This Is Kannada’s Own Grammar

ಇದು ಕನ್ನಡದ್ದೇ ವ್ಯಾಕರಣ

Author: D. N. Shankara Bhat (ಡಿ. ಎನ್. ಶಂಕರ ಭಟ್) Read by: Malati Bhat (ಮಾಲತಿ ಭಟ್), daughter of D. N. Shankara Bhat Published: 2021 (single-volume consolidation) · 253 pages Source quality: Excellent — Malati Bhat reading the full book text directly; transcript is dense but fully readable. Three-part series with minimal ASR errors. The table of contents read aloud in Part 1 gives the full 19-chapter structure. Transcript: youtube/kn/full.md

Overview

Idu KannaDaddE VyAkaraNa (“This Is Kannada’s Own Grammar”) is DNS Bhat’s comprehensive grammar of written Kannada, published in 2021 as a single consolidated volume from his earlier 7-volume Kannada Barahada Sollarime series (2010–2019). The book’s central argument is that existing Kannada grammars are not genuinely Kannada grammars at all — they transplant Pāṇinian Sanskrit grammar rules onto Kannada, a language with an entirely different structure. The grammar is explicitly a grammar of written Kannada (ellara kannaDa — everyone’s Kannada), because written Kannada is more uniform across regions than spoken Kannada and can serve as a practical standard for all Kannada writers. Alongside the grammatical description, Bhat implements two concrete reforms: reducing unnecessary Sanskrit loanwords in Kannada prose, and respelling remaining Sanskrit borrowings as Kannadigas actually pronounce them. Throughout the book he uses an entirely native Kannada grammatical terminology — hesaru pada for noun, esaka pada for verb, iTTaLa for structure, ottugaLu for suffixes — replacing the Sanskrit-derived terms that have dominated Kannada grammar pedagogy.

Part-by-Part Summary

Part 1 — Preface: Why Kannada Needs Its Own Grammar

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  • The core complaint: Current school grammars of Kannada are not genuine Kannada grammars — instead of describing the rules by which Kannada words, word-groups, and sentences are formed, they attempt to apply Sanskrit (Pāṇinian) or English grammar rules to Kannada. Bhat showed this twenty years earlier in his book Kannadakke Beku KannaDaddE VyAkaraNa, and then spent 2010–2019 writing what a genuine Kannada grammar actually looks like across seven volumes of Kannada Barahada Sollarime. The present book consolidates all seven volumes into one
  • Grammar is not foreign: Grammar simply makes explicit the unconscious rules that every speaker already uses fluently. Every Kannada speaker correctly chooses among ge / ige / ke (dative suffix variants) without being taught a rule — grammar states what that rule is. The conjunctive participle (-u/-i form) can only join clauses with the same agent — Rāju manege bandu ūTa māDida is correct; Rāju manege bandu Jānaki ūTa māDiDaLu is wrong — and every speaker knows this without explicit instruction
  • Two reforms implemented: (1) Reduce Sanskrit loanwords — prefer native Dravidian vocabulary; (2) Respell remaining Sanskrit borrowings as most Kannadigas actually pronounce them, using the 31-letter ellara kannaDa (everyone’s Kannada) system that excludes mahāprāṇa letters
  • Table of contents (ಒಳಪಿಡಿ) read aloud in transcript: 19 chapters covering noun structure (Ch. 2), verb/adjective/loanword structure (Ch. 3), inflectional morphology (Ch. 4), verb use including tense/aspect/voice (Ch. 5), noun-phrase structure (Ch. 6), argument structure (Ch. 7), modifications to argument structure (Ch. 8), pronouns (Ch. 9), demonstratives (Ch. 10), adjectives/adverbs (Ch. 11), numerals (Ch. 12), embedded clauses (Ch. 13), sentence coordination (Ch. 14), negation (Ch. 15), questions (Ch. 16), conditionals (Ch. 17), exclamatory sentences (Ch. 18), conclusion (Ch. 19)

