Yiddish grammar

Yiddish grammar is the system of principles which govern the structure of the Yiddish language. This article describes the standard form laid out by YIVO while noting differences in significant dialects such as that of contemporary Hasidism. As a Germanic language descended from Middle High German, Yiddish grammar is very similar to that of German, though it also has numerous linguistic innovations as well as grammatical features influenced by or borrowed from Hebrew, Aramaic, and various Slavic languages.
Nouns.
Gender.
Yiddish nouns are classified into one of three grammatical genders: masculine (זכר "zokher"), feminine (נקבֿה "nekeyve") and neuter (נײטראַל "neytral"). To a large extent, the gender of a noun is unpredictable, though there are some regular patterns: 
Case.
There are three grammatical cases in Yiddish: nominative, accusative and dative. The nominative case generally is used for the subject, the accusative for the direct object and the dative for an indirect object or object of a preposition. 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 (טאַטע "tate" 'father', מאַמע "mame" 'mother') and the words ייִד "yid" 'Jew' and האַרץ "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. However, when the possessor is a human or occasionally other living beings, possession may be indicated with a suffixed ס- "-s" (like English possessive "-'s"). Otherwise, possession is 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 noun phrase representing the quantity is simply followed by noun representing 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.
There are two regular plural suffixes. For nouns ending in an unstressed vowel, the plural is regularly formed with the suffix "-s"; e.g., the plural of גרופּע "grupe" 'group' is גרופּעס "grupes". For nouns ending in a consonant, the plural is regularly formed with "-n"; the plural of טיש "tish" 'table' is טישן "tishn".
A very large number of nouns use irregular plural forms, including "-es" (these are usually nouns of Slavic origin), and "-er" with umlaut (e.g., מאַן "man" 'man' → מענער "mener" 'men'; קינד "kind" 'child' → קינדער "kinder" 'children'), or umlaut alone (e.g., האַנט "hant" 'hand' → הענט "hent" 'hands'). Some words do not change in the plural (e.g., פֿיש "fish" 'fish'). Nouns built on the diminutive suffixes "-l" and "-ele" form the plural in "-ekh" (e.g., מײדל "meydl" 'girl' → מײדלעך "meydlekh" 'girls').
Most words of Hebrew origin use the Hebrew plural suffixes, either "-im" (e.g., ספֿר "seyfer" 'holy book' → ספֿרים "sforim" 'holy books') or "-es" (e.g., סוד "sod" 'secret' → סודות "soydes" 'secrets'). As these examples show, many plurals of Hebrew origin involve stem mutation in addition to the suffix, as in the original Hebrew. Not all words of Hebrew origin form their plurals in the same way they do in Hebrew: in particular, Hebrew feminine nouns ending in tend to become masculine in Yiddish, and take the "-im" plural suffix, avoiding the uneuphonic ending "*-ses": e.g. שבת "shabes" 'sabbath' → Hebrew שבתות "shaboses", Yiddish שבתים‎ "shabosim". This tendency extends also to cases when the Hebrew plural ends in "-yes" rather than "-ses": e.g. תּכלית "takhles" 'purpose' → Hebrew תּכליות "takhliyes", Yiddish תּכליתים "takhleysim". Other words of Hebrew origin form a Germanic plural, e.g., קול "kol" 'voice' has the plural קולער "keler", formed with the Germanic "-er" suffix and umlaut. Finally, there are a few words of non-Hebrew origin that take Hebrew plural suffixes, such as דאָקטער "dokter" 'doctor' → דאָקטוירים "doktoyrim", פּויער "poyer" 'farmer' → פּויערים‎ "poyerim".
Articles.
The definite article agrees in gender, number and case with the noun it is used with.
The indefinite article is אַ "a", which becomes אַן "an" before a word beginning with a vowel sound. 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 they modify, while predicate adjectives remain uninflected. For example, one says דער גוטער מאַן "der guter man" 'the good man', but דער מאַן איז גוט "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—it is inflected as if it were followed by a noun: דער מאַן איז אַ גוטער "Der man iz a guter" 'The man is a good [one]'. Neuter singular adjectives are in some respects exceptional; in attributive position, they have no case ending unless their noun phrase is introduced by the definite article; in absolutive position, they use the distinctive suffix "-s" in the nominative and accusative cases.
The ending "-n" becomes "-en" after an "m", or a stressed vowel or diphthong; it becomes "-em" after "n" and, as an exception, in the adjective "nay" (new). 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 אײן "eyn" 'one', קײן "keyn" 'none', and possessive pronouns such as מײַן "mayn" 'my, mine' and זײַן "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 precede the nouns, but they may follow the nouns as an absolutive construction for stylistic purposes: אַ שיינע פֿרוי "a sheyne froy" or אַ פֿרוי אַ שיינע "a froy a sheyne" ('a beautiful woman').
