The grammar of the Sindhi language is the set of structural rules describing Sindhi utterances. Sindhi grammar is largely similar to that of other Indo-Aryan languages, but has some unique features such as pronominal suffixes, gendered demonstratives, and morphological passive forms of verbs. Sindhi grammar is relatively understudied; the most comprehensive source is the 1872 grammar by Ernest Trumpp.

This article primarily describes the grammar of Modern Standard Sindhi, i.e. the Vicholi dialect as spoken around Hyderabad. Other dialects are mentioned secondarily.

Morphology

Nouns

Sindhi nouns distinguish two genders (masculine and feminine), two numbers (singular and plural), and five cases (nominative, vocative, oblique, ablative, and locative). This is a similar paradigm to Punjabi. Almost all Sindhi noun stems end in a vowel, except for some recent loanwords. The declension of a noun in Sindhi is largely determined from its grammatical gender and the final vowel (or if there is no final vowel). Generally, -o stems are masculine and -a stems are feminine, but the other final vowels can belong to either gender.

The different paradigms are listed below with examples. ^[1] The ablative and locative cases are used with only some lexemes in the singular number and hence not listed, but predictably take the suffixes -ā̃ / -aū̃ / -ū̃ (ABL) and -i (LOC).

A few nouns representing familial relations take irregular declensions with an extension in -r- in the plural. These are the masculine nouns ڀاءُ bhāu "brother", پِيءُ pīu "father", and the feminine nouns ڌِيءَ dhīa "daughter", نُونھَن nū̃hã "daughter-in-law", ڀيڻَ bheṇa "sister", ماءُ māu "mother", and جوءِ joi "wife". ^[1]

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Like other Indo-Aryan languages, Sindhi has first and second-person personal pronouns as well as several types of third-person proximal and distal demonstratives. These decline in the nominative and oblique cases. The genitive is a special form for the first and second-person singular, but formed as usual with the oblique and case marker جو jo for the rest. The personal pronouns are listed below. ^[2]

The third-person pronouns are listed below. Besides the unmarked demonstratives, there are also "specific" and "present" demonstratives. In the nominative singular, the demonstratives are marked for gender. Some other pronouns which decline identically to ڪو ko "someone" are هَرڪو har-ko "everyone", سَڀڪو sabh-ko "all of them", جيڪو je-ko "whoever" (relative), and تيڪو te-ko "that one" (correlative). ^[2]

Pronominal clitics

Sindhi has a system of pronominal clitics, a feature shared with Saraiki and some dialects of Punjabi. However, pronominal clitics in Sindhi are much more widely used, marking both possessors, verbal arguments, and objects of postpositions and case markers. The pronominal suffixes can be grouped into four classes:

1. Indicates indirect objects on ditransitive verbs, objects on postpositions and case markers, and possessors on nominals.
2. Indicates subject on perfective transitive verbs.
3. Indicates subject on "be" auxiliaries.
4. Indicates subject on perfective intransitive verbs and all future forms.

The forms of the pronominal suffixes in each class are given below. ^[3] Secondary variants are allomorphs which are used when another pronominal suffix is attached after. The Class IV suffixes are analysed by some linguists as part of the verb morphology.

For example, one can use Class I pronominal suffixes to indicate possession:

To say "I gave it to him", one can say any of:

Note that in the last example, the subject is indicated with a Class II pronominal suffix (with the secondary variant due to another suffix following) and the recipient with a Class I suffix.

Numerals

Postpositions

Most nominal relations (e.g. the semantic role of a nominal as an argument to a verb) are indicated using postpositions, which follow a noun in the oblique case. The subject of the verb takes the bare oblique case, while the object may be in nominative case or in oblique case and followed by the accusative case marker کي khe. ^[4]

The postpositions are divided into case markers, which directly follow the noun, and complex postpositions, which combine with a case marker (usually the genitive جو jo).

Case markers

The case markers are listed below. ^[4]: 399

The postpositions with the suffix -o decline in gender and number to agree with their governor, e.g. ڇوڪِرو جو پِيءُ chokiro j-o pīu "the boy's father" but ڇوڪِر جِي مَاءُ chokiro j-ī māu "the boy's mother".

There are several ablative case markers formed from the spatial postpositions and the ablative ending -ā̃. These indicate complex motion such as "from inside of". ^[4]: 400

Finally, some case markers are found in medieval Sindhi literature and/or modern poetic Sindhi, and otherwise not used in standard speech.

Complex postpositions

The complex postpositions are formed with a case marker, usually the genitive but sometimes the ablative. Many are listed below. ^[4]: 405

Verbs

There are two morphological classes of verbs which have different conjugational paradigms: class I (mostly intransitive verb) and class II (transitive verbs). A few transitive verbs, such as اُگھ ugh "wipe" conjugate as class I. To represent the two verb classes, the stems ھَل hal- "to walk" and مار mār- "to hit" are used as examples.

Finite forms

References