, pāse
Instrument (non-human) thakī, vaḍe, dvārā
Agent (active) (human) thakī, dvārā, vaḍe
Agent (causal) mārfat, dvārā, rue, pāse
Partitive vagar, vinā, sivay, viṇ
Alternative peṭe, badle, vatī, sāṭu
Additive uprāNt
Comparison kartā, jevo, barobar
Time sudhīmāN, lagī, bād, daramāyan

139
 સાંજ્ઞા સાથે આવતો પ્રત્યય વસવાયનો ઘટક છે નામયોગી

અવ્યય. એક રીતે તો એ વવભક્તત પ્રત્યય જેવ ાંુ જ કાયથ કરે છે .

વવભક્તત પ્રત્યયોની જેમ એના પણ વગથ પાડી શકાય.

રક્રયાવવધાનમાાં કતાથથથ દશાથવવાન ાંુ કાયથ વવભક્તત પ્રત્યયો કરે

જ્યારે રક્રયા સાથે કે પ્રરક્રયા સાથે આવતા સાંદભથના ઘટકો

સ ૂચવવાન ાંુ કાયથ નામયોગીઓ જ કરે છે . નામયોગીઓ

ક્યારે ય કેન્દ્રસ્થ કારકો કે આવશ્યક કારકો સ ૂચવતા નથી.

પરાં ત ુ રક્રયાવવધાનની બહાર રહેતા સાંદભથની ભ ૂવમકા સ ૂચવે

છે . (Bhandari, Gujarati Vakyarachana 72)

Postpositions function like case-suffixes. They can also be classified like suffixes.
The central relationships associated with the subject are shown by the suffixes. But
the contextual relationships associated with the verb are indicated by the
postpositions. They never suggest any essential case-relations but display the
peripheral context.

However, some postpositions appear as important elements in a sentence. For

example: ruhān gharnī bahār nīkaḷyo. (Ruhan came out of the house.) Here, the noun
ghar is optional and postposition bahār is central. For example: ruhān bahār nīkaḷyo.
(Ruhan came out – correct) ruhān gharnī nīkaḷyo. (Ruhan of the house – incorrect)

Major Thematic Relations (Semantic Cases – Karakas)

The relation the noun has with the verb in a sentence is called a case or a thematic

role. Vyas puts it thus: "વાક્યમાાં પદાથોની આવી ચોક્કસ ભ ૂવમકા પ્રમાણે વાક્યનો અથથ

છે . ક્સ્થવત, રક્રયા, પ્રરક્રયાના સાંબધ

ાં માાં કે સાંદભથમાાં પદાથથ જે ભ ૂવમકા ભજવે છે તે ભ ૂવમકાને

વ્યાકરણની પરરભાષામાાં કારક કહે છે . વાક્યમાાં પદાથથની ભ ૂવમકા કતાથ, કમથ, ભાવક, તટસ્થ,

140
 ુ ાર તે રક્રયા સાથે સાંકળાય છે ."
ગ્રાહક, સાધન, ઉદગમ, સ્થાન વગેરેની હોય અને તે અનસ

(217) These thematic relations are also called semantic cases. Unlike syntactic cases,
they are numerous. Som eof the major cases are agent, patient, recipient, instrumental,
source, location, experiencer etc.

1) Agent – A person who deliberately performs the action is agent.

An agent always initiates the action willingly. This kind of ability is found only in
animates i.e.human beings, animals and birds. For example: Mrugen laughs heartily.
mrugā ramtī hatī. (Mruga was playing.)

If a word suggets some action and does not have animate qualities, it is personified to
be used as an agent. For example: The banyan tree gave shelter to many birds.
pavannī laherkhīe mārā manne shātā āpī. (The breeze gave solace to my mind.)

The action of an agent either affects the agent himself or some others. For example:
Mrugesh spoke. mruṇāl khush thai. (Mrunal felt happy.) Jagrut draws a picture. jūhī
patra lakhe chhe. (Juhi writes a letter.)

