How Sindhi packages meaning
Sindhi grammar at a glance
At a glance
| Information type | Plain question | How Sindhi encodes it |
|---|---|---|
| Actor | Who does the action? | SUFFIXSEPARATE WORD |
| Recipient | Who or what receives the action? | SEPARATE WORDSUFFIX |
| Time | When does the action happen? | SEPARATE WORDSUFFIX |
| Aspect | Finished or still happening? | SUFFIXSEPARATE WORD |
| Certainty / mood | Real fact, or desired / possible / hypothetical? | SUFFIXSEPARATE WORD |
| Negation | Did it not happen? | SEPARATE WORD |
| Voice | Is the subject doing, being done to, or causing? | SUFFIX |
| Evidentiality | How does the speaker know this? | CONTEXT |
| Specificity | This particular one, or any one? | CONTEXTSEPARATE WORD |
| Quantity | How many? | SUFFIX |
| Possession | Whose is it? | SEPARATE WORDSUFFIX |
| Location / space | Where? In which direction? | SEPARATE WORD |
| Information structure | What is this sentence about? What is new? | WORD ORDER |
| Register | What social relationship does the speaker encode? | SEPARATE WORDSUFFIX |
How it stacks
The main verb takes an aspectual participle form (imperfective -andō/-andī or perfective -yō/-yī), and an auxiliary (آهي āhē present, هو hō past, هوندو hundō presumptive, هُجي hujē subjunctive) adds tense. Together they encode who acts, when, and whether the action is complete.
The participle carries aspect and agrees with the subject (or object in perfective of transitives) in gender and number. The auxiliary carries tense and person. The presumptive and subjunctive auxiliaries are integral to the tense system — mood and tense are not fully separable in Sindhi.
In detail
Actor in Sindhi — Who does the action?
The verb agrees with the subject in gender and number in non-perfective tenses. In the perfective, transitive subjects take the oblique case and the verb agrees with the object instead — a split-ergative pattern. Pronominal suffixes on the verb can also encode the actor.
The split-ergative pattern is shared with Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi but the mechanism differs slightly: Sindhi uses oblique case on the subject rather than a dedicated ergative postposition like Hindi's ने (ne).
Pronominal suffixes (-م -am "me", -س -as "him/her", -ين -ēn "you", etc.) attach directly to verbs, compactly encoding actor and/or recipient without separate pronouns. This is distinctive among Indo-Aryan languages.
Sindhi has "agentless" verb forms like اچجي (achji) "it came" and وڃبو (vajbo) "it went" — impersonal constructions absent in Hindi/Urdu.
Compare: Hindi marks the ergative with a dedicated postposition ने (ne). Sindhi uses the oblique case form of the subject without such a particle. Both languages split ergativity by aspect (perfective triggers it), but Sindhi's pronominal suffix system allows even more compact actor encoding.
Recipient in Sindhi — Who or what receives the action?
Postpositions after the noun in oblique case mark its role: کي (khe) for dative/accusative. The genitive postposition جو (jo) is exceptional — it declines like an adjective, agreeing with the possessed noun. Pronominal suffixes can also encode the recipient directly on the verb.
کي (khe) is a differential object marker — it appears on direct objects that are human, animate, or specific, and also marks indirect objects (dative).
Rich postposition inventory: کي (to/for), سان (with/by), ۾ (in), تي (on), جو (of/genitive), کان (from), تائين (until). Ablative forms add -ان: کان (khān) "from".
The genitive postposition جو (jo) is unusual: it agrees with the possessed noun in gender, number, and case — e.g., ڇوڪري جو پيءُ "the boy's father" vs. ڇوڪري جي ماءُ "the boy's mother".
Compare: Hindi uses the same postposition को (ko) for both specific direct objects and indirect objects. Sindhi's کي (khe) works similarly. But Sindhi's pronominal suffix system (e.g., -س = "to him/her") often makes the full postposition phrase unnecessary.
Time in Sindhi — When does the action happen?
Tense is primarily encoded by the auxiliary verb: آهي (āhē) for present, هو (hō) for past, هوندو (hundō) for presumptive. The main verb takes an aspectual participle. Mood and tense are not fully separable — presumptive, subjunctive, and contrafactual are integral to the tense system.
Tense is carried by the auxiliary, not the main verb. The same imperfective participle (هلاندو) combines with آهي (present), هو (past), or هوندو (presumptive) to produce different tenses.
The simple perfective past (هليو) drops the auxiliary entirely. Adding هو to the perfective creates a pluperfect.
The presumptive (هوندو) and subjunctive (هُجي) auxiliaries blur the tense/mood boundary — they encode both time reference and epistemic stance simultaneously.
Time adverbs: اڄ (aj) "today", ڪالهه (kālah) "yesterday", سڀاڻي (subhāṇe) "tomorrow", هاڻي (hāṇe) "now".
