Udmurt grammar

Template:Short description This article deals with the grammar of the Udmurt language.

Pronouns

Udmurt pronouns are inflected much in the same way that their referent nouns are. However, personal pronouns are only inflected in the grammatical cases and cannot be inflected in the locative cases.

Personal pronouns

Somewhat like in English, Udmurt personal pronouns are used to refer to human beings only. However, the third person singular can be referred to it. Udmurt personal pronouns only inflect in the grammatical cases and the allative case. The nominative case of personal pronouns are listed in the following table:

Personal pronouns

	Singular	Plural
1st person	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
2nd person	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
3rd person	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear

Reflexive pronouns

Udmurt reflexive pronouns only inflect in the grammatical cases and the allative case. The nominative case of reflexive pronouns are listed in the following table:

Reflexive pronouns

	Singular	Plural
1st person	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
2nd person	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear
3rd person	Template:Fs interlinear	Template:Fs interlinear

Interrogative pronouns

Udmurt interrogative pronouns inflect in all cases. However, the inanimate interrogative pronouns 'what' in the locative cases have the base form -. The nominative case of interrogative pronouns are listed in the following table:

Interrogative pronouns (nominative case)

	Singular	Plural
what
who

The following table shows Udmurt interrogative pronouns in all the cases :

Interrogative pronouns (all cases)

Case	-	English	-/-	English
Nominative		who		what
Accusative		whom		what
Genitive		whose		of what
Ablative		from whom		from what
Dative		to whom		to what
Instructive		with whom		with what
Abessive		without whom		without what
Adverbial		in whose way		in what way
Inessive	–	–		where
Illative	–	–		to where
Elative	–	–		from where
Egressive	–	–		start from where
Terminative	–	–		end up where
Prolative	–	–		along where
Allative*		towards whom		towards where

*The allative case is commonly called "approximative" when talking about Udmurt and Komi.

Noun forms

Udmurt does not distinguish gender in nouns or even in personal pronouns: '' = 'he' or 'she' depending on the referent.

Cases

Udmurt has fifteen noun cases: eight grammatical cases and seven locative cases. Notice that the word in a given locative case modifies the verb, not a noun. The locative cases can only be used with inanimate references with the exception of the allative case. Alternative forms containing can only be used after the plural suffix (i.e. the illative singular , but plural ). The less common accusative suffix is used after the plural suffix, in addition to more common .

Udmurt cases
Case	Suffix	English prep.	Example	Translation
Grammatical
nominative	–	–		village
genitive	-	of / 's		of a village / village's
accusative	-/-/-/-	–		village (as an object)
ablative	-	from		from a village
dative	-	to/for		to a village
instrumental	-/-/-	with/by means of		by means of a village
abessive	-	without		without a village
adverbial	-	in a way		in a village way
Locative cases
inessive	-	in		in a village
illative	-/-/-	into		into a village (or house)
elative	-	from		from a village
egressive	-	starting from		starting from a village
terminative	-	end up		end up at a village
prolative	-/-/-/-	along		along a village
allative*	-	towards		towards a village

*The allative case is commonly called "approximative" when talking about Udmurt and Komi.

Udmurt case endings affix directly to nouns quite regularly with the exception of a few lexemes of Uralic origin. These lexemes have stem changes when declining in the locative cases whose endings begin with a vowel:

Examples of lexemes with varied stems
Lexeme	Stem	Inessive	English	Original stem form	Cognate example
	-		(in an) eye	*-- → *--	Finnish: 'eye'
	-		(in the) sky		Finnish: 'air'
	-		(in the) hips	*--	Erzya: 'rump'
	-		(in the) forest
	-		two; second	*--	Northern Sami: 'two'

The personal pronouns, however, have irregularities in comparison to the declension of other nouns:

Udmurt personal pronoun declensions
Case	1st pers. sing.	2nd pers. sing.	3rd pers. sing.	1st pers. pl	2nd pers. pl.	3rd pers pl.
nominative
genitive
accusative				~	~ ~	~
ablative
dative
instrumental	~	~		~	~
abessive
adverbial
allative

Plural

There are two types of nominal plurals in Udmurt. One is the plural for nouns - (after vowels)/- (after consonants)/- (after certain consonants to avoid palatalization) and the other is the plural for adjectives -/-.

