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Hindi-Urdu Grammar
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Bilabial | Labio- dental | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Post-alv./ Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Stop | p ph | b bh | t th | d dh | ṭ ṭh | ḍ ḍh | k kh | g gh | q | |||||||
Affricate | c ch | j jh | ||||||||||||||
Nasal | m | n | ṇ | ñ | ṅ | |||||||||||
Fricative | f | s | z | ṣ | ś | x | ġ | ḥ | h | |||||||
Tap or Flap | r | ṛ ṛh | ||||||||||||||
Approximant | v | y | ||||||||||||||
Lateral approximant | l |
Hindi-Urdu distinguishes two genders, two numbers, and three cases of direct, oblique, and vocative. Nouns may be further divided into declensional subtypes, type-I and type-II, with the basic difference being that the former has characteristic terminations in the direct singular while the latter does not. An alternative assessment of this division would be that of respectively "marked and unmarked" nouns.
The below table displays the suffix paradigms. A hyphen symbol (for the marked) denotes change amongst terminations, whereas a plus sign (for the unmarked) denotes termination addition.
Sg. | Pl. | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dir. | Obl. | Dir. | Obl. | Voc. | ||
Masc. | I | -ā | -e | -õ | -o | |
II | +õ | +o | ||||
Fem. | I | -ī, -i, -iyā | -iyā̃ | -iyõ | -iyo | |
II | +ẽ | +õ | +o |
The next table of noun declensions, mostly adapted from Shapiro (2003:263), shows the above suffix paradigms in action. Words: laṛkā "boy", kuā̃ "well", seb "apple", pitā "father", cākū "penknife", ādmī "man", mitra "friend", laṛkī "girl", śakti "power", ciṛiyā "bird", kitāb "book", aurat "woman", bhāṣā "language".
Sg. | Pl. | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dir. | Obl. | Dir. | Obl. | Voc. | ||
Masc. | I | laṛkā kuā̃ | laṛke kuẽ | laṛkõ kuõ | laṛko | |
II | seb pitā cākū ādmī mitra | sebõ pitāõ cākuõ ādmiyõ mitrõ | pitāo ādmiyo mitro | |||
Fem. | I | laṛkī śakti ciṛiyā | laṛkiyā̃ śaktiyā̃ ciṛiyā̃ | laṛkiyõ śaktiyõ ciṛiyõ | laṛkiyo | |
II | kitāb bhāṣā aurat | kitābẽ bhāṣāẽ aurtẽ | kitābõ bhāṣāõ aurtõ | aurto |
Adjectives may be divided into declinable and indeclinable categories. Declinables are marked, through termination, for the gender, number, case of the nouns they qualify. The set of declinable adjective terminations is similar but greatly simplified in comparison to that of noun terminations —
Dir. sg. | All else | ||
---|---|---|---|
Decl. | Masc. | -ā | -e |
Fem. | -ī | ||
Indecl. |
Indeclinable adjectives are completely invariable, and can end in either consonants or vowels (including ā and ī ). A number of declinables display nasalization of all terminations. Dir. masc. sg. (-ā) is the citation form.
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All adjectives can be used either attributively, predicatively, or substantively. Substantively they are of course declined as nouns rather than adjectives.
sā (~ se ~ sī) is a suffix for adjectives, modifying or lightening their meaning; giving them an "-ish" or "quite" sense. e.g. nīlā "blue" → nīlā-sā "bluish". Its emphasis is rather ambiguous, sometimes enhancing, sometimes toning down, the sense of the adjective.
Comparisons are made by using "than" (the postposition se; see below), "more" (aur, zyādā), and "less" (kam). The word for "more" is optional, while "less" is required, denoting that in the absence of either "more" will be inferred.
Hindi-Urdu | Literal | Meaning |
---|---|---|
Gītā Gautam se lambī hai | Gita is tall than Gautam | Gita is taller than Gautam |
Gītā Gautam se aur lambī hai | Gita is more tall than Gautam | |
Gītā Gautam se kam lambī hai | Gita is less tall than Gautam |
In the absence of an object of comparison ("more" of course is now no longer optional):
Hindi-Urdu | Literal | Meaning |
---|---|---|
zyādā baṛā chokrā | The more big lad | The bigger lad |
chokrā zyādā baṛā hai | The lad is more big | The lad is bigger |
Superlatives are made through comparisons with "all" (sab).
