Download 3. NI in Hindi

1. Introduction
Two kinds of verb formation are found in Hindi1: simple verbs and complex verbs.
Examples of the former are calnaa (walk) and caRhnaa (climb) etc and the examples of
the latter are aarambh karnaa (start) bhang karnaa (end) etc. Figure 1 shows the types of
Hindi verbs in a tree diagram.
Hindi Verbs
Simple
Complex
calnaa (walk)
Conjunct
aarambh karnaa
(start-do ‘start’)
Compound
khaa lenaa (eat-take
‘eat’)
Figure1. Types of Hindi Verbs
Complex verbs, also known as Complex Predicates (CP), are formed in two ways in
Hindi. The first type is known as Conjunct Verbs. Here, the first member is either a noun
or an adjective. Examples 1 and 2 are the instances of this process. The conjunct verbs
are marked in boldface.
1. usne
sabhaa aarambh kii
Pron-erg N
N
V
(s)he-erg convention start
do.
‘(S)he started the convention’
2. usne
bacce ko shaant kiya
Pron-erg N
acc Adj
V
(s)he-erg child acc pacify do
‘(S)he pacified the baby’
In Example 1 we see a noun+verb sequence, and in 2 that of an adjective+verb.
The second type of complex verb construction found in Hindi is a verb+verb
combination. This type of verb is known as a Compound Verb (CV). The first or the main
verb is in its stem or some other non-finite form while the second verb is in a
1
Hindi is a language of the Indo-Aryan family spoken in parts of Northern India.
1
morphologically finite form bearing the relevant inflections such as person, number,
gender, tense, aspect and modality. In example 3 and 4 CVs are marked in boldface.
3. usne
saaraa khaanaa
Pron-erg adj
N
(S)He -erg all
food
‘He ate all the food’
khaa lia
V1 V2
eat
take
4. vah
ghar calaa gaya
Pron
N
V1
V2
he
home went
past
‘He went home’.
Here, we undertake a detailed study of the CPs in Hindi. We have chosen a
special type of conjunct verb, i.e., Noun+Verb (henceforth N+V) and compound verb
(henceforth CV) as the domain of our investigation.
The paper is divided into following sections. Section 2 states the motivation of the
study, section 3 deals with the N+V combinations in different languages and then the
tests to identify them in Hindi. Section 4 discusses the compound verbs in Hindi, section
5 talks about Verb Knowledge Base and the way to deal with the CPs therein. Section 6
concludes the paper and gives future direction.
2. Motivation
The motivation of this work comes from the building of the Hindi Wordnet (HWN), a
lexical database for Hindi [1]. Here, a concept is denoted by a synonym set (synset).
Thus, {ghar, kamraa} in one synset gives the sense of room and {ghar, makaan} together
represents the concept of house. These synsets are then linked with each other through
the well known semantic relations hypernymy, hyponymy, meronymy, holonymy,
antonymy, entailment, troponymy and form a net like structure.
In the process of building the HWN we have to deal with CPs and the question of
how they are to be stored in the database. Since, there are large numbers of CPs in Hindi
we need to have a uniform way to deal with these cases.
It has been found that the nouns denoting action always come with a verb in
Hindi. It is not possible to construct a sentence with those nouns without combining them
with a verb. For example, advice in English has two different constructions:
5. He advised me on road safety.
6. He gave me advice on road safety.
give advice in English is similar to Hindi paraamarsh denaa. In Hindi, it is possible to
have a structure like 6 but not 5. Thus, the question arises whether to store paraamarsh or
paraamarsh denaa in HWN. There are two possible ways of solving this:
a. to keep paraamarsh in the lexicon and then to link it with the verb with which
it co-occurs
2
This solution is the simplest and syntactically too in terms of the argument
structure of the associated verb and the agreement properties there is no problem.
But, there is a semantic mismatch. Consider chalaang maarnaa (dive). There are
two senses of maarnaa in Hindi: beat and kill. None of these senses match with
the maarnaa in chalaang maarnaa (dive). This approach appears to miss one
property of these constructions.
b. to keep paraamarsh denaa as a single entry in the lexicon and then to specify
its syntactic and semantic features
The problem with this analysis is this we cannot keep all such
constructions readily in the lexicon. In many instances the noun is really an object and
there is no need to store it as a lexical unit along with the verb. So, it is necessary to
separate the conjunct verbs from other N+V sequences.
