This article deals with the grammar of the Udmurt language.

Pronouns

Udmurt pronouns are inflected much in the same way that their referent nouns are. However, personal pronouns are only inflected in the grammatical cases and cannot be inflected in the locative cases.

Personal pronouns

Somewhat like in English, Udmurt personal pronouns are used to refer to human beings only. However, the third person singular can be referred to it. Udmurt personal pronouns only inflect in the grammatical cases and the allative case. The nominative case of personal pronouns are listed in the following table:

Reflexive pronouns

Udmurt reflexive pronouns only inflect in the grammatical cases and the allative case. The nominative case of reflexive pronouns are listed in the following table:

Interrogative pronouns

Udmurt interrogative pronouns inflect in all cases. However, the inanimate interrogative pronouns 'what' in the locative cases have the base form кыт-. The nominative case of interrogative pronouns are listed in the following table:

The following table shows Udmurt interrogative pronouns in all the cases :

*The allative case is commonly called "approximative" when talking about Udmurt and Komi.

Noun forms

Udmurt does not distinguish gender in nouns or even in personal pronouns: 'со' = 'he' or 'she' depending on the referent.

Cases

Udmurt has fifteen noun cases: eight grammatical cases and seven locative cases. Notice that the word in a given locative case modifies the verb, not a noun. The locative cases can only be used with inanimate references with the exception of the allative case. Alternative forms containing -ы- can only be used after the plural suffix (i.e. the illative singular гуртэ, but plural гуртъёсы). The less common accusative suffix -ты is used after the plural suffix, in addition to more common -ыз.

*The allative case is commonly called "approximative" when talking about Udmurt and Komi.

Udmurt case endings affix directly to nouns quite regularly with the exception of a few lexemes of Uralic origin. These lexemes have stem changes when declining in the locative cases whose endings begin with a vowel:

The personal pronouns, however, have irregularities in comparison to the declension of other nouns:

Plural

There are two types of nominal plurals in Udmurt. One is the plural for nouns -ос (after vowels)/-ëс (after consonants)/-ъёс (after certain consonants to avoid palatalization) and the other is the plural for adjectives -эсь/-есь.

Nominal plural

The noun is always in plural. In attributive plural phrases, the adjective is not required to be in the plural:

The plural marker always comes before other endings (i.e. cases and possessive suffixes) in the morphological structure of plural nominal.

Predicative plural

As in Hungarian, if the subject is plural, the adjective is always plural when it functions as the sentence's predicative:

Following numerals

Nouns are ordinarily in the singular when following cardinal numbers. However, a living being as the sentence's subject may be in the plural. In this case, the predicate verb must be in congruency with the subject.

Possessive suffixes

Nominal possessive suffixes

Udmurt possessive suffixes are added to the end of nouns either before or after a case ending. The possessive suffixes vary in the nominative and accusative cases and with case endings. The consonant of the second and third person plural depends on if the last phoneme of the word is voiced or unvoiced.

Certain lexemes of Finno-Ugric origin (especially those ending with a vowel or meaning an inalienable object) contain the vowel -ы- in the first, second and third person singular nominative possessive suffixes:

Accusative possessive suffixes

Accusative possessive suffixes are shown in the following table. The consonant of the second and third person singular and plural depends on if the last phoneme of the word is voiced or unvoiced.

Possessive suffixes with case endings, singular

The morphological placement of possessive suffixes with other endings depends on the case. Possessive suffixes are the same as nominative suffixes after which the genitive, ablative, dative, abessive, adverbial and allative cases agglutinates.

The possessive suffix follows the instrumental, inessive, illative, elative egressive, terminative and prolative cases and the vowel reduces to ы in the singular persons. An м, an old Uralic first person singular marker, appears in the first person singular. When adding a possessive suffix, the inessive and illative forms change to -а- and the elative form changes to -ысьт-. The ы does not appear in the inessive, illative, terminative and prolative cases where the case ends with a vowel.

Possessive suffixes with case endings, plural

As in the singular, possessive suffixes precede the genitive, ablative, dative, abessive, adverbial and allative cases. However, the vowel of the singular persons reduce to ы:

As in the singular, possessive suffixes follow the instrumental, inessive, illative, elative, egressive, terminative and prolative cases. The suffix forms follow the same structure as in the singular. The same exceptions appear in the plural as in the singular with the added exception of the instrumental э/е reducing to ы and the prolative э/е not used.