2) Patient – A person, animal, bird or thing that gets affected by the action of an
agent is patient.

The patient may be affected totally or partially by the action of the agent. For
example: Priti drank water. lekhake vārtā lakhī. (The writer wrote a story.)

Sometimes the total or partial effects do not change or affect the overall meaning of
the sentence. This relationship is neutral. For example: Pritesh ate an apple. Pritesh
ate a piece of apple. shreyā preyāne aḍī. (Shreya touched Preya.) shreyā preyānā
mastakne aḍī. (Shreya touched Preya's head.)

3) Instrument – A mechanism or means the agent uses to accomplish the action is

instrument.

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It may be a thing, material or an abstraction. It is always inanimate. For example:
Harit signed the papers with a pen. hīr chamchīthī khīr khāi rahī chhe. (Heer is eating
khir with a spoon.)

Some verbs take certain fixed instruments to complete the action. These instruments
need not be mentioned separately. For example: Tarun looks at her. tulsīe fūl
suNghyuN. (Tulsi smelt a flower.) Here, it goes without saying that the action is
performed by the eyes and the nose respectively. If some extra information is to be
given about the instrument, it must be mentioned. For example: Tarun looks at her
with wide eyes. tulsīe tenā lāMbā nākthī fūl suNghyuN. (Tulsi smelt a flower with her
long nose.)

4) Force – Some force or power because of which the action takes place is force.

No human effort or intention is involved in the action here. The difference between an
instrument and a force is that an instrument has an implied agent but a force does not
have any. The action taking place through some force is unintended; it is not
consciously or deliberately done. For example: An avalanche destroyed the ancient
temple. dhartīkaMpe vināsh karyo. (The earthquake brought destruction.)

An agent cannot use these forces like wind, rain, storm or sunlight as instruments.
And these forces cannot work on their own. Therefore, they cannot be called agents or
instruments. But as they use their own force to perform the action, they are given
separate status.

5) Cause – An element showing reason or purpose for the action is cause.

It is a natural force that causes a change. No agent is mentioned or implied. Agents

can be entered only if they affect themselves. For example: Heat wave has become
worst because of pollution. varsādne kārṇe vadhu ṭhaNḍī lāge chhe. (It is more
chilled because of the rain.) He shouted because of pain. shraddhā sharamne kārṇe
chup hatī. (Shradhha was silent because of coyness.)

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6) Experiencer – A person who feels or experiences the emotion behind the action or
the entity that receives sensory or emotional input is experiencer.

Generally this expedrience is psychological and comes to the person without his own
wish for the same. It is rather natural or intuitive. Therefore only animates can be
experiencers. For example: Srujan heard her song. temne gusso āvyo. (He got angry.)

Sometimes, experiencer is presented as a topic. For example: shrutine harakh thāy

chhe. shruti harakhāy chhe. (Shruti is feeling happy. Shruti is happy.)

7) Recipient – A person who gets the result of the action is recepient.

The result is not received according to the wish or expectation of the recipient. Only
animates can be the recipients. For example: Indulekha sent me a mail. māe mane
baNgḍī āpī. (The mother gave me bangles.)

8) Benefactive – A person for whose benefit the action takes place.

For example: The martyrs die for their motherland. devvrat pitānī khushīne khātar
bhīṣhma banyā. (Devvrat become Bhishma for the father's happiness.)

9) Location – Locus for action or spatial orientation of action is location. It is of two

types: (i) Static and (ii) non-static/dynamic
(i) Static location shows the place of the action. It is an integral part of the action. For
example: Allen went to school. dādājī khurshīmāN beṭhā. (The grand father sat in the
chair.)

Some sentences apparently show two locations at a time. For example: The king sits
on the thrown in his court. rāṇī rājmahelmāN chhatrapalaNg upar beṭhāN. (The
queen sat on the bed in the palace.)