Pronouns.
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".
In the Polish dialect of Yiddish, there is a different second-person plural familiar pronoun used with its own declension.
Verbs.
Verb inflection.
Yiddish verbs are conjugated for person (first, second, and third) and number (singular and plural) in the present tense. In the imperative, they conjugate only for number. Nonfinite verb forms are the infinitive and the past participle.
The infinitive of a verb is formed with the suffix ן- "-n" (which takes the form ען- "-en" in certain phonological contexts). The imperative uses the base form of the verb with no affixes in the singular, and takes the suffix ט- "-t" in the plural. In the present tense, the first-person singular takes the base form of the verb; the other person/number combinations are regularly inflected according to the following table:
A present participle, functioning as a derived adjective or adverb, is regularly constructed by adding the suffix דיק- "-dik" to the infinitive.
Past participle.
The past participle is used extensively in Yiddish. The majority of verbs (so-called weak verbs) form the past participle by adding the prefix -גע "ge-" and the suffix ט- "-t" to the stem, e.g. געקויפֿט "gekoyft" 'bought'. However, strong verbs form the past participle with -גע and ן- "-n", usually 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".
Some participles vary between dialects and registers; for example, געווען "geven" is the usual past participle of זיַין "zayn" 'be', but געוועזן "gevezn" (normally an adjective meaning 'former') may be used as the past participle in a "Daytshmerish" (Standard German–imitating) register.
Examples of conjugation.
The table below shows the inflection of various Yiddish verbs. Most verbs are generally regular, with irregularities occurring predominantly in the past participle.
The following table shows some additional irregular past participles:
Separable verbs.
Like German, Yiddish has a family of separable verbs. These are verb stems cooccurring with a particle that sometimes occurs as a prefix attached to the verb stem and sometimes as a separate word. The particle appears separate from the verb in the present tense, but is attached as a prefix in the infinitive and participle. For example, in אויסזאָגן ' 'to reveal', the particle אויס "oys" is attached to the verb; but in the present tense זאָגט אויס ' 'reveals', the particle appears as a separate word. In the past participle, the particle appears before the prefix "ge-", as in אויסגעזאָגט "" 'revealed'.
The same grammatical structure of separable verbs is used for a class called "periphrastic verbs". In these, the uninflected particle, often a loanword from Hebrew, carries the main meaning, and it is accompanied by an inflected light verb. For example, in תּשובֿה טאָן "" 'repent', the word תּשובֿה "tshuve" is a Hebrew loanword meaning 'repentance', acting grammatically as a particle accompanying the verb טאָן "ton" 'do'.
The periphrastic-verb construction mechanism allows Yiddish to borrow many Hebrew verbs and verbal constructions. Present-participle forms of active Hebrew verbs are used as particles accompanying the light verb זײַן ("zayn" 'be'), while present participles of passive Hebrew verbs accompany the light verb ווערן ("vern" 'become'):
The Hebrew verb paradigm "nispoel"/"nitpael", marginalized in Modern Hebrew due to its overlap with "hitpael", is much more common in Yiddish. Hence the word for "to be impressed" is נתפּעל ווערן "nispoel vern", as opposed to מתפּעל ווערן as a Modern Hebrew speaker might expect.
Auxilary-verb constructions.
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 to construct the past tense. Most verbs take האָבן "hobn"; for example, the past tense of איך קויף ' 'I buy' is איך האָב געקויפֿט ' 'I bought'. About 30 intransitive verbs of motion or status and some of their derivatives take זײַן "zayn"; e.g., the past tense of איך קום "ikh kum" 'I come' is איך בין געקומען ' 'I came'. Transitive derivatives of these exceptional verbs usually take האָבן "hobn": e.g., זײַן "zayn" is used with the intransitive גײן "geyn" 'go', but האָבן "hobn" is used with the derived transitive separable verb איבערגײן ' 'go across'.
The future tense in Yiddish is formed with a special auxiliary verb וועלן followed by the infinitive. As shown in the table above, its inflection is irregular.
The pluperfect is formed by adding the modifier געהאַט ' (the past participle of האָבן "hobn" 'have') to the past tense: איך האָב געהאַט געזאָגט "ikh hob gehat gezogt" ('I had said'); איר זענט געהאַט געגאַנגען ' (you had gone). The Future perfect tense is formed with the future tense auxiliary followed by the auxiliary verb האָבן and the participle of the verb: איך וועל האָבן געזאָגט ' (I will have said). These tenses are both very infrequent, especially in the spoken language. When the context makes the previousness of action clear, the ordinary past or future is used instead, and usually with an adverb such as שוין ' (already) or פֿריִער " (earlier).