Some words can be used as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs without a change in form. For example, чылкыт /t͡ʃɨɫkɨt/ means "cleanliness", "clean", and "clearly".

The third person singular possessive suffix also acts as a definite article: удмурт кыл(ыз) чебер /udmurt kɨɫ(ɨz) t͡ʃeber/ ("the Udmurt language is nice" – literally "Udmurt language's nice").

Adjectives

There is no congruency between adjectives and nouns in neutral Udmurt noun phrases, i.e. there is no adjective declension as in the inessive noun phrase бадӟым гуртын, 'in a large/big village' (cf. Finnish inessive phrase isossa kylässä 'in a large/big village', in which iso 'big/large' is inflected according to the head noun). However, as stated earlier, Udmurt adjectives in neutral attributive (non-predicative) noun phrases may have a plural marker when the noun is pluralised.

Determinative

Udmurt does have an emphasising determinative suffix. Its function is to place emphasis on the features of the referent, defining and separating it from a group of other similar referents. The third person singular possessive suffix -ез/-эз and -из and plural -ыз acts as the determinative suffix. The determinative adjective conjugates as in the third person singular or plural and the noun conjugates without any other marker.

Comparative

Comparative is used when two referents are compared to each other but the subject of comparison does not necessarily need to be expressed.

The comparative suffix in Udmurt is -гес. The subject of comparison can be expressed either in the ablative case or with the postposition сярысь structure. If the subject of comparison it is shown the comparative suffix can be left out.

Superlative

There is no superlative suffix in Udmurt. Superlative is expressed with the Russian particle самой or indefinitive expressions ваньмызлэсь, котькинлэсь or котьмалэсь.

Postpositions

Udmurt makes use of postpositions rather than prepositions. A large percentage of the stems of Udmurt postpositions have a locative meaning and can conjugate in the local cases. For example, выл means 'top' and also 'surface' and can inflect in all the locative cases: (inessive) вылын, (elative) вылысь, (illative) вылэ, (prolative) вылтӥ, (egressive) вылысен, (terminative) вылозь and (allative) выллань.

However less than the seven locative cases are included in paradigm inflection of many of the postpositions. The paradigm usually consists of the inessive, elative and illative cases. Like nominals of foreign Uralic origin, some postpositions have a consonant in their stem. such as вис(к-), 'between'.

Some common postpositions are:

The illative case can vary between -э/-е and -ы. The illative form of the postposition пал 'side' is пала 'to the side of'.

There is also a small group of non-inflecting postpositions in addition to those inflecting in the locative cases (cf. Finnish kanssa "with (a person)" that always takes the genitive case: ystävän kanssa "with a friend"). A few examples of these are:

Most of the nouns in Udmurt postposition phrases are inflected in the nominative but there are a few postpositions that require the noun to be in the dative, ablative or instrumental cases:

Verbs

Udmurt verbs are divided into two groups or two conjugations, both having the infinitive marker -ны. The conjugation I type verb is structured with ы as in мыныны, 'to go'. The conjugation II type verb features an -а- in the infinitive as in ужаны, 'to work'. The conjugation I verb can also have two stems, a full stem as in мыны- and a short stem as in мын-.

There are three verbal moods in Udmurt: indicative, conditional and imperative. There is also an optative mood used in certain dialects. The indicative mood has four tenses: present, future, and two past tenses. In addition there are four past tense structures which include auxiliary verbs. Verbs are negated by use of an auxiliary negative verb that conjugates with personal endings. Separate personal pronouns are not required in verb phrases.

The basic verbal personal markers in Udmurt are (with some exceptions):

Present tense

Present tense in Udmurt, in all but the third person, is marked with -(ӥ)сько-/-(и)сько-. Third person singular is marked with -э/-е (conjugation I) or unmarked (conjugation II) and third person plural is marked with -о (conjugation I) or -ло (conjugation II).

The negative indicative present is formed by the auxiliary у- negative verb and the marker -(ӥ)ськы/-(и)ськы in the first and second person singular or -(ӥ)ське/-(и)ське in the first and second plural of the main verb. The third person singular main verb is either marked by the full stem (conjugation I) or unmarked (conjugation II). The third person plural is marked with -о (conjugation I) or -ло (conjugation II).

The negative verb conjugates with the ending -г in first and third person singular and third person plural. Second person singular and plural both conjugate with the ending -д and first person plural with -м.