Compare: Hindi splits tense across participle + auxiliary in the same way, but with different forms (है/था/होगा). Sindhi's presumptive هوندو integrates mood into the tense system more tightly than Hindi does.
Aspect in Sindhi — Finished or still happening?
Two participle affixes on the main verb: imperfective (-اندو -andō) for habitual or ongoing, perfective (-يو -yō) for completed events. The imperfective further splits into habitual and continuous sub-aspects. Combined with four copula forms, this produces ten distinct aspectual tenses.
The imperfective/perfective split is fundamental and triggers the ergative alignment shift: imperfective (ongoing, habitual) = nominative subject; perfective (completed) = oblique/ergative subject for transitive verbs.
Ten aspectual tenses arise from combining 2 aspects × 4 copula forms, plus the habitual/continuous split within the imperfective.
Compound verbs are very common (two or three verbs chained). The first verb is the main one; secondary verbs modify aspectual nuance (completive, inceptive, etc.).
Unlike Hindi where the continuous uses रहा (rahā), Sindhi marks continuity with a distinct affix -ī- on the verb, creating a three-way split: habitual / continuous / perfective.
Compare: Hindi has a two-way imperfective/perfective split, plus a progressive with रहा (rahā). Sindhi adds a further habitual/continuous subdivision within the imperfective, giving it a more granular aspect system — ten tenses versus Hindi's roughly eight.
Certainty / mood in Sindhi — Real fact, or desired / possible / hypothetical?
The imperative uses the bare stem with its own personal markers. Subjunctive and presumptive are encoded by distinct auxiliary forms (هُجي hujē, هوندو hundō). The counterfactual uses its own construction. Mood and tense overlap significantly — the presumptive straddles both.
The imperative is the only fully independent mood — it uses the bare stem plus its own personal markers: هلُ (halū) "go!" (2SG intimate), هلو (halō) / هليجي (halijē) "go!" (polite forms).
The presumptive (هوندو hundō) and subjunctive (هُجي hujē) are integrated into the tense system rather than standing apart — they function as tense-mood hybrids.
The counterfactual ("if he had gone...") has its own construction but is periphrastic rather than a single suffix.
Four copula forms create a mood spectrum: آهي (present fact) → هو (past fact) → هوندو (probabilitive) → هُجي (subjunctive/wish).
Compare: Hindi separates mood more clearly — subjunctive uses dedicated verb endings (बोले). Sindhi blurs mood into the auxiliary system, with हوندو (presumptive) serving double duty as both future-oriented tense and epistemic mood marker.
Negation in Sindhi — Did it not happen?
Multiple negation particles: نه (na) is the basic negator, نٿو (nathō) negates the present habitual, and ناهي (nāhī) negates existence/possession. The negation particle precedes the verb.
Negation particles are tense-sensitive: نٿو (nathō) for present, نه (na) for imperatives and general negation, ناهي (nāhī) for existence/past.
نٿو inflects for gender: نٿو (M.SG), نٿي (F.SG), نٿا (M.PL), نٿيون (F.PL).
"Never" is expressed periphrastically: ڪڏهن بـ نـ (kaḍhan ba na) — literally "whenever even not".
The negative element precedes the verb, consistent with Sindhi's head-final SOV structure.
Compare: Hindi uses नहीं (nahīṉ) as a general negator and मत (mat) for prohibitive. Sindhi has three distinct negators sensitive to tense/mood. Turkish also splits negation by tense (değil for nominals, -ma/-me on verbs), but Sindhi's system involves distinct free particles rather than affixes.
Voice in Sindhi — Is the subject doing, being done to, or causing?
Two passive constructions: -(ي)ج- (-(i)j-) creates a passive with obligative/future sense, and -بو (-ibō) marks the imperfective passive. The causative uses the affix -ا (-ā), which makes intransitive verbs transitive and transitive verbs causative.
The passive with -(i)j- carries an obligative nuance — سکھجاڻُ (sikhijaṇu) means not just "to be learned" but "to need to be learned".
The imperfective passive uses -بو (-ibō): سکھبو (sikhibō) "being learned".
The causative -ā is highly productive: هلڻ (halaṇu) "to go" → هلائڻ (halāiṇu) "to cause to go / to drive". This parallels Hindi's -ā causative.
Like other Indo-Aryan languages, Sindhi likely has a double causative (indirect causation), though specific forms need verification from fuller sources.
Compare: Hindi has dedicated causative suffixes (-ā direct, -वा indirect). Sindhi uses -ā for causative similarly. For passive, Hindi uses जाना (jānā) as a passive auxiliary; Sindhi uses the affix -(i)j- directly on the verb stem — a more synthetic approach.
Evidentiality in Sindhi — How does the speaker know this?
