Yiddish grammar

The morphology of the Yiddish language bears many similarities to that of German, with crucial elements originating from Slavic languages, Hebrew and Aramaic. In fact, Yiddish incorporates an entire Semitic subsystem, as it is especially evident in religious and philosophical texts.

Nouns

Gender

Yiddish nouns are classified into one of three genders: masculine (zokher), feminine (nekeyve) and neuter (neytral). To a large extent, the gender of a noun is unpredictable, though there are some regular patterns:

• nouns denoting specifically male humans and animals are usually masculine, and nouns denoting specifically female humans and animals are usually feminine
• nouns ending in an unstressed schwa are usually feminine
• nouns built on most of the common abstract-noun suffixes, such as -ung and -hayt, are feminine
• diminutive nouns with the suffix -l are neuter in the standard language
• loanwords are generally assigned masculine gender by default unless they end in a schwa, in which case they are usually feminine.

Case

There are three cases in Yiddish: nominative, accusative and dative. The nominative case generally refers to the subject, the accusative to the direct object and the dative to an indirect object. Nouns themselves are normally not inflected for case, and case is indicated by the inflection of a related definite article or adjective. In a few situations, case inflection of the noun is optional or obligatory, including certain kinship terms (tate 'father', mame 'mother') and the words yid 'Jew' and harts 'heart'. In those cases, masculine nouns take the ending ן- -n in the accusative and dative singular, and feminine and neuter nouns take ן- -n only in the dative singular.

Yiddish does not have a genitive case, and when referencing a human or occasionally other living beings, possession is indicated with a suffixed ס- -s (like English possessive -'s). Other forms of possession are normally indicated by the preposition פֿון fun 'of'.

Another genitive-like construction, the quantitative, is used to describe quantities of objects: אַ פֿול גלאָז הייסע טיי a ful gloz heyse tey (a full cup of hot tea); אַ גרופּע יונגע מענטשן a grupe yunge mentshn (a group of young people). The quantity is simply followed by the object described. This construction may not be used, if the object has a definite article: אַ פֿול גלאָז פֿון דער הייסער טיי a ful gloz fun der heyser tey (a full cup of the hot tea).

Plural

The regular plural endings for nouns are ס- -s for a noun that ends in an unstressed r, m, n, or vowel, ען- -en after a stressed vowel, m, n, ng, or nk and ן- -n for most other types of nouns.

There are a very large number of nouns with irregular plural forms, including -es (these are usually nouns of Slavic origin), and -er with umlaut (eg., man 'man', cf mener 'men'; kind 'child', cf kinder 'children'), or umlaut alone (eg., האַנט hant 'hand', cf הענט hent 'hands'). Some words do not change in the plural (eg., פיש fish 'fish'). Many words of Hebrew origin form plural with -im and plural words of Hebrew origin which end in ות- are pronounced -es. Many plural forms of words are accompanied with a stem vowel mutation.

Article

The definite article agrees in gender, number and case with the noun it is used with, and in some cases indicates the gender, number and case of the noun.

	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	Template:Hebrew der	Template:Hebrew dos	Template:Hebrew di	Template:Hebrew di
Accusative	Template:Hebrew dem	Template:Hebrew dos	Template:Hebrew di	Template:Hebrew di
Dative	Template:Hebrew dem	Template:Hebrew dem	Template:Hebrew der	Template:Hebrew di

The indefinite article is אַ a, which becomes אַן an before a word (eg., a noun or adjective) beginning with a vowel. Yiddish, like English, does not have a plural indefinite article.

Adjectives

Attributive adjectives—that is, those that directly modify a noun—are inflected to agree with the gender, number and case of the noun it modifies, while predicate adjectives remain uninflected. For example, one says der guter man 'the good man', but Der man iz gut 'The man is good'. When an adjective is used absolutively—that is, to stand as the head of a noun phrase as if it were itself a noun—its ending changes as if it were followed by a noun: Der man iz a guter 'The man is a good [one].' Neuter singular attributive adjectives have no case ending unless their noun phrase is introduced by the definite article.

