Grammar and logic free language from being at the mercy of the tone of voice. Grammar protects us against misunderstanding the sound of an uttered name; logic protects us against what we say have double meaning.

Rosenstock Huessy


FUNDAMENTALS OF MODERN ARMENIAN GRAMMAR

The fundamentals of grammar, regardless of the language, are based on function and usage, irrelevant to the levels of usage –- vulgar, colloquial or formal. Grammar also has logic, a definite form and structure. “Form and Structure” are parts of speech where words have certain functions in communicating thoughts. In Modern Armenian grammar, words are classified according to their function in a sentence and are divided into eight groups, although there is nothing necessary and eternal in this eight-fold division of words (Aristotle counted only four):


Nouns – Pronouns – Verbs – Adjectives – Adverbs
Adpositions – Conjunctions – Interjections.


Although the fundamental elements of Eastern and Western variants are almost identical, slight differences exist between the two.

Fundamentals of Western Armenian:


NOUNS: Nouns in Armenian have no grammatical gender. They are distinguished by two numbers (singular & plural). The declension of the nouns uses suffixes and has six cases: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Ablative and Instrumental. Being a highly agglutinative language, the inflections of the nouns may include multiple morphemes.

PRONOUNS: Similar to the nouns, pronouns have no gender and six distinct cases of declension.

VERBS:
Verbs in the Armenian language are divided into three groups. The conjugation of the verbs includes three moods: The Indicative, Imperative and Obtative (subjunctive). Present, Present Imperfect, Past Perfect, Past Imperfect, Past Pluperfect, Future and Future Pluperfect are the tenses of the conjugation. In addition to Transitive and Neutral verbs, Armenian has Causative and Reflective voices.

ADJECTIVES:
Adjectives are used before the nouns they qualify.

ADVERBS:
In general, Adverbs are used before the verbs they qualify. It is also distinguished by the application of a cluster of adverbs in a sentence.

ADPOSITIONS:
In general, Armenian uses postpositions while prepositions are very few and usually associated with the Dative case of the declension.


Fundamentals of Eastern Armenian:


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