Nominal plural

The noun is always in plural. In attributive plural phrases, the adjective is not required to be in the plural:

Attributive plural

Udmurt	English
	(the) beautiful girls

The plural marker always comes before other endings (i.e. cases and possessive suffixes) in the morphological structure of plural nominal.

Morphological order

Udmurt	English
	to the girls
	to/in their villages

Predicative plural

As in Hungarian, if the subject is plural, the adjective is always plural when it functions as the sentence's predicative:

Attributive plural

Udmurt	English
	the girls are beautiful
	the winters are cold

Following numerals

Nouns are ordinarily in the singular when following cardinal numbers. However, a living being as the sentence's subject may be in the plural. In this case, the predicate verb must be in congruency with the subject.

Udmurt	English
	There are fifty-six houses in this village
	There are ten students sitting in the lecture hall

Possessive suffixes

Nominal possessive suffixes

Udmurt possessive suffixes are added to the end of nouns either before or after a case ending. The possessive suffixes vary in the nominative and accusative cases and with case endings. The consonant of the second and third person plural depends on if the last phoneme of the word is voiced or unvoiced.

Nominative possessive suffix

Suffix ending	Udmurt	English
-/-		my friend
-/-		your friend
-/-		his/her friend
-		our friend
-/-		your (pl) friend
-/-		their friend

Certain lexemes of Finno-Ugric origin (especially those ending with a vowel or meaning an inalienable object) contain the vowel -- in the first, second and third person singular nominative possessive suffixes:

Nominative possessive suffix

Suffix ending	Udmurt	Finnish equivalent	English
-			my hand
-			your hand
-			his/her hand

Accusative possessive suffixes

Accusative possessive suffixes are shown in the following table. The consonant of the second and third person singular and plural depends on if the last phoneme of the word is voiced or unvoiced.

Accusative possessive suffix
Suffix ending	Udmurt	English
-		my friend
-/-		your friend
-/-		his/her friend
-		our friend
-/-		your (pl) friend
-/-		their friend

Possessive suffixes with case endings, singular

The morphological placement of possessive suffixes with other endings depends on the case. Possessive suffixes are the same as nominative suffixes after which the genitive, ablative, dative, abessive, adverbial and allative cases agglutinates.

Possessive suffixes with case endings
Case	Udmurt (first person singular)	English
nominative		my village
genitive		my village's/of my village
ablative		from my village
dative		for my village
abessive		without my village
adverbial		across my village
allative		towards my village

The possessive suffix follows the instrumental, inessive, illative, elative egressive, terminative and prolative cases and the vowel reduces to in the singular persons. An , an old Uralic first person singular marker, appears in the first person singular. When adding a possessive suffix, the inessive and illative forms change to and the elative form changes to --. The does not appear in the inessive, illative, terminative and prolative cases where the case ends with a vowel.

Possessive suffixes with case endings
person	instrumental	inessive	illative	elative	egressive	terminative	prolative
Singular
first
second
third
Plural
first
second
third

Possessive suffixes with case endings, plural

As in the singular, possessive suffixes precede the genitive, ablative, dative, abessive, adverbial and allative cases. However, the vowel of the singular persons reduce to :

Possessive suffixes with case endings
Case	Udmurt (first person singular)	English
nominative		my villages
genitive		my villages'/of my villages
ablative		from my villages
dative		for my villages
abessive		without my villages
adverbial		across my villages
allative		towards my villages

As in the singular, possessive suffixes follow the instrumental, inessive, illative, elative, egressive, terminative and prolative cases. The suffix forms follow the same structure as in the singular. The same exceptions appear in the plural as in the singular with the added exception of the instrumental reducing to and the prolative not used.

Possessive suffixes with case endings
Case	Udmurt (first person singular)	English
instrumental		by means of my villages
inessive		in my villages
illative		to my villages
elative		from my villages
egressive		starting from my villages
terminative		ending up at my villages
prolative		along my villages

Some words can be used as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs without a change in form. For example, means "cleanliness", "clean", and "clearly".

The third person singular possessive suffix also acts as a definite article: ("the Udmurt language is nice" – literally "Udmurt language's nice").