Here, 'court' and 'rājmahel' are the existential places, whereas 'thrown' and
'chhatrapalaNg' are the absolute locations respectively. An existential place can be
put in the beginning of a sentence but an absolute locantion cannot. For example: In
the court, the king sits on the thrown. (correct) On the thrown, the king sits in the

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court. (incorrect) rājmahelmāN rāṇī chhatrapalaNg upar beṭhāN. (In the palace, the
queen sat on the canopy – correct) chhatrapalaNg upar rāṇī rājmahelmāN beṭhāN.
(On the canopy, the queen sat in the palace – incorrect)

(ii) Non-static or dynanic location shows movement which are of three types:
(a) Source – The place or point from which an action originates is called the source.
For example: A mango falls from the tree. bā rasoḍāmāNthī bahār āvyāN. (The
grandma came out from the kitchen.)

If the process of transformation is mentioned, the source indicates the initial position,
or rather condition, of the referrent. For example: This institution becomes a
university from a college. telaNgāṇā pradeshmāNthī rājya banī gayuN. (Telangana
became a state from a province.)
(b) Goal – the place or point to which an action is directed is called the goal.
It indicates the goal or the destination of the movement. For example: My mother
rushed to the backyard. kākā kāle surat jashe. (The uncle will go to Surat tomorrow.)
(c) A sentence may have both the source and the destination.
For example: Dirgha comes from the kitchen to the living room. faḷ vruksh parthī
jamīn par paḍyuN. (The fruit fell on the ground from the tree.)
But the sentences do not always require both the source and the destination. The
reference of only one would make the sentence meaningful. For example: Anagha
comes from Mumbai. Anagha goes to Delhi. pitājī gharmāNthī āvyā. (The father
came from the house.) pitājī gharmāN gayā. (The father went inside the house.)

All the above mentioned movements are visible and have inanimate reference. But
sometimes animates also show a different type of movement. For example: te
rājāmāNthī raNk banyo. (He became poor from a king.)

Here also, only one movement can be mentioned. For example: Tanmay becomes a
professor. hīrvā mātā banī. (Hirva became a mother.)

Sometimes, invisible movements are also shown. For example: I received the
knowledge of traditions from my parents. prīt vāmdattmeḍam pāsethī bhāṣhāshāstra
shīkhī. (Preet learnt linguistics from Vamdattmadam.)

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This is a special type of movement in which the things got, taught or given remain
with both the parties involved. These sentences can be transformed in the agent-
recipient constructions. For example: My parents gave me the the knowledge of
traditions. vāmdattmaḍame prītne bhāṣhāshāstra shīkhavyuN. (Vamdattmadam taught
linguistics to Preet.)

Some more peculiar examples: Deval gives a gift to Dev. Dev receives a gift from
Deval. meN dukāndār pāsethī thodāN ramakadāN kharīdyāN. (I bought some toys
from the shopkeeper.) dukāndāre mane thodāN ramakadāN vechyāN. (The
shopkeeper sold me some toys.)

10) Associator – An animate or inanimate element which gets associated with the
verb through the agent is associator. It is also called a subsidiary element.
For example: The mother gives grapes to Niraj with Nirja. tene pennī sāthe pensil paṇ
kharīdī. (He bought a pencil along with a pen.)

If the main and subsidiary elements are of equal importance, their sequence may be
changed in a sentence. But the elements of unequal importance can never be
interchanged. For example: nīrāe shāk sāthe chaṭaṇī banāvī. (Nira prepared chatni
along with sabji – correct) nīrāe chaṭaṇī sāthe shāk banāvyuN. (Nira prepared sabji
along with chatni – incorrect)

11) Similarity – It indicates some person, animal or thing showing similarity in doing
action.
For example: Sharvari secured first rank in the board exams like Tarak. nikhil ninādnī
jem tablā vagāḍe chhe. (Nikhil plays tabla like Ninad.)

If both the elements showing similarity are connected to the verb with equal relation,
they can be inter-changed. But if they are not connected equally, they cannot be
interchanged. For example: Tarak secured first rank in the board exams like Sharvari.
(incorrect) ninād nikhilnī jem tablā vagāḍe chhe. (Ninad plays tabla like Nikhil –
correct) Here, the first sentence is incorrect because it is suggested that Tarak's result

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came out before Sharvari's result. But here, the sequence is changed which is
inappropriate.