Part 2 — The Structure of Written Kannada: Letters, Words, and Word-Classes

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  • Three levels of grammatical structure (§1.2): Letters (bariges) → words (padagaLu) → word-groups/phrases (padakanteagaLu) → sentences (vākyagaLu). Within words: derivation by suffixes (ottugaLu) and compounding (jōDu padagaLu). Words inflect (padarūpagaLu) to signal grammatical roles
  • The 31-letter inventory of ellara kannaDa: Standard written Kannada uses exactly 31 phonemic letters — 10 vowels (tereyu/igi) and 21 consonants (muccuyuLi). This system deliberately excludes Sanskrit aspirate consonants (mahāprāṇa) and the retroflex sibilant ṣa
  • Words with and without internal structure (§1.2.2): iTTaLaviruvā padagaLu (words with analyzable structure: cikkamma = cikka + amma) vs. iTTaLavillada padagaLu (unanalyzable: tale, manE). Compound words (jōDu padagaLu) have non-compositional meanings: cikkappa means father’s younger brother, not “small father”
  • Three core word-class functions (§1.2.3–1.2.5):
    1. Naming (hesarisu): hesaru padagaLu (nouns) — identify persons, things, concepts; may be proper (koTTa hesaru: Jānaki, Maisūru) or common (iruvā hesaru: mara, huDuga)
    2. Predicating (esaki telisu): esaka padagaLu (verbs) — express actions or states
    3. Qualifying (paricaya telisu): paricaya padagaLu (adjectives/adverbs) — add descriptions within noun phrases or with existential copulas
  • Additional word classes (§1.2.6): āDu padagaLu (pronouns: nānu, nīnu), tōru padagaLu (demonstratives: idu/adu, ivaru/avaru), eNike padagaLu (numerals), aNaka padagaLu (ideophones: dagadagane uriyu, DabbanebiTTu)

Part 3 — Word-Forms and Sentence Structure

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  • Inflectional word-forms (padarūpagaLu) (§1.2.7): Nouns inflect for case: mara (nominative), maravanu (accusative), maradinda (ablative), marakke (dative), maradalli (locative), marada (genitive). Verbs inflect far more richly: hatTida (past, masc. agent), hatTitu (past, non-human), hatTuttade (present/future), hatTali (hortative), hatTisidaru (causative past)
  • Phrase structure (padakanteagaLa iTTaLa) (§1.2.8): A sentence must be analyzed at the phrase level, not the word level. cikka huDuga hattu roTTi tinda groups as [cikka huDuga] + [hattu roTTi] + tinda. Structural ambiguity arises when the same words can group differently, as in huli bāyige bidda Dhanada karu kūgāDuttide (two readings depending on whether huli bāyige bidda modifies Dhana or karu)
  • Sentence types (§1.3): suLu vākyagaLu (simple), jōDu vākyagaLu (coordinate), sikkalu vākyagaLu (embedded/complex)
  • Argument structure (pāngugaLu) (§1.3.2): Each verb takes a specific set of participant-role arguments: āgu (undergoer, zero-marked), māDu (agent, zero-marked), īDu (object, -annu), suru (source, -inda), guri (goal, -ge), jāga (location, -alli). Verb classes determine which arguments occur: sōru (leak) takes only āgu + optional suru; māru (sell) takes māDu, guri, and īDu

Key Concepts

Kannada Eke English
ಕನ್ನಡದ್ದೇ ವ್ಯಾಕರಣ kannaDaddE vyAkaraNa Kannada’s own grammar
ಇಟ್ಟಳ iTTaLa structure / morphological make-up
ಬರಿಗೆ barige letter / phoneme
ಒಟ್ಟು ottu suffix / affix
ಪದಕಂತೆ padakante phrase / constituent
ಹೆಸರು ಪದ hesaru pada noun (name-word)
ಎಸಕ ಪದ esaka pada verb (action-word)
ಪರಿಚಯ ಪದ paricaya pada adjective / adverb (description-word)
ಪದರೂಪ padarUpa inflected word-form
ಪಾಂಗು pAngu argument / participant role
ಇರುಹ iruha existential / stative
ಎಲ್ಲರ ಕನ್ನಡ ellara kannaDa everyone’s Kannada (31-letter standard)
ಕನ್ನಡ ಬರಹದ ಸೊಲ್ಲರಿಮೆ kannaDa barahada sollarime Grammar of Written Kannada (original series title)
ಜೋಡು ಪದ jODu pada compound word
ಸುಳು ವಾಕ್ಯ suLu vAkya simple sentence
ಸಿಕ್ಕಲು ವಾಕ್ಯ sikkalu vAkya embedded / complex sentence

Cross-References to Other DNS Bhat Works

Book Connection
07 — Kannada Barahada Sollarime Direct source: Book 01 is the consolidated, revised single-volume edition of the 7-volume Sollarime series (2010–2019); Book 07 contains the original full text with greater detail
02 — Kannada Padagala OLaracane Structural complement: Book 02 describes internal word structure (iTTaLa) in greater depth than the overview in Book 01 Ch. 2–3
14 — Nijakku HaLegannaDA VyAkaraNa Entahadu Historical complement: shows the history of Sanskrit-grammar imposition on Kannada that Book 01 argues against
08 — KannaDakke MahAprANa Yake BEDa Focused application of Book 01’s spelling reform #2: the argument for removing aspirate (mahāprāṇa) letters from the Kannada script