	Masculine	Neuter		Feminine	Plural
		Definite	Absolutive
Nominative	Template:Hebrew guter	Template:Hebrew gute	Template:Hebrew guts	Template:Hebrew gute	Template:Hebrew gute
Accusative	Template:Hebrew gutn	Template:Hebrew gute	Template:Hebrew guts	Template:Hebrew gute	Template:Hebrew gute
Dative	Template:Hebrew gutn	Template:Hebrew gutn		Template:Hebrew guter	Template:Hebrew gute

The ending -n becomes -en after a stressed vowel, m, ng, or nk; and it becomes -em after n. Yiddish is slightly simpler than German in that German -m and -n are both -n in Yiddish (or, in the case of the definite article, dem), and Yiddish does not have a genitive case. The "definite" and "absolutive" versions of the neuter gender are a relic of the strong vs. weak adjective endings of German (das gute Bier vs. gutes Bier).

A class of pronominal adjectives, including eyn 'one', keyn 'none', and possessive pronouns such as mayn 'my, mine' and zayn 'his', display behavior opposite to that of ordinary adjectives: they are inflected for gender, number and case when used predicatively but not when used attributively. (Absolutively, they behave as normal adjectives).

Adjectives normally precedes the nouns, but they may follow the nouns for stylistic purposes: אַ שיינע פֿרוי a sheyne froy or אַ פֿרוי אַ שיינע a froy a sheyne ('a beautiful woman').

Pronouns

	First Person		Second Person		Third Person
	Singular	Plural	Singular Familiar	Polite / Plural	Masculine	Neuter	Feminine	Plural
Nominative	איך ikh	מיר mir	דו du	איר ir	ער er	עס es	זי zi	זיי zey
Accusative	מיך mikh	אונדז undz	דיך dikh	אײַך aykh	אים im	עס es	זי zi	זיי zey
Dative	מיר mir	אונדז undz	דיר dir	אײַך aykh	אים im	אים im	איר ir	זיי zey

Third person pronouns agree in gender with the noun they refer to. Thus even inanimate objects are sometimes referred to as er or zi if they are masculine or feminine respectively. Neuter nouns receive es.

Verbs

Yiddish verbs are conjugated for person and number (singular and plural).

Infinitive

The infinitive of a verb ends in ן- -n or, in some cases, ען- -en.

Compound verbs

Yiddish provides a mechanism that allows to use freely many Hebrew verbs and verbal constructions. Similar mechanisms exist in Persian and other Indo-European languages that incorporate heavily Semitic elements. Present tense forms of active Semitic verbs are followed by the auxiliary זײַן (zayn 'to be'), while present tenses of passive Semitic verbs are followed by the auxiliary ווערן (vern 'to become'). The reflective particle זיך (zikh) is added, when reflective Hebrew verbs are used. Several other auxiliary verbs are occasionally used in some cases:

מסכּים זײַן (to agree) קונה־שם זײַן (to gain popularity) נעלם ווערן (to disappear) זיך נתגלגל ווערן (to reincarnate) תּשובֿה טאָן (to repent) נקמה נעמען (to take revenge)

Present tense

The present tense of regular verbs is conjugated for person and number, as follows:

Person	Number		קויפֿן koyfn 'buy'	פֿאַרלירן farlirn 'lose'
First Person	Singular	איך ikh	קויף koyf	פֿאַרליר farlir
Second Person	Singular Familiar	דו du	קויפֿסט koyfst	פֿאַרלירסט farlirst
Third Person	Singular	ער er זי zi עס es	קויפֿט koyft	פֿאַרלירט farlirt
First Person	Plural	מיר mir	קויפֿן koyfn	פֿאַרלירן farlirn
Second Person	Plural/ Polite	איר ir	קויפֿט koyft	פֿאַרלירט farlirt
Third Person	Plural	זיי zey	קויפֿן koyfn	פֿאַרלירן farlirn