12) Comparison – It suggests that some person, animal or thing is compared to

another one and is related to the verb or action. For example: Priyam is taller than
Pratham. pruthā amārā kuṭuMbnī sauthī suNdar vivekī dīkrī chhe. (Prutha is the most
beautiful and humble daughter of our family.)

Some more case-relations are purpose, time, manner, reason, path, reference, result.
The relationships are infinite therefore it is not possible to express them completely
through the limited number of case relations.

"આ સાંબધ
ાં ો માત્ર રૂપશાસ્ત્રની કક્ષાએ નહીં પણ વાક્યશાસ્ત્રની કક્ષાએ વ્યતત થતા હોય છે .

વળી, તે વાકયના બાહ્ય સ્તરે નહીં પણ તેના આંતરરક સ્તરે વ્યતત થતા હોય છે . જેમકે:

સવાર પડી. રમા પડી. આ દે ખીતા સરખા લાગતા વાકયોમાાં આંતરરક સ્તરે 'રમા' પડવાની

રક્રયાનો કરનાર છે , એટલે કે તે યોજક કારક છે , જ્યારે 'સવાર' પડવાની રક્રયાનો અસર

પામનાર છે , એટલે તે પ્રભાવવત કારક છે ." (Desai, Rupshashtra 72) These case-relations

operate not only at morphological level but also at syntactic level. They function not
only at the external level but also at the internal level of the sentence. For example:
ramā paḍī. savār paḍī. In both the sentences, the underlined words are agent and
recipient respectively.

There are no clear boundaries between these relations. For example: The hammer
broke the window. Some linguists treat hammer as an agent, some others as
instrument, while some others treat it as a special role different from these.

Suggesting the sequence of significance of the case-relationships, Desai writes: "આ

બધા કારકસાંબધ
ાં ોમાાં યોજક, પ્રભાવવત અને અવધકરણ જેવા સાંબધ
ાં ો અત્યાંત મહત્વના છે .

કરણ, પરરબળ, હેત,ુ અનભ

ુ ાવક, સાંપ્રદાન, તાદર્થયથ જેવે સાંબધ
ાં ો મધ્યમ મહત્વના છે . જ્યારે

146
 ુ ના જેવા સાંબધ
સહચારી, સદ્રશ, તલ ાં ો ઓછા મહત્વના છે ." (Vyakaranvimarsh 384) Agent,

recipient and location are the most important; instrumemnt, force, purpose,
experiencer, goal are important and associator, similarity, comparison are less
important.

Case-relations Expressed Through Different Case-markers

zero suffix, -e (status, desiderative, obligatory), -ne (desiderative, obligatory),
Agent
-thī (passive, helplessness), dvārā, unexpressed agent
Patient zero suffix, -ne
-thī, -e (reduplicative, adjective, adjective, characteristics, value/cost, measure), -
Instrument
māN (sufficiency, value/cost), zero suffix
Force -thī, -māN, -e, zero suffix
Cause -ne kārṇe/līdhe
Experiencer -ne, zero suffix
Recipient -ne
Benefactive -ne māṭe/ khātar/kāje/vāste/sāru
Location -māN, -e, -ne, par/upar, zero suffix
Source -thī, -ethī, -māNthī, pāsethī, parthī
Goal -e, -māN, zero suffix
Associator sāthe, -e, -māN
Similarity jevo/ī/uN, sho/shī/shuN, jem
Comparison -thī, -māN, kartā

English does not have morphological case. Pronouns display subjective, objective and
nominative cases with distinct forms. Nouns inflect for genitive case only. All the
other case-relationships are expressed through word order. The change of word order
leads to the change of meaning. Some case-relationships are shown with the help of

prepositional phrases. "આથી એવ ાંુ ફભલત થાય છે કે વવભક્તત સાંબધ

ાં દશાથવવા પ્રત્યયોવાળાં

ુ ોવાળી રચના હોય આ માત્ર ભાષાની સપાટી

પદસાધક રૂપાખ્યાન હોય કે પ ૂવથસગથ કે અનગ

ઉપરના સ્તરે દે ખાતો તફાવત છે ." (Desai, Rupshashtra 74) It can be said that the

various ways of demonstrating case-relationships indicate only superficial difference.