Future tense

The future tense in Udmurt is marked with -о- in conjugation I verbs and -ло- in conjugation II verbs.

The negative indicative future is formed by the auxiliary у- negative verb and the stem of the main verb in singular persons. The plural persons are marked either with -э/-е (conjugation I) or -лэ (conjugation II)

The negative verb conjugates with the ending -г in first person singular. Third person singular and third person plural have the ending -з and the remaining are as in present negative.

Past tense

The conventionally used designations preterite and perfect are used with denotations which are divergent from their usual meanings in the grammar of other languages.

Preterite I

The first preterite can be compared with the simple past in English. Preterite I is marked with ӥ/и in conjugation I. There is no past tense marker in conjugation II verbs with the exception of й in the first person singular.

The negative preterite I is formed by the auxiliary ӧ- negative verb and the stem of the main verb in singular persons. The plural persons are marked either with -э/-е (conjugation I) or -лэ (conjugation II)

The negative verb conjugates with the ending -й in first person singular. Third person singular and third person plural have the ending -з and the remaining are as in present negative.

Preterite II

The second preterite is a past tense with an evidentiality distinction. It can be compared to the English perfect in which the speaker did not personally observe the past event. The preterite II is marked with (э)м/(е)м, which is historically related to the third infinitive in Finnish.

In addition to the normal personal endings, the present indicative marker -(ӥ)ськ-/-(и)ськ- is featured in first persons and a frequentive verbal marker -лля- is present in the second and third person plural. There is no personal ending in the third person singular and sometimes featured in the third person plural.

The negative preterite II is formed either by including the auxiliary copular negative verb ӧвӧл 'is not' or with the negation marker -мтэ-.

Auxiliary past tenses

There are four past tenses in Udmurt which use a preterite form of the main verb and a preterite form of the auxiliary verb 'to be'.

Pluperfect I

The Udmurt pluperfect makes use of the preterite I main verb and the auxiliary вал, 'was' in third person singular, also in simple past. The pluperfect I tense expresses a process of action that has happened in the (distant) past.

The negative Pluperfect I is formed by the negative preterite I negative plus the auxiliary вал.

Pluperfect II

There are two structures of the pluperfect II tense. One uses the preterite II third person singular form of the main verb inflected with a personal possessive suffix and the auxiliary вал. The other is the preterite II of the main verb (with normal personal inflection) and the preterite I form of the 'to' be verb вылэм. The pluperfect II tense expresses the result of an action that has been completed, but no one had seen.

The negative pluperfect II is formed either by with the preterite II third person singular of the main verb in the negative (marked with -мтэ-) with a personal possessive suffix and the auxiliary verb вал (pluperfect II a) or with the negative preterite II of the main verb marked with -мтэ- with the preterite II auxiliary verb вылэм.

Durative preterite

The durative preterite in Udmurt can be compared to the past progressive in English "was doing". Its function can be described as expressing a process in the past. The structure is the present tense of the main verb with either preterite of the auxiliary verb. The structure of the negative durative preterite is the negative present tense of the main verb with either preterite of the auxiliary verb.

Frequentative preterite

The frequentative preterite in Udmurt expresses a repeated action in the past. The structure is the future tense of the main verb with either preterite of the auxiliary verb. The structure of the negative frequentative preterite is the negative future tense of the main verb with either preterite of the auxiliary verb.

Passive voice

Udmurt does not have a separate affix to express a passive voice. The plural third person of the verb is used as a personal form to express an unknown, non-determinative actor.

Moods

Conditional

The conditional mood expresses an unrealistic action which the speaker considers to be supposed, possible or hopeful. The conditional marker is -сал and is attached to the stem of the verb (i.e. full stem of conjugation I verbs) along with personal endings. The third person singular, however, can function without a personal ending. The first person singular preterite I negative verb ӧй is used in the negative conditional.

Imperative

The stem of the verb is used for the second person singular imperative in Udmurt. If the stem of a conjugation I verb ends in one consonant or is one syllable and ends in a vowel, the short stem is the imperative. If the stem of a conjugation I verb ends in two consonants, the full stem is used.

The second person plural infinitive is marked with -е(лэ)/-э(лэ) in conjugation I verbs and -лэ in conjugation I verbs.

The imperative negative auxiliary is эн which precedes the infinitive form.

Optative

An optative mood is used in certain dialects.