The auxiliary verb פֿלעגן ("), in combination with the infinitive (or participle, in some dialects), is used to form a habitual past aspect: for example, איך פֿלעג קומען "ikh fleg kumen" (I used to come).
The auxiliary וואָלט ('), accompanying the past participle, is used to form a conditional mood: איך וואָלט געגאַנגען ' 'I would have gone'.
Other aspectual constructions.
A "momental" aspect, expressing a one-time action, may be formed by the light verbs טאָן ("ton", 'do') or געבן ("", 'give') followed by an indefinite article and a verbal noun, similar to such English expressions as 'have a look'. The verbal noun may be modified by adjectives, as in 'have a good look' in English. The form with געבן is more emphatic and requires the dative for the verbal noun. If the verb is separable, the particle 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 געבן "a shrayb gebn", meaning 'hurriedly or suddenly write', contains a noun שרײַב " which would not normally be used independently, and which may be translated as 'an act of writing'.
Examples: זי האָט אים געטאָן אַ כאַפּ אָן ' ('she gave him a grab on'); מיר גיבן אַ שרײַ אויס ' ('we give a scream out').
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 or separable particle to many verbs. For example, the verb לייענען ' 'read' may be made perfective with the separable particle איבער ' or דורך '. Thus איך האָב געלייענט ' means 'I read', 'I was reading'; while איך האָב איבערגעלייענט or איך האָב דורכגעלייענט " means 'I read entirely', 'I read through'. Further examples:
The most common perfectivizing elements are the particles דורך ,איבער ,אָן ,אָפּ ,אויס ("oys", "op", "on", ', ') and the prefixes דער־ and צו־ ("der-", "tsu-"), but there are no definitive rules for determining which of these are used with which verbs.
Various other aspects, generally paralleling the complex aspect system of the Slavic languages, are formed by auxiliary verbs or prefixes, sometimes combined with the reflexive particle זיך ('). Different aspects may be combined, if the logic of the sentence allows for it. Examples: איך פֿלעג געבן אַ שרײַב אָן ' (I used to suddenly start and complete writing); זיי נעמען זיך צעלאַכן " (they start bursting into laughter).
Negation.
The negative in a sentence with no object or predicate noun is formed by adding ניט ' or נישט ' 'not' after the verb.
Under the scope of negation, indefinite noun phrases, singular or plural, use the negative article קײן " instead of the indefinite article אַ "a" or אַן "an". Definite noun phrases under negation use the definite article as usual.
Yiddish allows and often requires double negation: קיינער איז דאָרטן נישט געווען ' (literally: 'No one was not there') or איך האָב קיינעם נישט געזען ' (literally: 'I didn't see no one'). In colloquial speech even triple and multiple negations may occasionally be used: איך האָב נישט געוווּסט קיין גאָרנישט נישט "" (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.
Yiddish has two diminutive degrees. The first degree is the regular diminutive. The second degree is a stronger, more affectionate diminutive. The second degree is also known as the iminutive.
In order to form any diminutive, there sometimes needs to be a vowel shift (i-mutation/ i-umlaut). The vowel shift stays the same for the iminutive. 
There are certain instances where only the plural can get any diminutive.
קינדער, kinder (children) → קינדערלעך, kinderlekh (children, diminutive).
Besides the addition of -el and -ele, there are more ways to make a word be in the diminutive. One way is by adding the ending טשיק-, or the Polish -czyk.
יונגערמאַן, yingerman (young man) → יונגערמאַנטשיק, yingermanchik.
Numerals.
Ordinal numbers.
The ordinals are adjectives, and as such are inflected to agree with the nouns they modify. For example: 'the first lady' is די ערשטע דאַמע ("di ershte dame": since דאַמע "dame" 'lady' is feminine, the ordinal ערשט "ersht" takes the suffix "-e" to agree with it. 
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, an adverb, or another topicalized element. The V2 grammar of Yiddish differs from that of German and other closely related languages, however: Yiddish uses V2 word order in subordinate clauses as well as main clauses, while in German only main clauses exhibit V2.
However, verb-initial word order may be used to indicate a causal or other close contextual relationship between consecutive sentences, with a meaning similar to English "so".
It is customary to use freer word order in Yiddish poetry.
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 זײַן "zayn" ('to be').
The entire case and gender system seems to be gradually disappearing altogether in contemporary Yiddish-speaking Hasidic communities. The definite articles "der", "di" and "dos" are shifting to a single definite article "de" in the nominative, accusative, and dative cases (reserving "di" as the plural definite article). For example, De gitte mentsh" ‘The good man’, De gitte fro" ‘The good woman’, and De gitte kind" ‘The good child’. There is also the emergence of a single demonstrative pronoun "deye", as in Deye mentsh/fro/kind" ‘This man/woman/child’.