Adjectives

There is no congruency between adjectives and nouns in neutral Udmurt noun phrases, i.e. there is no adjective declension as in the inessive noun phrase , 'in a large/big village' (cf. Finnish inessive phrase 'in a large/big village', in which 'big/large' is inflected according to the head noun). However, as stated earlier, Udmurt adjectives in neutral attributive (non-predicative) noun phrases may have a plural marker when the noun is pluralised.

Determinative

Udmurt does have an emphasising determinative suffix. Its function is to place emphasis on the features of the referent, defining and separating it from a group of other similar referents. The third person singular possessive suffix and and plural acts as the determinative suffix. The determinative adjective conjugates as in the third person singular or plural and the noun conjugates without any other marker.

Determinative suffix
Case	neutral	English	determinative	English
Singular
nominative		(a) big village		(specifically) a big village
inessive		in a big village		in the (specifically) big village
illative		to a big village		to the (specifically) big village
elative		from a big village		from the (specifically) big village
Plural
nominative		(the) big villages		the (specifically) big villages
inessive		in the big villages		in the (specifically) big villages
illative		to the big villages		to the (specifically) big villages
elative		from a big village	б	from the (specifically) big village

Comparative

Comparative is used when two referents are compared to each other but the subject of comparison does not necessarily need to be expressed.

The comparative suffix in Udmurt is . The subject of comparison can be expressed either in the ablative case or with the postposition structure. If the subject of comparison it is shown the comparative suffix can be left out.

Comparative
Udmurt	English
	A cow is larger than a sheep

Superlative

There is no superlative suffix in Udmurt. Superlative is expressed with the Russian particle or indefinitive expressions , or .

Superlative
Udmurt	English
	biggest (of them all)
	newest (of them all)
	cleanest (of them all)

Postpositions

Udmurt makes use of postpositions rather than prepositions. A large percentage of the stems of Udmurt postpositions have a locative meaning and can conjugate in the local cases. For example, means 'top' and also 'surface' and can inflect in all the locative cases: (inessive) , (elative) , (illative) , (prolative) , (egressive) , (terminative) and (allative) .

However less than the seven locative cases are included in paradigm inflection of many of the postpositions. The paradigm usually consists of the inessive, elative and illative cases. Like nominals of foreign Uralic origin, some postpositions have a consonant in their stem. such as , 'between'.

Some common postpositions are:

Postpositions
Stem	Example (inessive)	English
		in front of
		on top of
		next to, at
		in back of/behind
		at the end of
		under

The illative case can vary between and . The illative form of the postposition 'side' is 'to the side of'.

Postpositions
Stem	Example (illative)	English
		to the front of
		to the top of
		to the end of
		under
		next to, at
		to the centre of
		to the behind of
		between

There is also a small group of non-inflecting postpositions in addition to those inflecting in the locative cases (cf. Finnish "with (a person)" that always takes the genitive case: "with a friend"). A few examples of these are:

Postposition	English
	next to
	after
	all, each
	together; because of, due to
	during
	along
	in the way of/ -wise
	about
	within
	together

Most of the nouns in Udmurt postposition phrases are inflected in the nominative but there are a few postpositions that require the noun to be in the dative, ablative or instrumental cases:

Example	English
Nominative
	on top of a/the table
	from behind a/the tree
	about (a) mother
	after university
	because of you
Dative
	every year
	against the wind
Ablative
	before this
Instrumental
	with mother
	because of it
	next to me

Verbs

Udmurt verbs are divided into two groups or two conjugations, both having the infinitive marker . The conjugation I type verb is structured with as in , 'to go'. The conjugation II type verb features an in the infinitive as in , 'to work'. The conjugation I verb can also have two stems, a full stem as in and a short stem as in .

There are three verbal moods in Udmurt: indicative, conditional and imperative. There is also an optative mood used in certain dialects. The indicative mood has four tenses: present, future, and two past tenses. In addition there are four past tense structures which include auxiliary verbs. Verbs are negated by use of an auxiliary negative verb that conjugates with personal endings. Separate personal pronouns are not required in verb phrases.