The V+V constructions are also difficult to deal with and describe since there are
other homotactic sequences found in the language. Consider,
7. raam kitaab parh
rahaa hai
ram book
V1
V2 is
‘Ram is reading the book’
8. raam ne kitaab parh daalii
ram erg book
V1
V2
‘Ram read the book’ [finish]
rahaa ‘is’ in 7 marks the progressive aspect where as daalaa ‘put’ in 8 says something
more than completeness, i.e., about the attitude (somehow finished). Thus, the verb in 7
will not be stored in the lexicon where as 8 may be. This is due to the shade of meaning
that daalnaa ‘put’ adds.
3. Related work
A large number of Hindi verbs are N+V combinations. This phenomenon is seen cross
linguistically and is treated as Noun Incorporation (NI) in the literature. The major
question to answer with this type of verb construction concerns the status of the noun,
i.e., whether the noun is incorporated into the verb complex or if the noun is an
overt argument of the verb. Consider the two combinations caae lenaa ‘to take tea’ and
jamhaaii lenaa ‘to yawn’. In the former case caae ‘tea’ is an overt object of the verb
whereas in the latter jamhaaii ‘yawn’ is incorporated.
Mohanan (1995) was the first to explicitly claim that Hindi has incorporation [2].
In doing so, she drew on morpho-syntactic as well as semantic evidence. Peter Hook
dealt with the incorporation in Hindi and Urdu [3]. According to him one criterion to
distinguish IN from unincorporated nouns in these languages is the gender agreement.
Hook argues that if a noun is incorporated in a verb then it strips of its identity as a direct
object noun and is "incorporated" into the verb as an integral part of it. As a part of the
verb it cannot be a direct object and cannot affect the verb's inflection. Hook’s claim
regarding the agreement pattern of incorporated noun in Hindi is not visible uniformly.
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There are a large number of counter examples where this pattern is not seen. Dayal
(2003) also notices this fact and concludes that incorporated nouns are syntactically
visible and can function like regular arguments- atleast for the purpose of agreement [5].
Mohanan too has identified this phenomenon and remarked “In complex predicates, if the
nominal predicate is logically transitive, and its second participant is a logical object, this
object is selected as the grammatical object of the complex predicate.”[6]
3. NI in Hindi
Based on the complexities exhibited by incorporated nouns, following tests are used to
identify an incorporated noun from the case dropped object nouns. The tests used for
accomplishing this task include:
A. Adding the accusative Case Marker
B. Constituency Test
i. Movement Test
ii. Conjunct Response test
iii. Coordination test
C. Adding of the Adjectives
3.1. Adding the accusative Case Marker
To identify the syntactic status of the object noun, accusative (acc) case is assigned to it.
The aim of this test is to see whether the sentence is acceptable after overtly case marking
the object with the accusative case. The object noun will allow accusative marking which
an incorporated noun will not or ought not to.
Primary objects in Hindi are either acc with the marker ko or are marked
nominative (nom), i.e., bare nominal. A widely accepted generalization with regard to
objects in Hindi is that the canonical case for animate objects is acc and for inanimate
objects it is nom. This is a phenomenon found in many South Asian languages [7Kac].
The inanimate object can bear acc case if it is definite.
In Hindi, a large number of conjunct verbs are found with inanimate nouns. In this
test these inanimate nouns are marked with a definite marker to make it possible for them
to be assigned acc case. These were given to native speakers to judge their acceptability
or correctness. Consider the following examples
9. a. raam ne caae lii
ram erg tea take
‘Ram took tea’
b. raam ne us
caae ko liyaa jo
khulii thii
ram erg that tea acc take which open was
‘Ram took that tea which was not covered ’
10. a. raam ne jamhaaii lii
ram erg yawn
take
‘Ram yawned’
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b.* raam ne us jamhaaii ko liyaa
ram erg that yawn
acc take
‘Ram took that yawn’
11. a. vah mere kaam me rucii
letii hai
(s)he my work in interest take is
‘She takes interest in my work’
b. *usne mere kaam me us rucii
ko
lii
jo
(s)he my work in that interest acc take which....
‘(s)he takes that interest in my work which ....’
In 9 the direct object of the verb lenaa (take) is caae (tea). 9a is without an acc
marker and 9b is marked acc and both of them are acceptable. In 10 and 11 jamhaaii
(yawn) and ruci (interest) appears in the direct object position. 10a and 11a are without
the acc marker and acceptable but 10b and 11b are marked unacceptable when they bear
the acc marker.