Hindi-Urdu | Literal | Meaning |
---|---|---|
sabse sāf kamrā | The clean than all room | The cleanest room |
kamrā sabse sāf hai | The room is clean than all | The room is the cleanest |
In Sanskritized and Persianized registers of Hindi-Urdu, comparative and superlative adjectival forms using suffixes derived from those languages can be found.
Sanskrit | Persian | |
---|---|---|
Comp. ("-er") | -tar | |
Sup. ("-est") | -tam | -tarīn |
The aforementioned inflectional case system only goes so far on its own, and rather serves as that upon which is built a system of agglutinative suffixes or particles known as postpositions, which parallel English's prepositions. It is their use with a noun or verb that necessitates the noun or verb taking the oblique case (though the bare oblique is also minorly used adverbially), and it is with them that the locus of grammatical function or "case-marking" then lies. There are six such one-word primary postpositions:
Beyond these are a large range of compound postpositions, composed of the genitive primary postposition kā in the oblique form (ke, kī) plus an adverb.
Hindi-Urdu has personal pronouns for the first and second persons, while for the third person demonstratives are used, which can be categorized deictically as proximate and non-proximate. Pronouns distinguish cases of direct, oblique, and dative. The lattermost, often called a set of "contracted" forms, is in free variation with the oblique case plus dative postposition. Pronouns do not distinguish gender.
Also displayed in the below table are the genitive pronominal forms to show that the 1st and 2nd pronouns have their own distinctive forms of merā, hamārā, terā, tumhārā apart from the regular formula of OBL. + kā; as well as the ergative pronominal forms to show that the postposition ne does not straightforwardly suffix the oblique bases: rather than *mujh ne and *tujh ne, direct bases are used giving mai ne and tū ne, and rather than in ne and un ne, it's inhõ ne and unhõ ne.
tū, tum, and āp are the three second person pronouns ("you"), constituting a three-fold scale of sociolinguistic formality: respectively "intimate", "familiar", and "polite". The "intimate" is grammatically singular while the "familiar" and "polite" are grammatically plural. When being referred to in the third person however, only those of the "polite" level of formality are grammatically plural. The following table is adapted from Shapiro (2003:265).
Personal | Demonstrative | Relative | Interrogative | ||||||||||
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1st pn. | 2nd pn. | 3rd pn. | |||||||||||
Sg. | Pl. | Sg. | Pl. | Prox. | Non-prox. | ||||||||
Int. | Fam. | Pol. | Sg. | Pl./Pol. | Sg. | Pl./Pol. | Sg. | Pl. | Sg. | Pl. | |||
Direct | mãĩ | ham | tū | tum | āp | ye | vo | jo | kaun, kyā | ||||
Oblique | mujh | tujh | is | in | us | un | jis | jin | kis | kin | |||
Dative | mujhe | hamẽ | tujhe | tumhẽ | āp ko | ise | inhẽ | use | unhẽ | jise | jinhẽ | kise | kinhẽ |
Genitive | merā | hamārā | terā | tumhārā | āp kā | is kā | in kā | us kā | un kā | jis kā | jin kā | kis kā | kin kā |
Ergative | mai ne | ham ne | tū ne | tum ne | āp ne | is ne | inhõ ne | us ne | unhõ ne | jis ne | jinhõ ne | kis ne | kinhõ ne |
Interrogative | Relative | Demonstrative | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Prox. | Non-prox. | |||
Time | kab | jab | ab | tab |
Place | kahā̃ | jahā̃ | yahā̃ | vahā̃ |
kidhar | jidhar | idhar | udhar | |
Quantity | kitnā | jitnā | itnā | utnā |
Quality | kaisā | jaisā | aisā | vaisā |
Manner | kaise | jaise | aise | vaise |
Hindi-Urdu has few underived forms. Adverbs may be derived in ways such as the following —
The Hindi-Urdu verbal system is largely structured around a combination of aspect and tense/mood. Like the nominal system, the Hindi-Urdu verb involves successive layers of (inflectional) elements to the right of the lexical base.