Modals

Udmurt makes use of the morphosyntactic structure of inflected nominals and verbs with an auxiliary for modal expressions.

To express ability, the verb луыны, 'to be' is inflected in the third person singular (in all tenses) with the subject in the genitive case. The verb to which the subject directs ability is inflected with the past participle (э)м/(е)м (preterite II, third person singular) with a personal possessive suffix.

Desiderative

The desiderative modal expresses desire. The verb потынын, 'to want' is inflected in the third person singular (in all tenses) with the subject in the genitive case. The verb to which the subject directs the desire is inflected with the past participle (э)м/(е)м (preterite II, third person singular) with a personal possessive suffix.

Necessive

To express necessity, the word кулэ, 'necessary' is used with the copula verb inflected in the third person singular (in all tenses) with the subject in the dative case. The infinitive of the verb to which the subject directs necessity or an object is used.

Permissive

To express permissiveness, the verb яраны, 'to suit/to be valid' is inflected in the third person singular (in all tenses) with the subject in the dative case. The infinitive of the verb to which the subject directs permissiveness is used.

Participles

Udmurt verbs have past, present and future participles. Participles can be used in different ways than ordinary adjectives. In addition to affirmative participles, Udmurt also has caritive participles.

Present

The present participle is -(ӥ)сь/-(и)сь. It is a participle which expresses continuous action. It is affixed to short stems in conjugation I verbs. The present participle caritive is -(ӥ)сьтэм/-(и)сьтэм

In addition to functioning as regular attributive participles, the present participle also functions as a nominalising derivational suffix.

Past

The past participle is -(э)м/-(е)м. It is an attributive participle which expresses completed action. It is affixed to short stems in conjugation I verbs. The past participle caritive is -(э)мтэ/-(е)мтэ.

The past participle can also be inflected with the inessive ending -(э)мын/-(е)мын. This is a predicative participle which expresses completed action.

Future

The modal-future participle is -(о)но. It is affixed to short stems in conjugation I verbs. The future participle caritive is -(о)нтэм and expresses that which is unable to be done.

There is also a modal participle similar to gerunds in function. It expresses the ability to do some action or that it is possible to do the action. The marker is -мон and it is affixed to short stems in conjugation I verbs.

Gerunds

There are four gerunds in Udmurt, one being a caritive. that are affixed to the verb's full stem. One gerund, which also has a caritive, is formed by the past participle (э)м/(е)м (preterite II, third person singular) with the instrumental or elative case.

The "basic" -са gerund (and its caritive -тэк) can be compared to the English present active participle -ing and Finnish second or third infinitives, however having more functions. They can express a way of doing something, a reason for the action or a certain condition.

The temporal -ку gerund (-кы in southern dialects) expresses action or state of being which happens simultaneously with the action of the main verb of the clause.

The fourth gerund is -тозь which can express an action or an event that lasts to the starting or ending limit of the action expressed by the predicate verb of the sentence. The gerund also expresses the structure "instead of". In addition, possessive suffixes can be affixed after the -тозь gerund.

The past participle gerund is inflected with either the instrumental -(э)мен/-(е)мен (caritive -мтэен) or elative -(э)мысь/-(е)мысь (caritive -мтэысь) case, both having the basic same meaning of "because". In literary Udmurt, the gerund in the instrumental case is preferred. However, the gerund in the elative case is used with some verbs such as дугдыны 'to cease/stop'.

Personal possessive suffixes can also be affixed to -(э)м-/-(е)ме- gerunds:

Interrogative suffix

If there are no interrogative (question) words (who, what, when etc.), an interrogative phrase is formed by the suffix -а. The interrogative suffix is affixed to the constituent to which the question is concerned. The suffix's placement can also vary according to dialect. Both southern and northern dialect forms are used in literary Udmurt.

Word formation

There are a few main derivational suffixes in Udmurt word formation.

Nouns

Udmurt has the productive deverbalising nominal suffix -(о)н/-(ë)н. -(о)н/-(ë)н is affixed to the short stem of conjugation I verbs and -н affixes directly to the stem of conjugation II verbs The function of this suffix is quite diverse. With this deverbalising affix, the nominal usually:

1. expresses the action (deverbalised noun) set out by the base verb:

2. expresses the result of action:

3. expresses an instrument or tool denoted by an action:

4. expresses the focus of action:

Most of these derivations have both abstract and concrete meanings. The derivation can expresses both the action set out by the base verb or result or instrument:

Deverbalised nominal derivations can function as qualifiers of collocations, such as лыдӟон книга 'reader, digest' or юон ву 'drinking water'.

