In Modern Hindi Grammar we have utilized simple terminology and
provided suitable descriptions with tables for grammatical
categories, phrases, and sentence types. The introduction gives a
survey of the Hindi speaking area and the number of its speakers, its
classification and dialects, Hindi-Urdu relationship, the status of
Hindi and its use in administration, education and mass media, Hindi
grammars, and the objectives of the present grammar. The
phonology section describes segmental phonemes, suprasegmentals,
and morphophonology. The morphology provides a description of
different word classes: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numerals,
adverbs, particles, connectives, and interjections. It deals with
inflectional as well as derivational morphology. The syntax
describes the structure of phrases, sentence types, complex and
compound constructions, special word order variations, and other
intricate syntactic features. The lexicon presents a list of useful
classified vocabulary which is useful for students and teachers of
Hindi as well as general readers. This grammar emphasizes special
features of Hindi that set it apart from other Indo-Aryan languages.
In short, it will fulfill the needs of the basic language learner as well
as provide useful information for the linguist and the general reader.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Thomas Creamer,
Director, Language Research Center (a division of McNeil
Technologies) for asking me to write this grammar and for deciding
to publish it. I would like to thank Prof. Anjani Kumar Sinha, and
Prof. Kashi Wali for going through the first draft of it and for
offering useful comments and suggestions. Finally, I would like to
thank my colleagues at the Indian Institute of Language Studies for
providing their assistance.
I hope students, researchers, teachers, and linguists will find this
book useful.
Omkar N. Koul
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