Kokborok grammar

The principal structures of affirmative sentences in Kokborok are the following:

In Kokborok grammar use of the notion of 'person' is almost absent; the form of verb is same for one who speaks, one who is spoken to, and one who is spoken about.

In Kokborok there are two numbers: Singular and plural. The plural marker is used at the end of the noun or pronoun. There are two plural markers: rok and song. Rok is universally used while song is used with human nouns only. The plural marker is normally used at the end of the noun or pronoun. But when the noun has an adjective the plural marker is used at the end of the adjective instead of the noun.

Examples:

• Bwrwirok Teliamura o thangnai. These women will go to Teliamura.
• O bwrwi naithokrok kaham rwchabo. These beautiful women sing very well.

In Kokborok there are four genders: masculine gender, feminine gender, common gender, and neuter gender. Words which denote male are masculine, words which denote female are feminine, words which can be both male and female are common gender, and words which cannot be either masculine or feminine are neuter gender.

There are various ways to change genders of words:

In Kokborok there are the nominative, accusative, instrumental, ablative, locative and possessive cases.

These case suffixes are used at the end of the noun/pronoun and there is no change in the form of the noun.

In Kokborok the adjectives come after the words they qualify. This rule is strictly followed only in the case of native adjectives. In case of loan adjectives the rule is rather loose. Kokborok adjectives may be divided into four classes:

1. pure adjectives
2. compound adjectives
3. verbal adjectives
4. K-adjectives

The first three classes may include both native and loan words. The fourth class is made of purely native words. e.g.:

1. hilik – heavy, heleng – light
2. bwkha kotor – (heart big) – brave, bwkha kusu – (heart small) – timid
3. leng – tire, lengjak – tired, ruk – to boil, rukjak – boiled.
4. kaham – good, kotor – big, kisi – wet.

Kokborok numerals are both decimal and vigesimal.

1. sa
2. nwi
3. tham
4. brwi
5. ba
6. dok
7. sni
8. char
9. chuku
10. chi

• ra – hundredth
• sara – one hundred
• sai – thousandth
• sasai- one thousand
• rwjag – a lakh

A numeral is organised as:

• Tripuri language
• Chinese language
• Burmese language
• Languages of India

• A simplified Kokborok Grammar, by Prof. Prabhas Chandra Dhar, 1987