The underlying case-relationships expressed through inflections, prepositions or
suffixes are the same in both the languages.

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Phonology of English Nouns
Some English nouns and adjectives undergo some kind of phonological change while
getting inflected. On the other hand, the final syllables of these words decide the
morphological and phonological form of the inflections. Pluralisation, genitive-case
marking, derivation, conversion and degree marking trigger this type of changes. The
choice of the indefinite articles also depends on the immediate phonological
environment.

Plural and Possessive

There are three allophones available for the plural morpheme '-s' in English: /s/
(pens), /z/ (frogs) and /ɪz/ (kisses). The phonological structure of a word determines
the type of plural suffix added to the noun in question. Anticipatory assimilation is
common in English as exemplified by the nasalization of vowels that occur before
nasal consonants. On the other hand, the rules for English plurals, possessives and
third person singular verb forms offer examples of perseverative assimilation in which
a sound(s) is/are influenced by sounds that occur before it. In this case, the factors
involved are voicing and sibilant consonants.

In English, the pronunciation of 's' depends on the sound which precedes it:
(1) If the noun ends in a voiceless consonant sound /f/, /k/, /p/, /t/, /θ/,'s' is pronounced
as /s/ – cats, cakes
(2) If it ends in a voiced consonant sound /b/, /d/, /g/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /v/, /ð/, /l/ or with a
vowel sound, 's' is pronounced as /z/ – dogs, crabs
(3) If it ends with a hissing sibilant sound /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʧ/, /ʒ/, /ʤ/,'s' or 'es' is
pronounced as /iz/ – watches, eye-lashes

The sounds that occur in the singular forms are pronounced without vibration of the
vocal cords. They are voiceless sounds. Those which occur in the plural are all
pronounced with vibration of the vocal cords are voiced sounds. The plural is formed
by replacing the final voiceless consonant of the stem with its voiced counterpart and
then adding the regular suffix allomorphs / z / or / iz / according to the regular rule.

In phonology, two processes are found prominent: assimilation and dissimilation. In

assimilation, two sounds become more like each other when they are in proximity.

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In dissimilation, just the opposite happens: some kind of phonological change occurs
in order to make two sounds more distinct. The assimilation rule states that an
obstruent becomes voiced when it occurs before a voiced obstruent and an obstruent
becomes voiceless when it occurs before a voiceless obstruent. The dissimilation rule
states that an obstruent becomes voiced when it occurs before a voiceless obstruent
and an obstruent becomes voiceless when it occurs before a voiced obstruent.

When a noun ends in a sound which cannot accept the sound /s/, the suffix -es is
added instead of the suffix -s. The suffix produces /iz/ sound. This plural marker may
increase the number of syllables in the noun. For example: Torch – torches, niche –
niches, race – races, house – houses, prize – prizes, chaise – chaises

In the above given examples, both assimilation and dissimilation are at work. In the
case of words ending in a sibilant, an extra vowl schwa [ə] is inserted in order to
separate sounds that are phonetically similar. All the sibilants are produced with a
hissing sound. If similar hissing sounds are pronounced in succession, the plural
ending cannot be clearly perceived by the listener. By assigning it a separate syllable
in which it is preceded by the neutral vowel, the plural, possessive or third person
singular verb marking can be heard clearly. This is an example of dissimilation at
work.

A consonant assimilates in voicing to an immediately preceding consonant. The

allomorph 's' occurs after voiceless consonants. Evidently, the 'z' is becoming more
like the preceding consonant; it is assimilating to it. But two sibilant sounds cannot be
pronounced together in succession. Hence a vowel sound is inserted between them to
make the suffix pronounceable. This is dissimilation.

