Word classes ~ පද වර්ග

1.3 Word classes

Word classes edit

This part will basically teach you that how the words are classified into classes in Sinhalese. Mainly, there are three word classes in Sinhalese. They are:

  1. Nouns (නාම පද; Nāmə padhə)
  2. Verbs (ක්‍රියා පද; Kriyā padhə)
  3. Indeclinable words (අව්‍යය පද; Awyə padhə)
  • Prepositions (නිපාත පද; Nipāthə padhə)
  • Prefixes (උපසර්ග; Upəsargə)

Nouns ~ නාම පද edit

Nouns can be divided into these categories:

  1. Pronouns (සර්ව නාම; Sarwə nāmə)
  2. Abstract nouns (කේවල නාම; Kēwalə nāmə)

Pronounce were described in the previous lesson. So, Let's see how the abstract nouns are divided:

  • ජාති නාම - Jāthi nāmə
Nouns describing a group with similarities.
eg: Sinhalese, English, Men, Women...
  • ද්‍රව්‍ය නාම - Dhrawyə nāmə
Nouns describing lifeless objects.
eg: Stone, tree, book, pencil...
  • ගුණ නාම - Gunə nāmə
Nouns describing qualities of something.
eg: Fat, tall, red, kind...
  • ක්‍රියා නාම - Kriyā nāmə
Nouns describing an incidences, activities and doers
eg: Running, runner, playing, player...
  • සංඥා නාම - Sagñā nāmə
Nouns describing something separately from others. (Names of people and places)
eg: John, London, Mary, Paris...

Verbs ~ ක්‍රියා පද edit

Beside the basic verbs, there are few kinds of verbs. They are:

  1. පූර්ව ක්‍රියා
  2. මිශ්‍ර ක්‍රියා
  3. විධි ක්‍රියා
  4. ආශිර්වාද ක්‍රියා
  5. ප්‍රයෝජ්‍ය ක්‍රියා
  6. අසම්භාව්‍ය ක්‍රියා

Indeclinable words ~ අව්‍යය පද edit

Indeclinable words can be divided into prepositions and prefixes. There are no suffixes in Sinhalese.

Prepositions ~ නිපාත පද edit

Prepositions can be used in the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. They are written as single words and there are a large number of prepositions in Sinhalese.

අති දක්ශ ලෙස edit

Prefixes can be joined to a word at the beginning of the word. These are not considered as words, because they can not be written separately. There are only few prefixes in Sinhalese.