Hindi-Urdu has 3 aspects: perfective, habitual, and continuous, each having overt morphological correlates. These are participle forms, inflecting for gender and number by way of a vowel termination, like adjectives. The perfective, though displaying a "number of irregularities and morphophonemic adjustments", is the simplest, being just the verb stem followed by the agreement vowel. The habitual forms from the imperfective participle; verb stem, plus -t-, then vowel. The continuous forms periphrastically through compounding (see below) with the perfective of rahnā "to stay".
Derived from honā "to be" are five copula forms: present, past, subjunctive, presumptive, contrafactual (aka "past conditional"). Used both in basic predicative/existential sentences and as verbal auxiliaries to aspectual forms, these constitute the basis of tense and mood.
Non-aspectual forms include the infinitive, the imperative, and the conjunctive. Mentioned morphological conditions such the subjunctive, "presumptive", etc. are applicable to both copula roots for auxiliary usage with aspectual forms and to non-copula roots directly for often unspecified (non-aspectual) finite forms.
Finite verbal agreement is with the nominative subject, except in the transitive perfective, where it is with the direct object, with the erstwhile subject taking the ergative construction -ne (see postpositions above). The perfective aspect thus displays split ergativity.
Tabled below on the left are the paradigms for adjectival concord (), here only slightly different from that introduced previously: the f. pl. can nasalize under certain conditions. To the right are the paradigms for personal concord (), used by the subjunctive.
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The sample verb is intransitive dauṛnā "to run", and the sample inflection is 3rd. masc. sg. ( = e, = ā) where applicable.
Non-aspectual | Aspectual | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Non-finite |
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Finite |
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Notes
Sg | Pl. | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st. | 2nd. | 3rd. | 1st. | 2nd. | 3rd. | ||
Pron. | mãĩ | tū | vo | ham | tum | āp | vo |
Pres. | hū̃ | hai | hãĩ | ho | hãĩ | ||
Subj. | hū̃ | ho | hõ | ho | hõ |
Root | Perf. Stem | Imperative | Subj. Stem | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Fam. | Pol. | |||
ho- "be" | hu- | |||
jā- "go" | ga- | |||
kar- "do" | ki- | kījie | ||
de- "give" | di- | do | dījie | d- |
le- "take" | li- | lo | lījie | l- |
pī- "drink" | pījie |
Transitives or causatives are morphologically contrastive in Hindi-Urdu, leading to the existence of related verb sets divisible along such lines. While the derivation of such forms shows patterns, they do reach a level of variegation so as to make it somewhat difficult to outline all-encompassing rules. Furthermore, some sets may have as many as four to five distinct members; also, the meaning of certain members of given sets may be idiosyncratic.
Starting from intransitive or transitive verb stems further transitive/causative stems are produced according to these assorted rules —
The following are sets culled from Shapiro (2003:270) and Snell & Weightman (1989:243-244). The lack of third members displayed for the ghūmnā to dhulnā sets does not imply that they do not exist but that they were simply not listed in the source literature (Snell & Weightman 1989:243). Intransitive verbs are coloured brown while transitives remain the usual black.
In the causative model of "to cause to be Xed", the agent takes the postposition se. Thus Y se Z banvānā "to cause Z to be made by Y" = "to cause Y to make Z" = "to have Z made by Y" = "to have Y make Z", etc.
Compound verbs, a highly visible feature of Hindi–Urdu grammar, consist of a verbal stem plus an auxiliary verb. The auxiliary (variously called "subsidiary", "explicator verb", and "vector") loses its own independent meaning and instead "lends a certain shade of meaning" to the main/stem verb, which "comprises the lexical core of the compound". While most any verb can act as a main verb, there is a limited set of productive auxiliaries. Shown below are prominent such auxiliaries, with their independent meaning first outlined, followed by their semantic contribution as auxiliaries.
The above three are the most common of auxiliaries, and the "least marked", or "lexically nearly colourless". The nuance laden by an auxiliary can often be very subtle and as well is not necessarily grounds for a rendering in different words upon translation to English as the examples here might conveniently show. lenā and denā, transitive verbs, occur with transitives, while intransitive jānā occurs mostly with intransitives; a compound of a transitive and jānā will be grammatically intransitive as jānā is.
Finally, having to do with the manner of an occurrence, compounds verbs are mostly used with completed actions and imperatives, and much less with negatives, conjunctives, and contexts continuous or speculative. This is because non-occurrences cannot be described to have occurred in a particular manner.