Sindhi has no documented grammaticalized evidentiality. Source of information is conveyed lexically — through reportative verbs ("they say", "I heard"), the quotative complementizer ta "that" with a verb of speech, and modal/epistemic adverbs — rather than through any obligatory verbal morpheme.
Bashir (2006) surveys evidentiality across South Asian languages — Indo-Aryan, Dardic, Nuristani, Iranian, Burushaski, Dravidian. Sindhi is not covered anywhere in the paper, and no source consulted has documented an obligatory grammatical evidential category for Sindhi.
Indirect speech is introduced by the complementizer ta "that" attached to a speech-act verb (Yegorova p.130). Unlike English, Sindhi indirect speech does not backshift tense — the embedded clause keeps its original tense and pronoun (e.g., "tell me" stays "tell me", not "tell him").
A previous version of this overview attributed an -انتي (-ante) hearsay/mirative morpheme to Sindhi citing Bashir (2006). That attribution was wrong: -ante is the Kannada (and parallel Telugu -anṭa) hearsay/mirative — both Dravidian, not Indo-Aryan. Removed 2026-04-29 after Bashir was re-read end-to-end.
Compare: Turkish marks evidentiality grammatically on every past-tense verb (-dı witnessed vs. -mış reported/inferred). Sindhi has no such obligatory category — speakers fall back on lexical strategies (verbs of saying, the complementizer ta, modal adverbs) when they need to flag indirect knowledge.
Specificity in Sindhi — This particular one, or any one?
Sindhi has no articles. Specificity is inferred from context, demonstratives (هي hī "this", هو hū "that"), and the presence or absence of the postposition کي (khe) on direct objects — کي-marked objects are interpreted as specific or definite.
Like most Indo-Aryan languages, Sindhi lacks grammatical articles entirely. This contrasts sharply with English, French, and Arabic.
Demonstratives (هي proximal, هو distal) function as the closest equivalent to definite articles when specificity must be made explicit.
The differential object marker کي (khe) on direct objects implies the object is specific, definite, or animate — bare objects are read as indefinite.
Numeral "هڪ" (hiku) "one" can function as an indefinite marker, similar to Hindi's एक (ek) — "هڪ ڇوڪرو آيو" (a certain boy came).
Compare: English has dedicated articles (a/the), Arabic has the definite prefix ال (al-), but Sindhi relies on context, demonstratives, and differential object marking — a strategy shared with Hindi, Urdu, and most other Indo-Aryan languages.
Quantity in Sindhi — How many?
Nouns mark singular vs. plural through vowel changes in the noun ending. Adjectives and verbs agree in number. There is no dual form.
Pluralization is primarily through vowel changes: masculine -و (-o) → -ا (-ā), feminine -ي (-ī) → -يون (-yōn) or -ون (-ōn).
Adjectives agree fully in gender and number: ڪارو (kāro) M.SG → ڪارا (kārā) M.PL → ڪاري (kārī) F.SG → ڪاريون (kāryōn) F.PL.
Verb participles also agree in number: هلاندو (M.SG) vs. هلاندا (M.PL), هلاندي (F.SG) vs. هلانديون (F.PL).
No dual number — unlike some Semitic or Slavic languages. All quantities above one use the plural.
Compare: English adds -s for most plurals. Sindhi uses vowel alternation on the noun stem — more like German's Umlaut plurals than English's suffixation. Agreement cascades across adjective and verb, like Hindi and Spanish but unlike English or Mandarin.
Possession in Sindhi — Whose is it?
The genitive postposition جو (jo) follows the possessor in oblique case and agrees with the possessed noun in gender, number, and case — behaving like a declining adjective. Pronominal suffixes provide a more compact alternative: ڀاڻم (bhāṇam) "my brother".
The genitive postposition جو (jo) is uniquely adjectival — it declines for gender (جو M / جي F), number (جا M.PL / جون F.PL), and case of the possessed noun. This is rare cross-linguistically.
Possessive pronouns are formed with جو: منهنجو (munhinjō) "my", توهان جو (tawhān jō) "your", هن جو (hun jō) "his/her".
Pronominal suffixes (-م "my", -ين "your", -س "his/her") attach directly to nouns for compact possession, especially with kinship terms and body parts.
The possessor always appears in oblique case before جو.
Compare: Hindi's genitive का/की/के (kā/kī/ke) works the same way — agreeing with the possessed noun. But Sindhi's pronominal suffix system (ڀاڻم "my brother") provides an additional, more compact strategy for possession that Hindi lacks.
Location / space in Sindhi — Where? In which direction?
A rich set of postpositions marks spatial relations: ۾ (men) "in", تي (te) "on", وٽ (waṭ) "near/at", هيٺ (hēṭh) "under", مٿان (mathān) "above". Ablative forms add -ان (-ān) to derive "from" variants. The noun takes oblique case before all postpositions.
