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Word classes ~ පද වර්ග

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1.3 Word classes

Word classes

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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

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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

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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

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

Prepositions ~ නිපාත පද

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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

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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.