3.2 Constituency Test
Three tests are discussed here. The first test is the movement test. It tries to see whether
the incorporated noun can move from its preverbal position, i.e., the canonical position.
Second, the constituent response test is applied to see whether a given N+V combination
behaves as a constituent or not. Third, the coordination test examines whether an
incorporated noun can also be coordinated or conjoined with other nouns in the direct
object position.
i. Movement of the Noun: This test is applied to see whether the incorporated nouns in
Hindi can be moved from its canonical position. If it is possible to move objects in Hindi
to non-canonical (for example, postverbal) positions is it also possible with the
incorporated nouns? If the N+V combination forms a single constituent then the
incorporated noun will resist movement from its position near the verb.
Two types of sentences are formed with the same N+V combination. In the first
sentence the noun is adjacent to the verb and in the second sentence it is moved away
from the verb. These two constructions were judged by the native speakers. Consider the
following examples. The noun that is moved is in boldface.
12a.usne subaha uthkar caae lii
Pron morning wake tea take past.
having woken up in the morning (s)he took tea’
b. caae usne subaha uthkar lii
tea Pron morning wake take past.
‘having woken up in the morning (s)he took tea’
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13a kahaani ne dukhaant ruup liaa
story
erg tragic shape take past.
‘the story took a form of tragic ending’
b.*ruup kahaanii ne dukhaant liaa
shape story erg tragic take past.
‘the story took a form of tragic ending’
14a.usne pratiyogita me bhaag liaa
Pron competition in part take.
‘(S)he took part in the competition’.
b.*bhaag usne pratiyogita me liaa
part
Pron competition in take.
‘(S)he took part in the competition’.
All the b counter parts in the above examples are instances where the noun has been
moved from its canonical position. In 12b caae ‘tea’ is the actual object of the verb lenaa
‘take’. Both 12a and b are marked acceptable.13a and 14a are declared acceptable by the
speakers but 13b and 14b in which the nouns are moved from their canonical position are
marked unacceptable. This argues for the fact that even though Hindi has a relatively free
word order it resists movement when it comes to NI. Two or more elements that form a
constituent cannot be moved independent of each other. Thus, ruup lenaa ‘take a shape’
and bhaag lenaa ‘take part’ are considered as cases of NI.
ii. Constituent Response Test: This test is applied to see whether a given N+V
combination behaves as one constituent or not. Consider the following N+V sequences
jamhaaii lenaa ‘yawn take ’, chalaang maarnaa ‘jump beat’.
15. raam ne jamhaaii lii
ram erg yawn
take
‘Ram yawned’
16. raam ne chalaang marii
ram erg jump
beat
‘Ram dived’
In order to get a meaningful response about the action denoted by 15 and 16 we framed
questions in the following manner:
17a. usne kyaa kiyaa (What did he do?)
17b. and not What did he take?
18a. usne kyaa kiyaa (What did he do?)
18b. and not usne kyaa maaraa (What did he beat?)
Now consider, 19
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19. vah bazaar se phal laayaa hai
he market from fruit brought is
‘he brought fruits from the market’
To get a meaningful response about the action in 19 the question may be formed in the
following ways:
20a. vah kya laayaa (What did he bring?)
20b. or usne kyaa kiyaa (What did he do?)
Questions identify or replace single constituents and the fact that one must question N+V
suggests that they form a single constituent. Not so in the case of phal laanaa ‘bring
fruit’
iii. Coordination Test: This test is to verify if the noun that is assumed to be an
incorporated noun can be conjoined with another noun, i.e., does it form an independent
constituent. Coordination is possible only between identical syntactic constituents.
21. log
caae aur namkin le rahe the
people tea and snack take prog past
‘people were taking tea and snacks’
22. *log
niind aur jamhaaii le rahe the
people sleep and yawn
take prog past
‘people were taking sleep and yawn’
23. *usne bacce
ko ksamaa aur vidaa
kii
(S)he children acc forgive and farewell do
‘(S)he forgave and bade farewell to the children’
The above test shows that the N+V combination has the status of one lexical or syntactic
unit.
3.3 Adding of the Adjectives
True arguments may be modified by adjectives, determiners, numerals, sentences etc.