האָבן hobn 'to have' and זײן zayn 'to be' are conjugated irregularly as follows:

Person	Number		האָבן hobn	זײן zayn
First Person	Singular	איך ikh	האָב hob	בין bin
Second Person	Singular Familiar	דו du	האָסט host	ביסט bist
Third Person	Singular	ער er זי zi עס es	האָט hot	איז iz
First Person	Plural	מיר mir	האָבן hobn	זענען zenen
Second Person	Plural/ Polite	איר ir	האָט hot	זענט zent
Third Person	Plural	זיי zey	האָבן hobn	זענען zenen

Past participle

The past participle is used extensively in Yiddish. The majority of verbs (so-called weak verbs) form the past participle by adding -גע ge- and ט- -t to the stem, e. g. געקויפֿט gekoyft 'bought.' However, strong verbs form the past participle with -גע and ן- -n, accompanied by a vowel change, e. g. געהאָלפֿן geholfn 'helped' from the stem -העלפֿ helf- 'help.' The vowel change is unpredictable, and there is no way to tell from the infinitive whether a verb is weak or strong.

The prefix -גע is omitted in past participles of verbs whose first syllable does not bear primary stress. There are two classes of verbs for which this happens: verbs with one of several unstressed stem prefixes, such as -פֿאַר far- or -באַ ba-; and verbs built on the stressed suffix יר- -ir, usually used for loanwords. Thus the past participles of פֿאַרקויפֿן farkoyfn 'to sell' and אַבאָנירן abonirn 'to subscribe' are, respectively, merely פֿאַרקויפֿט farkoyft and אַבאָנירט abonirt.

Past tense

Like other varieties of High German and unlike literary German, Yiddish does not have the inflected past tense (preterite). Instead, the auxiliary verbs האָבן hobn 'to have' (or זײַן zayn 'to be') are used with the past participle of the verb. Most verbs take האָבן hobn, while about 30 verbs of motion or status and some of their derivatives take זײַן zayn. Transitive derivatives of these exceptional verbs usually take האָבן hobn: איך בין געגאַנגען ikh bin gegangen ('I went') vs. איך האָב איבערגעגאַנגען דעם טײַך ikh hob ibergegangen dem taykh (I walked across the river).

For example, the past tense of איך קויף ikh koyf 'I buy' is איך האָב געקויפֿט ikh hob gekoyft, and the past tense of איך קום ikh kum 'I come' is איך בין געקומען ikh bin gekumen 'I came'.

Future tense

The future tense in Yiddish is formed with a special auxiliary verb followed by the indefinite form, not unlike English:

Person	Number		- (no standalone form)
First Person	Singular	איך ikh	וועל vel
Second Person	Singular Familiar	דו du	וועסט vest
Third Person	Singular	ער er זי zi עס es	וועט vet
First Person	Plural	מיר mir	וועלן veln
Second Person	Plural/ Polite	איר ir	וועט vet
Third Person	Plural	זיי zey	וועלן veln

Example: איך וועל זאָגן ikh vel zogn (I will say)

Pluperfect and future past tense

The pluperfect is formed by the auxiliary verb האָבן hobn 'to have', followed by the participles of the past tense auxiliary and the participle of the verb in question: איך האָב געהאַט געזאָגט ikh hob gehat gezogt (I had said); איר זענט געהאַט געגאַנגען ir zent gehat gegangen (you had gone).

The future past tense is formed with the future tense auxiliary followed by the auxiliary verb האָבן and the participle of the verb: איך וועל האָבן געזאָגט ikh vel hobn gezogt (I will have said).

Both of these tenses are rarely used.