Adjectives

Udmurt has the denominalising adjectival suffixes -о/-ë and carritive -тэм. The adjectives formed by the suffix -о/-ë express the condition of a quality, feature or phenomenon of the base word or possession of the referent. The adjectives formed by the suffix -тэм express the lack of quality, feature, phenomenon or referent. This suffix can be compared to the prefix un- or suffix -less in English.

Adjectives formed by the -ӧ suffix can also have a qualifier:

Udmurt also has moderative adjectival suffixes (-алэс, -мыт and -пыр(ъем)) which express a somewhat large, but not complete, amount of quality of an adjective base, usually a colour or flavour. They can be compared to the English suffix -ish. The suffix -мыт does not normally associate with flavour, but Southern dialect variant -пыр(ъем) does.

Verbs

In Udmurt grammar, the lexical aspect (aktionsart) of verbs is called verbal aspect. Udmurt verbs can be divided into two categories: momentane verbs and frequentative verbs. The transitivity or of a verb mainly relies on if the verb is frequentative or not.

In Udmurt word formation, verbs can be derived by frequentative or causative deverbalising suffixes.

Momentane

The momentane aspect of Udmurt verbs expresses action (state of being or process) that happens only once. There is no transparent base momentane marker (cf. Finnish momentane verbs). For example, лыӟыны 'to read (once)'. However a causative -т- denotes momentanity and those verbs can be derived into frequentative verbs.

Frequentative

The frequentative aspect expresses that the action (state of being or process) does not happen just one time. The action is continuous or frequent. There are various frequentative markers, usually containing an л, for example лыӟылыны 'to read (frequently/often)'. The frequentative aspect, however, does not denote continuous repetitiveness as in e.g.some Finnish frequentative derivations.

The frequentative deverbalising affixes in Udmurt are -лы- (conjugation I), -лля- (conjugation II) (both historically related to the Finnish frequentative derivational suffix -ele-) and -а-/-я- (conjugation I) which precede the infinitive marker ны.

Some verbal derivations, that follow the pattern потыны → потаны, have parallel frequentative derivations, and -лля- can be affixed to an already frequentative derivation:

тубыны 'to rise' → тубылыны 'to rise (often)'

тубыны 'to rise' → тубаны → тубалляны 'to rise (often)'

Another frequentative verb affix is -иськы-/-ӥськы-, which is historically related to the Finnish frequentative derivational suffix -skele-. -иськы-/-ӥськы- frequentative verbs can be considered different from the above-mentioned derivations. -иськы-/-ӥськы- verbs do not semantically denote frequency in the same way; their "oftenness" is related to objective or non-objective relation. For example, the verb лыдӟыны ('to read') requires an object and the verb лыдӟиськыны does not.

Syntax

Udmurt is an SOV language.

Nominal sentence

The copular verb (вань vań, – "to be") is omitted if the sentence is in the present tense: туннэ кыӵе нунал? tunne kiče nunal? ("What day is it today?"). If the sentence expresses possession, the vań can be part of the predicate: тӥ палан нюлэсъёс вань-а? ti palan ńulesjos vań-a? ("At you (plur.), are there forests?")

Existential sentences

These are sentences which introduce a new subject – they often begin with 'there is' or 'there are' in English.

Possessive sentences

As in most Uralic languages, ownership in Udmurt is expressed by inflection and sentence structure, rather than with a separate verb 'have'. The owner of the object and the possessed object are both inflected with a possessive suffix and used with the copula verb to express ownership.

Sources

• Kel'makov, Valentin; Sara Hännikäinen (2008). Udmurtin kielioppia ja harjoituksia (in Finnish) (2nd ed.). Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura. ISBN 978-952-5150-34-6.

• Winkler, Eberhard (2011). Udmurtische Grammatik (in German). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

• Winkler, Eberhard (2001). Udmurt. Languages of the World. Vol. Materials 212. München: Lincom Europa.

• Tánczos, Orsolya (2010). "Szórendi variációk és lehetséges okaik az udmurtban" [Word order variation and its possible causes in Udmurt] (PDF). Nyelvtudományi Közlemények (in Hungarian). 107: 218–229.