The Noun Phrase (NP) can have very rich structure. Incorporated nouns do not permit
such modifiers, i.e., they are bare nouns not NPs.
24. usne jor se dhakka maaraa
Pron ADV push
beat
(S)he pushed heavily.
25. usne
merii bahut madad kii
Pron me
ADV help
do
‘(S)he helped me a lot’
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The modifier jor se ‘heavily’ in 24 modifies the whole sequence dhakkaa maarnaa
‘push-beat’ and in 25 bahut ‘lot’ modifies madad karnaa ‘help-do’ and not karnaa ‘do’.
3.4. Features of NI
NI has certain semantic and syntactic properties as we saw in the previous sections.
These properties of NI convince us to deal with them as a result of lexical compounding.
These are listed here.
I. A possible trigger for NI is either the noun or the verb that is morphologically defective
and cannot appear as independent word. In Eskimo languages there are certain verbs that
are simply subcategorized to attach to a Noun. Polysynthetic languages have defective
determiners. Baker (1996) [8] calls it defective because the determiners cannot govern
the nouns and so the latter have to adjoin to the verb to get case. Similarly, in Hindi some
nouns only appear in the N+V collocations.
II. As noted by Mithun (1984) [9] and others, incorporated inanimates tend to be more
common than incorporated animates. The same is found in Hindi. There are rare
instances of animate incorporation in the language.
III. It is noted that there are certain idiosyncratic features of the noun that is adjoined to
the verb in a possible N+V combination. Thus, jamhaaii ‘yawn’ will be attached with the
verb lenaa ‘take’ and not with any other verb. The verb with which a noun attaches is
arbitrarily selected and is possibly determined lexically. This is a strong reason for the
debate that NI is lexical in Hindi and not syntactic.
IV. The meanings of incorporated structures are often non-compositional. jamhaaii lenaa
refers to ‘yawn’ and not physically taking anything like caae lenaa ‘take tea’. This
feature argues for the semantic lightness of the verb. The verbs to which the noun is
adjoined in Hindi is semantically null, i.e, it has nothing to do with its original meaning
seen in isolated contexts.
Here, we want to make a distinction between the syntactic incorporation and
lexical incorporation. There are cases of syntactic incorporation in Hindi as well.
Consider, 26 taken from Dayal (2003) [6].
26. anu bacchaa/bacche ko sambhaal rahii
Anu child
child-acc is-looking after
‘Anu is looking after children(one or more)/the child’
We will not deal with these cases here but surely we make a difference between syntactic
and lexical incorporation in Hindi. We will call the lexical noun incorporation as lexical
compounding and the resulted verbs as conjunct verbs.
4. Compound Verb
There are many V+V sequences in Hindi. This is a phenomenon seen across the SouthAsian languages. Butt [10] makes a difference between permissive, instructive and
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aspectual complex predicates and takes the stand that complex predicates formation in
Urdu takes place at argument structure. Hook (1991) [11] placed the second verb, i.e., the
light verb in an aspectual complex predicate on a par with auxiliaries in the language.
Bashir [12] identified the compound verbs of Kalasha and gave a semantic analysis of
them based on prepared and unprepared mind. Fedson [13] has dealt with the semantic
structure of the complex predicates in Tamil and classified them into various groups like
stative, perfective, indication of status, aspectual etc. Pandharipande [14] in her article on
‘Serial Verb Construction in Marathi’ pointed out that V1 and V2 are paired on the basis
of their semantic compatibility, which is subject to syntactic constraints. Paul [15] in her
thesis has dealt with the CVs of Bangla exclusively.
4.1. Compound Verbs in Hindi
In this section we will show different types of V+V sequences. We have identified five
such V+V sequences. These are
1. V1 inf-e+ V2: Here, V1 is in the infinitival form. V2 is always the verb lagnaa ‘attach’
and it bears all the inflections, such as number, gender, tense etc. For example, rone
lagnaa (cry-attach) ‘start crying’, likhne lagnaa (write-attach) ‘start writing’. The
second verb always gives the sense of beginning of an action or happening of an
event. Thus, lagnaa ‘attach’ will be treated as a modal auxiliary.
2. V1 inf+ V2: The V1 is in the infinitival form. V2 is always the verb paRnaa ‘fall’. For
instance, bolnaa paRaa (say-fall) ‘say’, likhnaa paRaa (write-fall) ‘write’. The
second verb in this case always gives the sense of force or compulsion for performing
an action. Thus, this type is also considered as a sequence of verb and a modal
auxiliary.