The basic verbal personal markers in Udmurt are (with some exceptions):

Personal endings of verbs
Person	Ending
Singular
1st	-Ø
2nd	-
3rd	-
Plural
1st	-
2nd	-
3rd	-

Present tense

Present tense in Udmurt, in all but the third person, is marked with . Third person singular is marked with (conjugation I) or unmarked (conjugation II) and third person plural is marked with (conjugation I) or (conjugation II).

Present tense
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I know		I sing/I am singing
2nd		you know		you sing/you are singing
3rd		he/she knows		he/she sings / he/she is singing
Plural
1st		we know		we sing/we are singing
2nd		you know		you sing/you are singing
3rd		they know		they sing/they are singing

The negative indicative present is formed by the auxiliary negative verb and the marker in the first and second person singular or in the first and second plural of the main verb. The third person singular main verb is either marked by the full stem (conjugation I) or unmarked (conjugation II). The third person plural is marked with (conjugation I) or (conjugation II).

The negative verb conjugates with the ending in first and third person singular and third person plural. Second person singular and plural both conjugate with the ending and first person plural with .

Present tense negative
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I do not know		I do not sing/I am not singing
2nd		you do not know		you do not sing/you are not singing
3rd		he/she does not know		he/she does not sing / he/she is not singing
Plural
1st		we do not know		we do not sing/we are not singing
2nd		you do notknow		you do not sing/you are not singing
3rd		they do not know		they do not sing/they are not singing

Future tense

The future tense in Udmurt is marked with in conjugation I verbs and in conjugation II verbs.

Future tense
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I will know		I will sing/I will be singing
2nd		you will know		you will sing/you will be singing
3rd		he/she will know		he/she will sing / he/she will be singing
Plural
1st		we will know		we will sing/we will be singing
2nd		you will know		you will sing/you will be singing
3rd		they will know		they will sing/they will be singing

The negative indicative future is formed by the auxiliary negative verb and the stem of the main verb in singular persons. The plural persons are marked either with (conjugation I) or (conjugation II)

The negative verb conjugates with the ending in first person singular. Third person singular and third person plural have the ending and the remaining are as in present negative.

Future tense negative
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I will not know		I will not sing/I will not be singing
2nd		you will not know		you will not sing/you will not be singing
3rd	)	he/she will not know		he/she will not sing / he/she will not be singing
Plural
1st		we will not know		we will not sing/we will not be singing
2nd		you will not know		you will not sing/you will not be singing
3rd		they will not know		they will not sing/they will not be singing

Past tense

The conventionally used designations preterite and perfect are used with denotations which are divergent from their usual meanings in the grammar of other languages.

Preterite I

The first preterite can be compared with the simple past in English. Preterite I is marked with in conjugation I. There is no past tense marker in conjugation II verbs with the exception of in the first person singular.

Preterite I
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I knew		I sang
2nd		you knew		you sang
3rd		he/she knew		he/she sang
Plural
1st		we knew		we sang
2nd		you knew		you sang
3rd		they knew		they sang

The negative preterite I is formed by the auxiliary negative verb and the stem of the main verb in singular persons. The plural persons are marked either with (conjugation I) or (conjugation II)

The negative verb conjugates with the ending in first person singular. Third person singular and third person plural have the ending and the remaining are as in present negative.

Preterite I negative
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I did not know		I did not sing
2nd		you did not know		you did not sing
3rd		he/she did not know		he/she did not sing
Plural
1st		we did not know		we did not sing
2nd		you did not know		you did not sing
3rd		they did not know		they did not sing

Preterite II

The second preterite is a past tense with an evidentiality distinction. It can be compared to the English perfect in which the speaker did not personally observe the past event. The preterite II is marked with , which is historically related to the third infinitive in Finnish.

In addition to the normal personal endings, the present indicative marker is featured in first persons and a frequentive verbal marker is present in the second and third person plural. There is no personal ending in the third person singular and sometimes featured in the third person plural.

Preterite II
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I have evidently known		I have evidently sung
2nd		you have evidently known		you have evidently sung
3rd		he/she has evidently known		he/she has evidently sung
Plural
1st		we have evidently known		we have evidently sung
2nd		you have evidently known		you have evidently sung
3rd		they have evidently known		they evidently sung

The negative preterite II is formed either by including the auxiliary copular negative verb 'is not' or with the negation marker .

