Characteristics of the Northern Sinhala language in AX Semantics
Fundamentals
In Sinhala, you need to know the gender, case and number of a noun to form the accompanying determiners and pronouns correctly.
Sinhala has five primary cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and ablative. Additionally, Sinhala has two numbers: singular, plural, and three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter.
| grammatical name | values | examples |
|---|---|---|
| gender | masculine | බළලා [baḷalā] (cat) |
| feminine | නිළිය [niḷiya] (actress) | |
| neuter | කුලුණ [kuluṇa] (sympathy) | |
| number | singular | බළලා [baḷalā] (cat) |
| plural | බළලුන් [baḷalun] (cats) | |
| case | nominative | මිනිහා [minihā] (the man) |
| accusative | මිනිහාව බලන්න [minisā balanna] (see the man) | |
| genitive | මිනිසාගේ [minisāgē] (the man's) | |
| dative | මිනිසාට [minisāṭa] (to the man) | |
| ablative | මිනිහඉවනට [minihaivanaṭa] (from the man) | |
| adjectives (noun) | before noun | රතු නිවස [ratu nivasa] (red house) |
| verb tenses | present | ඔහු දුවනවා [ohu duvanavā] (he runs) |
| past | ඔහු දිව්වා [ohu divvā] (he ran) | |
| future | ඔහු දුවනු ඇත [ohu duvanu æta] (he will run) |
The standard order of a noun phrase in Sinhala is the following: determiner + adjective + noun + numeral + preposition. See for example:
මේ අලුත් පොත් තුන ගැන
[mē alut pot tuna gæna]
these new books three about
DET ADJ NOUN NUM PREP
"about these three new books"
Lexicon
Nouns
Sinhala nouns inflect for case and number. Nouns should be added to the lexicon if they are not regular.
Lexicon entries for nouns may also be necessary for inflecting determiners, adjectives, numerals and pronouns correctly. They are omitted, if a lexicon entry is required, but missing.
Examples
The basic lexicon entry for මිනිහා [minihā] (man) contains:
- gender: masculine
- inflection table for case and number:
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | මිනිහා [minihā] | මිනිස්සු [minissu] |
| Accusative | මිනිහාව [minisā balanna] | මිනිස්සුව [minissuva] |
| Genitive | මිනිසාගේ [minisāgē] | මිනිස්සුගේ [minissugē] |
| Dative | මිනිසාට [minisāṭa] | මිනිස්සුට [minissuṭa] |
| Ablative | මිනිහඉවනට [minihaivanaṭa] | මිනිස්සුගේඉවනට [minissugēivanaṭa] |
Adjectives
In Sinhala, adjectives do not inflect. The default position for an adjective is "before noun".
Verbs
Sinhala verbs inflect for number, tense, and person. The most common verbs are encoded in our software. If a verb inflects incorrectly, you should add it to the lexicon. Note that when writing a future tense verb, a word such as හෙට (tomorrow [heṭa]) or පසු ( later [pasu]) is used to make the sentence future tense.
Container settings
Determiner
The AX NLG platform supports the following determiners for Sinhala: indefinite, definite, demonstratives (proximal + distal + medial) and possessives. Indefinite determiners are attached as suffixes to the noun.
බල්ලා
[ballā]
(the) dog
vs.
බල්ලෙක්
[ballek]
a dog
The absence of an indefinite determiner indicates definiteness. In the plural, there is no specific marking for (in)definiteness.
Pronoun
The AX NLG platform supports the following pronouns for Sinhala: demonstratives (proximal + distal + medial), personal, and possessives.
Numerals
Four types of numerals are possible on the AX NLG platform: cardinal, cardinal as digit, ordinal, and ordinal as digit. Take දවස [davasa] (day) for example:
| cardinal | ordinal | |
|---|---|---|
| text | දින නවයක් [dina navayak] (nine days) | නවවෙනි දවස [navaveni davasa] (the ninth day) |
| digit | දින 9 යි [dina 9 yi] (9 days) | 9 වන දවස [9 vana davasa] (the 9th day) |
As demonstrated in the examples above, ordinal numerals precede nouns, while cardinal numerals follow nouns. When cardinal as digit is used, the default classifier වෙනි [veni] is added to the digit, and when using ordinal as digit, the marker ක් [k] is added to the digit.
Different nouns might require different ordinal markers and cardinal classifiers. Please replace them with plain text if you don't want to use the default ones.
For Sinhala, both cardinal and ordinal numerals are written out until 100 on the platform, otherwise (above 100) the output is in digit form. Take cardinal numerals for example:
බල්ලන් සියයක්
[ballan siyayak]
(one hundred dogs)
vs.
බල්ලන් 101 ක්
[ballan 101 k]
(101 dogs)
Postposition
Sinhala uses postpositions rather than prepositions. Therefore, if prepositions are used in a noun or pronoun container they are automatically put at the end of the phrase. Prepositions function as postpositions despite being called prepositions in the container, since they are analogous to prepositions in English (both are adpositions).