3. V1 inf-pp+ V2 stem: In this type of verb sequence the V1 is in the infinitival form
with the postposition (pp) ke lie ‘for’. The pp has been shortened to ko. Both the
forms, i.e., ko and ke lie are used. For example, likhne ko/ke lie kahaa ‘asked to
write’, paRhne ko/ke lie diyaa ‘gave to read’. In this type of construction the two
verbs behave independently. This is clear from different syntactic tests. For instance,
27a. us-ne mujhe
khat jaldi se likhne ko kahaa [Scope of Adverb]
Pron-erg Pron-Dat letter quickly write-inf pp say-past
‘He asked me to write the letter quickly’.
27b. us-ne
mujhe
khat likhne
ko jaldi se kahaa.
Pron-erg Pron-Dat letter write-inf pp quickly say-past
‘He asked me quickly to write the letter’.
28a. us-ne mujhe
khat likhne ko nahi kahaa
Pron-erg Pron-Dat letter write-inf pp not say-past
‘He hasn’t asked me to write a letter’.
[Scope of Negation]
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28b. us-ne
mujhe
khat nahi likhne ko kahaa.
Pron-erg Pron-Dat letter not write-inf pp say-past
‘He asked me not to write a letter’.
In 27a the adverb jaldi se ‘quickly’ modifies the first verb likhne ‘to write’ and in 27b the
scope is over the second verb. In 28a the scope of negation is over the first verb and in
28b it is over the second verb. Thus, this type of V+V sequences does not behave as a
single constituent.
4. V1 –kar+ V2: In this type the suffix –kar is attached with V1. For example likhkar
ayaa ‘wrote and came’, lekar gayaa ‘took and went’. This type of construction
denotes two different actions. Different syntactic tests will show it. For instance,
29a. vah jaldi se nahaakar aayegaa. [Scope of Adverb]
Pron quickly bath
come-fut.
‘He will take bath quickly and come’.
29b. vah
nahaakar jaldi se aayegaa.
Pron quickly bath
come-fut.
‘He will take bath quickly and come’.
30a. vah nahii nahaakar ayegaa.
[Scope of Negation]
Pron not bath
come-fut
‘He will come without taking bath’.
30b. vah nahaakar nahii ayegaa.
Pron bath
not come-fut
‘He will not come after taking bath’.
In 29a the scope of the adverb is over the first verb and in 29b the scope is over the
second verb. In 30a the negative marker precedes the first verb and negates it and in 30b
it precedes the second verb and negates it. Thus, this type of V+V sequences does not
behave as a single constituent.
5. V1 stem+ V2: In this type V1 is in the bare form and V2 bears all the inflections, such as
number, gender, tense etc. Examples of such type are maar Daalnaa (kill-put) ‘kill’, likh
lenaa (write-take) ‘write.’ In this case the second verb loses its primary meaning but adds
some semantic shade to the whole sequence. Different syntactic tests show that these
sequences behave as a single constituent. We will discuss it in the next section.
4.2. CV sequence as a Constituent
In this section we will show that even though Hindi CVs consist of typically two verb
forms the construction expresses one functional semantic unit, i.e., a predicate. Following
tests examines the constituency status of CV sequences. Some of these tests are used by
Miriam Butt and Soma Paul for identifying Urdu and Bangla CPs. These are
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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Scope of adverbs
Nominalization
Passivization
Causativization
Scrambling
4.2.1. Scope of adverbs: An adverb generally precedes the verb in Hindi. For instance,
the adverb of manner jaldi jaldi ‘quickly’ and the adverb of completion ek minaTa me
‘within a moment’ precede the verb in 31a and b.
31a. vah jaldi jaldi khaa rahaa hai
Pron quickly eat prog is
‘He is eating quickly.’
31b. us-ne
ek minaTa me
yah kaam kiyaa
Pron-erg within a moment this work do past
‘He did the work within a moment’
The scope of the adverb in 31a and 31b is on the verb khaanaa ‘eat’ and karnaa ‘do’
respectively. An adverb can also follow the verb in Hindi. For instance, the adverb of
manner jaldi jaldi ‘quickly’ and the adverb of completion ek minaTa me ‘within a
moment’ follow the verb in 32a and b.