Preterite II negative
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I have evidently not known		I have evidently not sung
2nd		you have evidently not known		you have evidently not sung
3rd		he/she has evidently not known		he/she has evidently not sung
Plural
1st		we have evidently not known		we have evidently not sung
2nd		you have evidently not known		you have evidently not sung
3rd		they have evidently not known		they have evidently not sung

Auxiliary past tenses

There are four past tenses in Udmurt which use a preterite form of the main verb and a preterite form of the auxiliary verb 'to be'.

Pluperfect I

The Udmurt pluperfect makes use of the preterite I main verb and the auxiliary , 'was' in third person singular, also in simple past. The pluperfect I tense expresses a process of action that has happened in the (distant) past.

Pluperfect I
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I had known		I had sung
2nd		you had known		you had sung
3rd		he/she had known		he/she had sung
Plural
1st		we had known		we had sung
2nd		you had known		you had sung
3rd		they had known		they had sung

The negative Pluperfect I is formed by the negative preterite I negative plus the auxiliary .

Pluperfect I negative
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
1st		I had not known		I had not sung
2nd		you had not known		you had not sung
3rd		he/she had not known		he/she had not sung
Plural
1st		we had not known		we had not sung
2nd		you had not known		you had not sung
3rd		they had not known		they had not sung

Pluperfect II

There are two structures of the pluperfect II tense. One uses the preterite II third person singular form of the main verb inflected with a personal possessive suffix and the auxiliary . The other is the preterite II of the main verb (with normal personal inflection) and the preterite I form of the 'to' be verb . The pluperfect II tense expresses the result of an action that has been completed, but no one had seen.

Pluperfect II ()
Person	Pluperfect II a	Pluperfect II b	English
Singular
1st			I had evidently known
2nd			you had evidently known
3rd			he/she had evidently known
Plural
1st			we had evidently known
2nd			you had evidently known
3rd			they had evidently known

The negative pluperfect II is formed either by with the preterite II third person singular of the main verb in the negative (marked with ) with a personal possessive suffix and the auxiliary verb (pluperfect II a) or with the negative preterite II of the main verb marked with with the preterite II auxiliary verb .

Preterite II negative ()
Person	Pluperfect II a	Pluperfect II b	English
Singular
1st			I had evidently not known
2nd			you had evidently known
3rd			he/she had evidently known
Plural
1st			we had evidently not known
2nd			you had evidently not known
3rd			they had evidently not known

Durative preterite

The durative preterite in Udmurt can be compared to the past progressive in English "was doing". Its function can be described as expressing a process in the past. The structure is the present tense of the main verb with either preterite of the auxiliary verb. The structure of the negative durative preterite is the negative present tense of the main verb with either preterite of the auxiliary verb.

Durative preterite ()
Person	Affirmative	English	Negative	English
Singular
1st		I was singing		I was not singing
2nd		you were singing		you were not singing
3rd		he/she was singing		he/she was not singing
Plural
1st		we were singing		we were not singing
2nd		you were singing		you were not singing
3rd		they were singing		they were not singing

Frequentative preterite

The frequentative preterite in Udmurt expresses a repeated action in the past. The structure is the future tense of the main verb with either preterite of the auxiliary verb. The structure of the negative frequentative preterite is the negative future tense of the main verb with either preterite of the auxiliary verb.

Frequentative preterite ()
Person	Affirmative	English	Negative	English
Singular
1st		I sang (always)		I did not sing (always)
2nd		you sang (always)		you did not sing (always)
3rd		he/she sang (always)		he/she did not sing (always)
Plural
1st		we sang (always)		we did not sing (always)
2nd		you sang (always)		you did not sing (always)
3rd		they sang (always)		they did not sing (always)

Passive voice

Udmurt does not have a separate affix to express a passive voice. The plural third person of the verb is used as a personal form to express an unknown, non-determinative actor.

Passive voice
3rd pers. pl	English	Passive voice	English
	They are working		(People) are working here
	They speak Udmurt		Udmurt is spoken here
	They do not speak Russian		Russian is not spoken here

Moods

Conditional

The conditional mood expresses an unrealistic action which the speaker considers to be supposed, possible or hopeful. The conditional marker is and is attached to the stem of the verb (i.e. full stem of conjugation I verbs) along with personal endings. The third person singular, however, can function without a personal ending. The first person singular preterite I negative verb is used in the negative conditional.

