Telugu grammar

The first treatise on Telugu grammar ( "vyākaraṇam"), the "Andhra Sabda Chintamani" (Telugu: ఆంధ్ర శబ్ద చింతామణి "Āndhra śabda cintāmaṇi") was written in Sanskrit by Nannayya, who is considered the first poet ("ādikavi") and grammarian of the Telugu language, in the 11th century CE. After Nannayya, Atharvana and Ahobala composed the sutras, the vartikas and the bhashyam.
In the 19th century, Chinnaya Suri wrote a simplified work on Telugu grammar called "Bāla Vyākaraṇam" ("lit." Children's grammar), borrowing concepts and ideas from Nannayya, in Telugu.
According to Nannayya, language without 'Niyama' or the language which does not adhere to Vyākaranam is called Grāmya ("lit" of the village) or Apabhraṃśa, is unfit for literary usage. All literary texts in Telugu follow the Vyākaraṇam.
Inflection.
Telugu is more inflected than other literary Dravidian languages. Telugu nouns are inflected for number (singular, plural), gender (masculine and non-masculine) and grammatical case (nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative, genitive, locative, and vocative).
Gender.
Telugu has three genders:
In Telugu the occurrence of the suffix (–ḍu) almost always encodes masculine gender. For example: 
However, there are nouns that do not end in (-ḍu) that belong to the masculine class.For example: 
Most of the words ending in "-ḍu" are borrowings from Sanskrit words ending in "-a", and therefore the feminine forms of these words are equivalent to the Sanskrit words.
Sometimes, a word ending in "-ḍu" is feminized by adding the suffix "-ālu" to the root. The -a ending of the root becomes -"ur". This phenomenon is known as the "rugāgama sandhi".
Neuter-gendered words usually contain the suffix -"amu." This suffix descends from the Old Telugu suffix -"ambu" and is increasingly losing the final -u to become -"aṁ." These neuter words are often borrowed from Sanskrit neuter-gendered words ending in -"a, -am, -i," or -"u." The final -"a" usually becomes -"amu," and the final -"u" becomes -"uvu." 
However, Telugu sometimes uses the same forms for singular feminine and neuter genders – the third person pronoun (అది ) is used to refer to animals and objects.
Number ("vachanam").
Anything with quantity one is singular ("ekavachanam").
Anything more than one in number is called plural ("bahuvachanam"), as in English.
In Telugu the plural is also used to address elders with respect. Some nouns are always plural and some are always singular. For example, water ("neellu") is always plural.
God ("bhagavantudu"), sun ("suryudu"), earth ("bhūmi"), and moon ("chandrudu") are always singular form. 
However, "ḍevullu" is a plural form of "bhagavantudu", used when referring to multiple deities.
Case (విభక్తి "vibhakti").
Telugu has eight cases.
Word order.
Telugu word order is relatively free, and nouns are inflected for case. However, the
most common word order tends to be SOV (subject–object–verb).
Punctuation.
Telugu uses single and double vertical bars to indicate a comma and a full stop. However modern Telugu uses punctuation marks which are borrowed from English.
Sandhi or joining.
Sandhi is the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words.
Telugu sandhis can be divided into native ones and those derived from Sanskrit ones. 
Sanskrit Sandhis.
These sandhis usually take place when the two words undergoing Sandhi are words borrowed from Sanskrit.
Savarṇadīrghasandhi (Vowel lengthening).
The "savarṇadīrgha sandhi," from Sanskrit "savarṇa '"same sound' and "dīrgha "'long', this sandhi takes place when the first word ends in the same vowel that the second word starts with. The two vowels join to form one long vowel. 
Guṇasandhi (Vowel raising).
The "guṇasandhi" takes place when a word final -"a" is followed by either -"i, -u" or -"r̥." The sandhi yields -"ē, -ō" and -"ar" respectively. -"ē, -ō" and -"ar" are collectively called the "guṇa"s, hence the name.
Vr̥ddhisandhi (Diphthongization).
The "vr̥ddhisandhi," from Sanskrit "vr̥ddhi-," 'growth', takes place when a word final -"a" is followed by -"ē" or -"ai, -ō" or "-au", and -"ar" or -"ār", and yields "-ai, -au" and -"ār" respectively. "-ai, -au" and -"ār" are collectively called the "vr̥ddhi"s, hence the name.
Yaṇādēśasandhi (Glide insertion).
The "yaṇādēśasandhi" takes place when word final -"i, -u" or -"r̥" is followed by a non-similar vowel. The sandhi yields either -"y-, -v-" or "-r-" respectively. These are known as the "yaṇā"s.
Native sandhis.
These sandhis usually occur when one or both of the words is a native Telugu word, or is a Sanskrit borrowing that is treated as such (ex. "iṣṭamu").
Akārasandhi (Elision of a).
This sandhi occurs when a word final -"a" is followed by any vowel. The word final -"a" is removed, and the following vowel takes its place.
Ikārasandhi.
This sandhi occurs when a word final -"i" is followed by any vowel. The word final -"i" is removed, and the following vowel takes its place.
Ukārasandhi.
This sandhi occurs when a word final -"u" is followed by any vowel. The word final -"u" is removed, and the following vowel takes its place.
Trikasandhi.
One of the most complicated of the sandhis, the "trikasandhi" is of two forms:
Āmrēḍitasandhi.
This sandhi deals with repeated words, i.e., pairs of same words. This sandhi forms some of the most used irregular-looking words in the language. It has three rules:
Dviruktaṭakārasandhi.
Sometimes regarded as a form of the "āmrēḍitasandhi", the dviruktaṭakārasandhi occurs when "kaḍādi" ("kaḍa, naḍuma, madhyāhnamu, bayalu," etc.) words are compounded. A "dviruktaṭakāra," a geminated -"ṭṭ"- forms from this sandhi, hence the name.
Samasam or nominal compounds.
Samasam or samasa occurs with various structures, but morphologically speaking they are essentially the same: each noun (or adjective) is in its (weak) stem form, with only the final element receiving case inflection.
Some of the Telugu samasams are:
Alankaram or ornamentation.
Telugu Alankaram is a figure of speech which means ornaments or embellishments which are used to enhance the beauty of the poems. There are two types of Alankarams, 'Shabdalankaram' which primarily focuses on Sound and 'Arthalamkaram' which focuses on meaning. These two alankarams are further broken down in to different categories. 
shabdalankaras are 6 types where as there are nearly 30 to 40 types in ardhalankaras.
Chandassu or Telugu prosody.
Metrical poetry in Telugu is called 'Chandassu' or 'Chandas'. ya-maa-taa-raa-ja-bhaa-na-sa-la-gam is called the chandassu chakram. Utpalamala, Champakamala, Mattebha vikreeditham, Sardoola Vikreeditham, Kanda, Aata veladi, Theta geethi, Sragdhara, Bhujangaprayata, etc. are some metrics used in Telugu poetry.
Prakruti and Vikruti.
Telugu has many Tatsama words. They are called Prakruti, which are equivalent to Sanskrit words. The equivalent colloquial words are called Vikruti, which means distorted. However, Prakruti is only used as a medium of instruction in educational institutions, offices etc.
For example: 