Another notable aspect of Hindi–Urdu grammar is that of "conjunct verbs", composed of a noun or adjective paired up with a general verbalizer, most commonly transitive karnā "to do" or intransitive honā "to be(come)", functioning in the place of what in English would be single unified verb.
In the case of an adjective as the non-verbal element, it is often helps to think of karnā "to do" as supplementally having the senses of "to cause to be", "to make", "to render", etc.
Adjective | Conjunct | Literal | Meaning |
---|---|---|---|
sāf clean | sāf karnā | to do clean | to clean |
niyukt appointed | niyukt karnā | to do appointed | to appoint |
band closed | band honā | to become closed | to close |
xatm finished | xatm honā | to become finished | to finish |
In the case of a noun as the non-verbal element, it is treated syntactically as the verb's (direct) object (never taking the ko marker; governing agreement in perfective and infinitival constructions), and the semantic patient (or agent: see gālī khānā below) of the conjunct verbal expression is often expressed/marked syntactically as a genitive adjunct (-kā ~ ke ~ kī) of the noun.
Noun | Conjunct | Conjunct + patient | Literal | Meaning |
---|---|---|---|---|
intazār wait | intazār karnā | kisī kā intazār karnā | to do somebody's wait | to wait for somebody |
istemāl use | istemāl karnā | fon kā istemāl karnā | to do a phone's use | to use a phone |
bāt talk | bāt karnā | Samīr kī bāt karnā | to do Sameer's talk | to talk about Sameer |
pratiṣṭhā installation | pratiṣṭhā karnā | mūrti kī pratiṣṭhā karnā | to do an idol's installation | to install an idol |
gālī curse | gālī khānā | sanam kī gālī khānā | to eat a lover's curse | to be cussed out by one's lover |
With English it is the verb stems themselves that are used.
Verb stem | Conjunct | Meaning |
---|---|---|
caik check | caik karnā | to check |
bor bore | bor honā | to be bored |
The passive construction is periphrastic. It is formed from the perfective participle by addition of the auxiliary jānā "to go"; i.e. likhnā "to write" → likhā jānā "to be written". The agent is marked by the postposition se. Furthermore, both intransitive and transitive verbs may be grammatically passivized to show physical/psychological incapacity, usually in negative sentences. Lastly, intransitives often have a passive sense, or convey unintentional action.
With regards to word order, Hindi-Urdu is an SOV language. In terms of branching, it is neither purely left- or right-branching, and phenomena of both types can be found. The order of constituents in sentences as a whole lacks governing "hard and fast rules", and frequent deviations can be found from normative word position, describable in terms of a small number of rules, accounting for facts beyond the pale of the label of "SOV".
Possession, reflecting what many other languages indicate via the verb to have, is reflected in Hindi-Urdu by the genitive kā (inflected appropriately) or the postposition ke pās and the verb honā. Possible objects of possession (nouns) fall into two main categories in Hindi-Urdu: one for persons such as family members, or body parts, and the other for most inanimate objects, animals, most abstract ideas, and some persons such as servants.
At morphological level, the differences between Hindi and Urdu are mostly in the area of vocubalary. But there are few other differences also, whcic are:
Language | Transliterated sentence | Translated meaning (in English) |
---|---|---|
Hindi | mujhey kitaab chaahiye mujhey kitaabe'n chaahiye | I need the book. I need the books. |
Urdu | mujhey kitaab chaahiye mujhey kitaabe'n chaahiye'n | I need the book. I need the books. |
Language | Transliterated sentence | Translated meaning (in English) |
---|---|---|
Hindi | mujhey kuchh kitaabe'n khariidnii hai'n | I need to buy some books. |
Urdu | mujhey kuchh kitaabe'n khariidnii hai'n mujhey kuchh kitaabe'n khariidnaa hai'n mujhey kuchh kitaabe'n khariidnaa hai | I need to buy some books. I need to buy some books. I need to buy some books. |
Language | Transliterated sentence | Translated meaning (in English) |
---|---|---|
Hindi | un-ko dekh ham ro paRey | On seeing him we burst into tears. |
Urdu | un-ko dekh-kar ham ro paRey | On seeing him we burst into tears. |
The following sentence, however, will be same in both Hindi and Urdu: | ||
Hindi/Urdu | un-sey jaa-kar miliye | Please go and meet him. |
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