This page discusses the grammar of Modern Standard Punjabi as defined by the relevant sources below (see #Further reading).
On this grammar page Punjabi is written in "standard orientalist" transcription as outlined in Masica (1991:xv) (with one change; representing ai /ɛː/ and au /ɔː/ with ē and ō respectively).
Being "primarily a system of transliteration from the Indian scripts, [and] based in turn upon Sanskrit" (cf.
IAST), these are its salient features: subscript dots for retroflex consonants; macrons for etymologically, contrastively long vowels; h denoting aspirated plosives.
Punjabi distinguishes two genders, two numbers typically with an additional dual form for a small set of nouns, and six cases of direct, oblique, vocative, ablative, locative, and instrumental.
[4] Nouns may be further divided into extended and unextended declensional subtypes, with the former characteristically consisting of masculines ending in unaccented -ā and feminines in -ī.
Words, from Shackle (2003:600–601): ghṑṛā "stallion", sakhī "girlfriend", ghàr "house", gall "thing, matter (being talked about)".
Declinable adjectives have endings that change by the gender, number, case of the noun that they qualify.
Finally, additional inflections are often marked in colloquial speech: feminine singular vocative nī sóṇīē kuṛīē!
The dative & ablative personal pronouns are analyzed as the oblique forms merging with suffixes, e.g. tusā̃ + nū̃ > tuhānū̃.
The second row in Manner are often still spelt in their archaic forms (kiññ, jiññ, eññ, and oññ) in Gurmukhi.
[11] The copular verb has two tense forms which can be described as "remote" and "non-remote," as they indicate a metaphorical distance or closeness to the situation.
A full lexical verb in Punjabi on the other hand, does exhibit grammatical aspect.
Tabled below on the left are the paradigms for the major Gender and Number termination (GN), along the line of that introduced in the adjectives section.
Unlike these other word classes, the copula does not form a part of verb phrases, and where it is present alongside a full verb construction it generally makes a semantic distinction related to the notion of existence, rather than predicating for the act of being.