Conditional ()
Person	Affirmative	English	Negative	English
Singular
1st		I would do		I would not do
2nd		you would do		you would not do
3rd		he/she would do		he/she would not do
Plural
1st		we would do		we would not do
2nd		you would do		you would not do
3rd		they would do		they would not do

Imperative

The stem of the verb is used for the second person singular imperative in Udmurt. If the stem of a conjugation I verb ends in one consonant or is one syllable and ends in a vowel, the short stem is the imperative. If the stem of a conjugation I verb ends in two consonants, the full stem is used.

The second person plural infinitive is marked with in conjugation I verbs and in conjugation I verbs.

The imperative negative auxiliary is which precedes the infinitive form.

Imperative
Person	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation I)	English	(conjugation II)	English
Singular
2nd		eat!		take/buy!		talk/speak!
Plural
2nd		eat!		take/buy!		talk/speak!
Negative singular
2nd		do not eat!		do not take/buy!		do not talk/speak!
Negative plural
2nd		do not eat!		do not take/buy!		do not talk/speak!

Optative

An optative mood is used in certain dialects.

Modals

Udmurt makes use of the morphosyntactic structure of inflected nominals and verbs with an auxiliary for modal expressions.

To express ability, the verb , 'to be' is inflected in the third person singular (in all tenses) with the subject in the genitive case. The verb to which the subject directs ability is inflected with the past participle (preterite II, third person singular) with a personal possessive suffix.

Udmurt	English	Literal translation
	You could come	"yours your came was"
	The woman could not go to the store	"woman's to the store her went was not"

Desiderative

The desiderative modal expresses desire. The verb , 'to want' is inflected in the third person singular (in all tenses) with the subject in the genitive case. The verb to which the subject directs the desire is inflected with the past participle (preterite II, third person singular) with a personal possessive suffix.

Udmurt	English	Literal translation
	I want to sleep	"mine my slept wants"
	The woman does not want to go to the store	"woman's to the store her went not want"

Necessive

To express necessity, the word , 'necessary' is used with the copula verb inflected in the third person singular (in all tenses) with the subject in the dative case. The infinitive of the verb to which the subject directs necessity or an object is used.

Udmurt	English	Literal translation
	He/she needs to read a lot	"to him/her much to read necessity is"
	I did not need a book	"to me book necessity is not"

Permissive

To express permissiveness, the verb , 'to suit/to be valid' is inflected in the third person singular (in all tenses) with the subject in the dative case. The infinitive of the verb to which the subject directs permissiveness is used.

Udmurt	English	Literal translation
	May I leave?	"to me to leave suits?"
	You (pl) may not come in	"to you (pl) to come in does not suit"

Participles

Udmurt verbs have past, present and future participles. Participles can be used in different ways than ordinary adjectives. In addition to affirmative participles, Udmurt also has caritive participles.

Present

The present participle is . It is a participle which expresses continuous action. It is affixed to short stems in conjugation I verbs. The present participle caritive is

Affirmative	English	Caritive	English
	a girl that reads		a girl that does not read
	a boy that sings		a boy that does not sing

In addition to functioning as regular attributive participles, the present participle also functions as a nominalising derivational suffix.

as a participle	English	as a noun	English
	a girl that studies		student
	a girl that gets sick		patient
	a girl that sings		singer

Past

The past participle is . It is an attributive participle which expresses completed action. It is affixed to short stems in conjugation I verbs. The past participle caritive is .

Affirmative	English	Caritive	English
	a guest that arrived		a guest who did not arrive
	a tree that fell		a tree that did not fall
	a book that has been read		a book that has not been read

The past participle can also be inflected with the inessive ending . This is a predicative participle which expresses completed action.

Udmurt	English
.	The guest has arrived.
.	The tree had fallen.
.	The book has been read.

Future

The modal-future participle is . It is affixed to short stems in conjugation I verbs. The future participle caritive is and expresses that which is unable to be done.