Habitual aspect

The habitual past aspect or tense is formed by a special auxiliary verb followed by the infinitive (or participle, in some dialects):

Person	Number		- (no standalone form)
First Person	Singular	איך ikh	פֿלעג fleg
Second Person	Singular Familiar	דו du	פֿלעגסט flegst
Third Person	Singular	ער er זי zi עס es	פֿלעגט flegt
First Person	Plural	מיר mir	פֿלעגן flegn
Second Person	Plural/ Polite	איר ir	פֿלעגט flegt
Third Person	Plural	זיי zey	פֿלעגו flegn

Example: איך פֿלעג קומען ikh fleg kumen (I used to come).

Momental aspect

Two forms of the momental aspect, which expresses a one-time action, are formed by the auxiliary verbs טאָן (ton, to do) or געבן (gebn, to give) followed by an indefinite article and a verbal noun, similarly to such English expressions as 'have a look'. The verbal noun may be modified by adjectives, such as 'have a good look' in English. The form with געבן is more emphatic and requires the dative for the verbal noun. If the verb contains a separable prefix, it usually stands between the auxiliary and the noun.

Unlike English, such forms in Yiddish are highly systematic and may be used with virtually any verb. The nouns used sometimes appear only in the context of the verbal aspect. For example, אַ שרײַב געגעבן a shrayb gegebn, meaning 'hurriedly or suddenly wrote', contains a noun, which one would not normally used independently, and which may be translated as 'an act of writing'.

Examples: זי האָט אים געטאָן אַ כאַפּ אָן zi hob im geton a kap on (she gave him a grab on); מיר גיבן אַ שרײַ אויס mir gibn a shray oys (we give an scream out). Note that another form, אויסגעשריי oysgeshray (an out-scream), is usually used as an independent noun.

Perfective aspect

The perfective aspect—indicating a completed action in the past or one whose completion is contemplated in the future — can be formed by adding a prefix to many verbs. For example: איך האָב געלייענט ikh hob geleyent 'I read', 'I was reading' vs. איך האָב איבערגעלייענט or איך האָב דורכגעלייענט ikh hob ibergeleyent / ikh hob durkhgeleyent 'I read entirely', 'I read through'; ער וועט שרײַבן er vet shraybn 'he will write', 'he will do some writing' vs. ער וועט אָנשרײַבן er vet onshraybn 'he will write completely', 'he will write up', 'he will get (something) written'; מיר לערנען זיך פֿראַנצייזיש mir lernen zikh frantseyzish 'we are studying French', 'we are taking French' vs. מיר ווילן זיך אויסלערנען פֿראַנצייזיש mir viln zikh oyslernen frantseyzish 'we want to learn French thoroughly'. The most common perfectivizing prefixes are דורכ־ ,איבער־ ,אָנ־ ,אָפּ־ ,אויס־ and צו־, (oys-, op-, on-, iber-, durkh-, tsu-) but there are no definitive rules for determining which prefix(es) attach to which imperfective verbs. This notion of verbal aspect is a Slavic grammatical phenomenon. Though not as fully developed in Yiddish as in the coterritorial Slavic languages, it is nevertheless a vital feature of the Yiddish verb system.

Other aspects

Various other aspects, generally paralleling the complex aspect system of the Slavic languages, are formed by auxiliary verbs or prefixes, sometimes combined with the reflective particle זיך (zikh). Different aspects may be combined, if the logic of the sentence allows for it.

Examples: איך פֿלעג געבן אַ שרײַב אָן ikh fleg gebn a shrayb on (I used to suddenly start and complete writing); זיי נעמען זיך צעלאַכן zey nemen zikh tselakhn (they start bursting into laughter).

Negative

The negative in a sentence with no object or predicate noun, is formed by adding ניט nit or נישט nisht 'no' or 'not' after the verb. If the verb is followed by an object preceded by an indefinite article, the indefinite article אַ a or אַן an is replaced by ניט קײן nit keyn. This also occurs when a linking verb, such as the verb זײַן zayn 'to be' is followed by a predicate noun preceded by an indefinite article. The same rule applies even though there is no plural of an indefinite article.