Ablative forms are derived by adding -ان (-ān) to locative postpositions: ۾ (in) → مان (from inside), تي (on) → تان (from upon), وٽ (near) → وٽان (away from near).
Pronominal suffixes can attach to postpositions: وٽم (waṭam) "near me", منجهس (manjhas) "near him/her" — the suffix replaces the need for a separate pronoun.
The special symbol ۾ is a single Unicode character unique to the Sindhi script — it represents the locative postposition /mẽ/ and doubles as "in" in writing.
Place adverbs: هتي (hitē) "here", هُتي (hutē) "there", ٻاهر (bāhir) "outside".
Compare: Hindi uses postpositions similarly (में in, पर on, से from). Sindhi's system is closely parallel but adds the ablative -ان derivation pattern, systematically producing "from X" variants from locative postpositions. The pronominal suffix attachment to postpositions is distinctive.
Information structure in Sindhi — What is this sentence about? What is new?
Word order flexibility encodes information structure: the default SOV order can be rearranged to front focused or topicalized constituents. There are no dedicated topic or focus particles like Japanese は/が — instead, position relative to the verb and prosodic emphasis mark what is new or contrastive.
SOV is the default, but scrambling is possible because postpositions and case marking make grammatical relations clear regardless of word order.
Fronting a constituent to sentence-initial position gives it contrastive focus or topical prominence.
Unlike Japanese (は topic, が subject/focus) or Korean (은/는 topic, 이/가 focus), Sindhi has no dedicated particles for information structure — it relies on word order and intonation.
The immediately preverbal position carries narrow focus (the "new information" slot) in unmarked sentences.
Compare: Japanese uses は (wa) and が (ga) particles to explicitly mark topic and focus. Korean has 은/는 and 이/가. Sindhi uses only word order and prosody — structurally closer to Hindi and Spanish in this regard.
Register in Sindhi — What social relationship does the speaker encode?
A two-level T/V distinction in pronouns: تون (tūn) for intimate/informal and توهين/توهان (tawhīn/tawhān) for formal/plural. Imperative forms also mark politeness. High-register speech draws heavily on Persian and Arabic vocabulary, while colloquial speech uses the Sanskrit/Prakrit base.
The T/V distinction: تون (tūn) is intimate/informal (used with children, close friends, inferiors), while توهين/توهان (tawhīn/tawhān) is formal/respectful (used with elders, strangers, superiors). This parallels French tu/vous.
Imperative has at least two politeness levels: bare stem + -ُ (intimate), and polite forms like هلو (halō) or هليجي (halijē).
Vocabulary register: everyday speech uses Sanskrit/Prakrit-derived words; formal, literary, and religious contexts draw on Persian and Arabic loans. English loanwords fill modern/technical registers.
The high/low register vocabulary split is more pronounced in Sindhi Muslim communities; Hindu Sindhi speakers may favor more Sanskrit-derived alternatives.
Compare: Hindi has a three-level system (तू intimate, तुम familiar, आप formal). Sindhi appears to have a two-level system (تون vs. توهان), though further investigation of dialectal variation may reveal additional levels. Japanese has an extensive honorific system affecting verbs, nouns, and entire grammatical constructions — far beyond Sindhi's pronoun-based approach.
Common questions about Sindhi
What are Sindhi's implosive consonants?
How do pronominal suffixes work on Sindhi verbs?
What's unusual about the Sindhi genitive postposition?
Is Sindhi SOV or SVO?
How do Persian and Arabic influence Sindhi grammar?
Sources for Sindhi
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Trumpp, Ernest (1872). "Grammar of the Sindhi Language." Trübner and Co., London. — Consulted directly: noun gender (pp.31-41), plural (pp.104-111), cases (pp.111-128), compound verbs Ch.XVII (pp.338-344, PDF pp.410-416).
- Yegorova, R. P. (1971). "The Sindhi Language." Nauka Publishing, Moscow. — Consulted directly: noun gender/case (pp.36-43), pronouns (pp.56-68), verbs (pp.74-91), Past Perfective paradigm of halaṇu (pp.88-89: 1SG.M haliuse, 2SG.M halē), compound nominal verbs (pp.107-108).
- Khubchandani, Lachman M. (2003). "Sindhi." In George Cardona & Dhanesh Jain (eds.), "The Indo-Aryan Languages." Routledge. — Consulted directly: §4.3.2 nouns, §4.3.3 pronouns Table 17.5, §4.4.2 moods, Table 17.6 (subjunctive), Table 17.7 (verb in indicative mood: 1SG.M -UsI, 2SG.M -ẽ), §4.4.3 compound verbs, §5.5 bound-pronouns Table 17.8.
- Cole, R. A. (1904). "An Elementary Sindhi Grammar." Oxford University Press.