The allomorphs [z] and [s] are very similar phonologically. They differ only in the
feature voice. They are referred to as phonological allomorphs. The feature voice by
which they differ is also the feature that distinguishes the consonants which precede
them: [s] follows voiceless consonants, and [z] follows voiced consonants. The
examples of plurals of nouns differing in final consonants are as follows:
caps [ps] – cabs [bz]; fats [ts] – fads [dz]; books [ks] – rags [gz]; graphs [fs] – graves
[vz]

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Exceptions: myths [θs], times [mz], pins [nz], pills [lz]

The final consonant -f of a root is changed to -v if the root is of the class 'leaf'. For
example: leaf – leaves, knife – knives, wife – wives, half – halves, loaf – loaves. This
rule does not apply to all the nouns ending in -f. It is restricted to a small subset of
nouns only under very restricted circumstances. Exceptions: puffs, coughs, cliffs,
chiefs, waifs, fifes

There are other words that display consonant mutations in the plural, although the
change is not shown in the spelling system of English. One has to listen carefully to
hear the difference. For example: mouth /mauθ/ – mouths /mauz/, path /pa:θ/ – paths
/pa:z/. Exceptions: myths, douse, nooses, grouses.

Phonetically conditioned allomorphs of a morpheme are always in complementary

distribution. This means that no two allomorphs can occur in the identical context
because they are conditioned to occur in mutually exclusive contexts.

Possessive Case
Like plural morpheme, the English genitive case morpheme -s also has three
realizations: Jagrut's /s/, Jacob's /z/ and Harsh's /ɪz/.

The allomorphs of third person singular verbs, possessives and plural are all treated as
suppletives and the rules for their realization are similar. The examples of genitives of
nouns differing in final consonants are as follows:
cap's [ps] – cab's [bz]; cat's [ts] – fad's [dz]; Jack's [ks] – Greg's [gz]; leaf's [fs] –
Marv's [vz]
Exceptions: Keith's [θs], Jim's [mz], Ann's [nz], Bill's [lz]

As mentioned in The Structure of Modern English (Morphology 1):

The possessive case of singular count nouns is always

expressed by using the suffix -'s with its various
allomorphs, i.e., there are no irregular cases as there are
with the plural number. As a result, the plural and

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 possessive forms of count nouns, though mostly alike,
are not always so. Thus if we simply hear /bɔiz/, we
cannot tell whether it is boy's or boys, if we hear
/ʤʌʤiz/, we cannot tell whether it is judge's or judges."
(BAOU 41)

The irregular plurals (children, men) take the regular possessive pronounced /s/, /z/ or
/iz/. But the regular plurals (boys, cats) take the zero possessive. The possessive
inflection is not pronounced separately; in writing too only the apostrophe is used: the
-s is dropped.

The zero possessive is not restricted to the regular plural count nouns only. It may be
found in mass and proper nouns. for example: for goodness' sake: /fə'gudnis 'seik/
(mass noun), Socrates' wife: /'sɔkrə ti:z 'waif/ (proper noun)

As mentioned in The Structure of Modern English (Morphology 1):

It thus seems that the zero possessive is used in order to

avoid repetitive or awkward combinations of sounds….
From this, it is clear that when we hear /bɔiz / or
/ʤʌʤiz/ the reference may be not only either to boys or
to boy's, either to judges or to judge's: it is also possible
that it may be to boys' or to judges' respectively. The
three forms, the plural, the singular possessive, and the
plural possessive, are not distinguished in speaking in
the case of count nouns which form their plurals
regularly. (BAOU 41)

All count nouns do not take the possessive inflection freely. It is generally, though not
always, the nouns which denote persons or animate beings in general take the
possessive affix. Other nouns express the relationship by occurring in an of- phrase
after the noun they modify.