Affirmative	English	Caritive	English
	a woman who will give birth soon		a woman who will not be able to give birth
	a book that will be read		a book that is not able to be read

There is also a modal participle similar to gerunds in function. It expresses the ability to do some action or that it is possible to do the action. The marker is and it is affixed to short stems in conjugation I verbs.

Udmurt	English
	a job (work) which is possible to do
	a house in which one can live

Gerunds

There are four gerunds in Udmurt, one being a caritive. that are affixed to the verb's full stem. One gerund, which also has a caritive, is formed by the past participle (preterite II, third person singular) with the instrumental or elative case.

The "basic" gerund (and its caritive ) can be compared to the English present active participle -ing and Finnish second or third infinitives, however having more functions. They can express a way of doing something, a reason for the action or a certain condition.

The temporal gerund ( in southern dialects) expresses action or state of being which happens simultaneously with the action of the main verb of the clause.

The fourth gerund is which can express an action or an event that lasts to the starting or ending limit of the action expressed by the predicate verb of the sentence. The gerund also expresses the structure "instead of". In addition, possessive suffixes can be affixed after the gerund.

Gerunds
Udmurt	English
	A person is going in a hurry (lit. rushing)
	A person is going without rushing
	The student sits (there) thinking
	My father sat at the table when he came into the house (lit. when coming in)
	It (lit. the weather) gets warmer when it snows
	We were at the river bank today until sun set (lit. until the setting of the sun)
	Finish this work by the time we get there (lit. until the time when we arrive)
	Instead of idly sitting, why do not you read a book
	Finish this work by the time I get there (lit. until the time when I arrive)

The past participle gerund is inflected with either the instrumental (caritive ) or elative (caritive ) case, both having the basic same meaning of "because". In literary Udmurt, the gerund in the instrumental case is preferred. However, the gerund in the elative case is used with some verbs such as 'to cease/stop'.

Gerunds
Udmurt	English
	because it (lit. the weather) stops raining
	because it (lit. the weather) stops raining
	The patient stopped moaning (lit. from moaning)
Caritive
	because it (lit. the weather) did not stop raining

Personal possessive suffixes can also be affixed to gerunds:

Udmurt	English
Affirmative
	I could not complete this work on time because I was sick
Caritive
	Other important things got delayed because I did not to this job on time

Interrogative suffix

If there are no interrogative (question) words (who, what, when etc.), an interrogative phrase is formed by the suffix . The interrogative suffix is affixed to the constituent to which the question is concerned. The suffix's placement can also vary according to dialect. Both southern and northern dialect forms are used in literary Udmurt.

Interrogative suffix
Udmurt	English
	Are you going?
	Aren't you going?
	Are you drinking tea?/Do you drink tea?
	Don't you drink tea?
	Is it tea which you drink? (not e.g. coffee)
	Is it tea which you do not drink? (not e.g. coffee)
	Is the forest small?
	Is the forest small? (but not big)
	Isn't Kolja a student?
	Was there a river there?
	Was the river close by?
	Was the river close by? (not far away)
	Wasn't the river close by?

Word formation

There are a few main derivational suffixes in Udmurt word formation.

Nouns

Udmurt has the productive deverbalising nominal suffix . is affixed to the short stem of conjugation I verbs and affixes directly to the stem of conjugation II verbs The function of this suffix is quite diverse. With this deverbalising affix, the nominal usually:

1. expresses the action (deverbalised noun) set out by the base verb:

Verb	English	Noun	English
	to stand		(a) standing
	to burn		(a) burning
	to dry		(a) drying

2. expresses the result of action:

Verb	English	Noun	English
	to win		a victory
	to sing		a song

3. expresses an instrument or tool denoted by an action:

Verb	English	Noun	English
	to drill		a drill

4. expresses the focus of action:

Verb	English	Noun	English
	to eat		food
	to drink		drink

Most of these derivations have both abstract and concrete meanings. The derivation can expresses both the action set out by the base verb or result or instrument:

Verb	English	Noun	English
	to sit		(a) sitting, a seat, a chair
	to become ill		getting ill, a disease, an illness
	to play		playing, play, a toy, a plaything

Deverbalised nominal derivations can function as qualifiers of collocations, such as 'reader, digest' or 'drinking water'.