If the verb is followed by an object preceded by an definite article, singular or plural, only ניט nit is added after the verb and before the definite article. With a prepositional phrase, nit follows the verb and keyn replaces the indefinite article and precedes the noun. In most case, if no other words intervene, nit keyn sandwiches the preposition. With a prepositional phrase with a definite article, simply put nit before the preposition.

Yiddish allows and often requires double negation: קיינער איז דאָרטן נישט געווען keyner iz dortn nisht geven (Literally: 'No one was not there') or איך האָב קיינעם נישט געזען ikh hob keynem nisht gezen (Literally: 'I didn't see no one'). In colloquial speech even triple and multiple negations may occasionally be used: איך האָב נישט געווּסט קיין גאָרנישט נישט ikh hob nisht gevusn keyn gornisht nisht (Literally: 'I did not know no nothing not').

Diminutive and emphatic forms

Yiddish is rich in various emphatic and emotional forms, including several general diminutive, affectionate and emphatic suffixes may be added to Yiddish nouns and adjectives. Many other emotional suffixes are mainly used for personal names and for particular classes of nouns. Emphatic expression are also formed by reduplication of verbs, composite adjectives, various 'mood' particles and interjections.

Syntax

Like most Germanic languages, Yiddish generally follows the V2 word order: the second constituent of any clause is a finite verb, regardless of whether the first constituent is the subject, adverb or some other topicalized element. However, VSO is often enough used for stylistic purposes.

It's customary to use free word order in Yiddish poetry, which allows for virtually any typology.

Clitics

Optional contractions are commonly used in both spoken and literary Yiddish. Some auxiliary verbs and personal pronouns are often contracted, especially in colloquial speech. For example, the phrase ער האָט מיר געזאָגט er hot mir gezogt (he told me) may be contracted to ער׳ט מיר געזאָגט er't mir gezogt or ר׳האָט מיר געזאָגט r'hot mir gezogt with the auxiliary almost disappearing, while זאָלן מיר אים דערציילן דאָס געהיימע וואָרט zoln mir im dertseyln dos geheyme vort (let's tell him the secret word) may be contracted to זאָל׳מיר׳ן דערציילן ס׳געהיימע וואָרט zol'mir'n dertseyln s'geheyme vort. The last phrase is more characteristic for the Central (Polish) dialect.

Dialectal Differences

The Northern or so-called Lithuanian dialect of Yiddish from the Baltic countries and Belarus is notable, among a number of other peculiarities, for its lack of the neuter gender and the simplified case system. Substantives which are neuter in standard literary Yiddish appear as masculine or feminine. Only two cases, nominative and accusative or oblique, exist in the Northern Yiddish, except for a few isolated remnants of the dative. The auxiliary verb האָבן hobn ('to have') may be used with any verb in the Northern Yiddish, including the cases when the literary Yiddish and other dialects require זײַו zayn ('to be').

The entire case and gender system seems gradually disappearing altogether in contemporary Yiddish-speaking Hasidic communities.

References

• Jacobs, Neil G. Yiddish: a Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005, ISBN 0-521-77215-X.
• Katz, Dovid, Grammar of the Yiddish Language, Duckworth, London, 1987, ISBN 0-7156-2161-0.
  • http://www.dovidkatz.net/dovid/PDFLinguistics/2-1987-Grammar-Yiddish.pdf Grammar of the Yiddish Language by Dovid Katz
• Mark, Yudl, A Grammar of Standard Yiddish, CYCO, New York, 1978 (in Yiddish).
• Schechter,Mordkhe, Advanced Yiddish Grammar
• Weinreich, Uriel. 1971. College Yiddish. New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
• Zucker, S. 1994-2003. Yiddish: An Introduction to the Language, Literature and Culture 1-2. New York: Workmen's Circle.