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Conversion

The following noun-verb pairs in English have two different sounds but this feature is
seldom represented in the spelling: house [s] – house [z], advice [s] – advise [z],
breath [θ] – breathe [ð], mouth [θ] – mouth [ð], bath [θ] – bathe [ð], strife [f] – strive
[v], belief [f] – believe [v], grief [f] – grieve [v], thief [f] – thieve [v]

The feature voice is consistently changing in these pairs. The voiceless fricative in the
noun is replaced by its voiced counterpart in the verb.

Indefinite Article
Another good example of allomorphs can be given by referring to the indefinite
article morpheme in English. This has two allomorphs: 'a' and 'an'. Their phonetic
conditioning is – ‘a’ occurs before words pronunciations of which begin with a
consonant and ‘an’ before words pronunciations of which begin with a vowel.

Phonology of Adjectives
"(1) A disyllabic base ending in /l/ normally loses its second syllable before the
inflection: simple: /sɪmpl/ ~ /sɪmplə(r)/ ~ /sɪmplɪst/
humble: /hʌmbl/ ~ /hʌmblə(r)/ ~ /hʌmblɪst/
(2) For speakers that do not give consonantal value to a final r in spelling, the /r/ is
pronounced before the inflection:
rare: /rɛə/ ~ /rɛərə/ ~ /rɛərɪst/" (Quirk et al. 292)

Monosyllabic adjectives and a few disyllabic adjectives can form their comparison by
inflection. Other adjectives can only take periphrastic forms. Common disyllabic
adjectives that can take inflected forms are those ending in an unstressed vowel /l/ or
/ə(r)/:
 -y: funny, noisy, wealthy, friendly
 -ow: hollow, narrow, shallow
 -le: gentle, feeble, noble
 -er, -ure: clever, mature, obscure

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The spoken form of the comparative suffix is /ə/. Hence, deeper is pronounced
/'di:pə/, without /r/. /r/ is pronounced only if the adjective is followed by another word
which begins with a vowel sound.

Phonological Aspects of English Derivational Morphology

Derivation is the process of creating new but morphologically related words. This
process typically, but not always, involves one or more changes in form.

One type of derivation involves a change in the position of the primary stress in a
word, though not visible, at least audible. For example: Nouns – 'pervert, 'contract,
'master; Verbs – per'vert, con'tract, mas'ter

In some derivationally related word pairs, only the voicing of the final consonant gets
changed. For example: loath [θ] – loathe [ð], relief [f] – relieve [v]

In some words, the addition of a derivational morpheme produces change in a stressed

vowel. For example: 'servile – ser'vility, 'hostile – ho'stility, 'fertile – fer'tility

In some words, the addition of a suffix triggers a change in the final consonant of the
root. For example: race – racial, please – pleasure, admit – admission, sequence –
sequential, part - partial

With the addition of a derivational affix, some words change the stress pattern and
vowel pronunciation. An unstressed vowel is pronounced as schwa. For example:
'photograph – photography, 'tutor - tutorial

In still other cases we find suffixing, stress migration with change of vowel quality
and change of consonant. For example: approve – approbation

Phonology of Gujarati Nouns

Gujarati has different diacritic marks for long and short vowels. But they have been
restricted to script only; in pronunciation, no such distinctions are found.

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Again, there are no different signs (letter or diacritic mark) for open and close -e and -
o. But in pronunciation, they are different; even more different from those having
different diacritic marks for long and short vowels (-i and -u). For example: these
pairs of nouns show difference in pronunciation and in meaning: chorī – chōrī, goḷ
(circle) – gōḷ (jaggery), khoḷ (cover of a mattress) – khōḷ (a kind of food for cattle),
ver (scatter) – ver (revenge)

The difference between pronunciation and spelling is variously reflected in languages.

Sometimes, the words with the same spelling are pronounced differently. For

example: the Gujarati anusvār has three different pronunciations (કાાંત (કાન્ત), કાાંડ

(કાણ્ડ), સાંપ (સમ્પ)) out of which only two are seen in the modern Gujarati usage: /m/

and /n/.

Stress patterns are not as important in Gujarati as they are in English.

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