Adjectives

Udmurt has the denominalising adjectival suffixes and carritive . The adjectives formed by the suffix express the condition of a quality, feature or phenomenon of the base word or possession of the referent. The adjectives formed by the suffix express the lack of quality, feature, phenomenon or referent. This suffix can be compared to the prefix un- or suffix -less in English.

Adjectival derivational suffixes
Nominal	English	Example	English
	sense		a wise person
	strength		a strong hand
	luck		a lucky child
	leaf		a leafy tree (a tree with leaves)
	beard		a bearded man (a man with a beard)
	luck		an unlucky child
	beard		a beardless man (a man with no beard)
	child		a childless family (a family with no children)

Adjectives formed by the suffix can also have a qualifier:

Nominal	English	Example	English
	blue eye		a blue-eyed girl
	long arm		a long-armed person (a person with long arms)

Udmurt also has moderative adjectival suffixes (, and ) which express a somewhat large, but not complete, amount of quality of an adjective base, usually a colour or flavour. They can be compared to the English suffix -ish. The suffix does not normally associate with flavour, but Southern dialect variant does.

Moderative adjectival derivational suffixes
Nominal	English	Example	English
	green		a greenish shirt
	blue		a blueish scarf
	black		blackish hair
	bitter		a rather bitter cucumber

Verbs

In Udmurt grammar, the lexical aspect (aktionsart) of verbs is called verbal aspect. Udmurt verbs can be divided into two categories: momentane verbs and frequentative verbs. The transitivity or of a verb mainly relies on if the verb is frequentative or not.

In Udmurt word formation, verbs can be derived by frequentative or causative deverbalising suffixes.

Momentane

The momentane aspect of Udmurt verbs expresses action (state of being or process) that happens only once. There is no transparent base momentane marker (cf. Finnish momentane verbs). For example, 'to read (once)'. However a causative denotes momentanity and those verbs can be derived into frequentative verbs.

Frequentative

The frequentative aspect expresses that the action (state of being or process) does not happen just one time. The action is continuous or frequent. There are various frequentative markers, usually containing an , for example 'to read (frequently/often)'. The frequentative aspect, however, does not denote continuous repetitiveness as in e.g.some Finnish frequentative derivations.

The frequentative deverbalising affixes in Udmurt are (conjugation I), (conjugation II) (both historically related to the Finnish frequentative derivational suffix ) and (conjugation I) which precede the infinitive marker .

Frequentative derivation
Base	English		Derivation	English
	to read	→		to read (often)
	to come	→		to come (often)
	to drink	→		to drink (often)
	to work	→		to work (often)
	to chop	→		to chop (often)
	to step inside	→		to step inside (often)
	to step outside	→		to step outside (often)
	to write	→		to write (often)

Some verbal derivations, that follow the pattern → , have parallel frequentative derivations, and can be affixed to an already frequentative derivation:

'to rise' → 'to rise (often)'

'to rise' → → 'to rise (often)'

Another frequentative verb affix is , which is historically related to the Finnish frequentative derivational suffix . frequentative verbs can be considered different from the above-mentioned derivations. verbs do not semantically denote frequency in the same way; their "oftenness" is related to objective or non-objective relation. For example, the verb ('to read') requires an object and the verb does not.

Udmurt	English
	I like to read (generally)
	I am reading a book

Syntax

Udmurt is an SOV language.

Nominal sentence

The copular verb ( , – "to be") is omitted if the sentence is in the present tense: ("What day is it today?"). If the sentence expresses possession, the can be part of the predicate: ("At you (plur.), are there forests?")

Existential sentences

These are sentences which introduce a new subject – they often begin with 'there is' or 'there are' in English.

Udmurt	English	Literal translation
	there are many forests in Finland	"in Finland many forests (is/are)"

Possessive sentences

As in most Uralic languages, ownership in Udmurt is expressed by inflection and sentence structure, rather than with a separate verb 'have'. The owner of the object and the possessed object are both inflected with a possessive suffix and used with the copula verb to express ownership.

Udmurt	English	Literal translation
	I have a book	"mine my book is"
	I do not have a book	"mine my book is not"
	I had a book	"mine my book was"
	I did not have a book	"mine my book was not"