32a. vah khaa rahaa hai jaldi jaldi
Pron eat prog is quickly
‘he is eating quickly.’
32b. us-ne
yah kaam kiyaa ek minaTa me
Pron-erg this work do past within a moment
‘(S)he did the work within a moment’
An adverb can precede or follow a CV sequence. For example, the adverb of
manner jaldi jaldi ‘quickly’ and the adverb of completion ek minaT me ‘within a
moment’ precede the sequence in 33a and b and follow in 34a and b.
33a. usne jaldi jaldi khaa liaa.
Pron quickly eat take-past
(S)he ate quickly.
33b. usne ek minaT me
ciTThii liikh Daalii
Pron with in a moment letter write put-past
(S)he wrote the letter with in a moment.
34a. usne khaa liaa
jaldi jaldi
Pron eat take-past quickly
(S)he ate quickly.
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34b. usne ciTThii liikh Daalii ek minaT me
Pron letter write put-past with in a moment
(S)he wrote the letter with in a moment.
The semantics of a verb is modified by adequate adverbial function. Since the adverbs
never modify members of a CV individually it is logical to conclude that: irrespective of
its position in a sentence, an adverb never modifies subpart of a CV. It considers the
whole sequence as a single semantic unit and modifies the semantics of the whole
sequence.
4.2.2. Nominalization: Hindi verbs are nominalized by adding the suffix –na to the
bare form of the verb. For example,
35. tairnaa
sehat ke lie acchaa hotaa hai.
Swim-VN health pp
good be is
Swimming is good for health.
The nominalized verbal form tairnaa ‘swimming’ function as a deverbal noun in 35.
When V1 stem+ V2 undergoes nominalization the verbal noun (VN) suffix appears
on V2. For example,
36. yah ciTThii likh Dalnaa asaan nahi thaa.
This letter write put-VN
easy not is-past
‘Writing down this letter was not easy’
37. kitaab purii paRh lene ke baad hi main kuch bol saktaa huuM.
Book whole read take pp emph I some say can
be
‘Only after reading the whole book I can say something’
In 36 and 37 the verbal noun suffix is attached with V2 but the V+V sequence likh
Daalaa ‘write put’ and paRh liya ‘read take’ as a whole function as a verbal noun in 36
and 37.
4.2.3. Passivization: Passivization in Hindi is represented by the auxiliary gayaa
‘went’. This is shown in 38 and 39
38. mujhe bataaya gayaa
ki vah aaj
aayegaa.
I-Dat say-caus go –pass CP Pron today come-fut
‘It has been said to me that he will come today.’
39. yah kaam mujhse karvaayaa gayaa hai.
This work I-Dat-Ins do-caus go-pass is
‘This work has been done by me’
In 38 and 39 the passive morphology gayaa ‘went’ is added after the verbs batanaa ‘say’
and karnaa ‘do’.
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When a CV is passivized the passive morphology follows V2. Consider 40 and 41.
40. Daakuo ko maar Daalaa gayaa thaa.
Dacoits acc kill put
go-pass is-past
‘The dacoits has been killed’.
41. bacce ko vaapas bulaa liyaa gayaa thaa.
Baby acc return call take go-pass is-past
‘The baby was called back’
In 40 and 41 the passive morphology gayaa ‘went’ is added after Daalaa ‘put’ and liyaa
‘take’ and the whole sequence is passivized.
4.2.4. Causativization: In Hindi causativization is represented by adding the suffix
-vaa to the bare form of the verb. This is exemplified in 42 and 43.
42. usne
mujhse yah kaam karvaayaa.
Pron-ne I-dat-ins this work do-caus
‘He made me do this work’
43. raam ne mujhse yah bolvaayaa.
Ram-erg I-dat-ins this say-caus
Ram made me say this.
In 42 and 43 the verbs karnaa ‘do’ and bolnaa ‘say’ is passivized by attaching the suffix
–vaa.
When a CV is causativized the causative suffix is attached to V1. For example,
44. us-ne
mujhse ciTThi likhvaa
Daalii.
Pron-erg I-dat-ins letter write-caus put-past
‘He made me write the letter’
45. usne
mujhse yah kaam karvaa liyaa.
Pron-ne I-dat-ins this work do-caus take
‘He made me do this work’
In 44 and 45 the causative suffix is attached with the V1 likh ‘write’ and kar ‘do’ and the
whole sequence is causativized.
4.2.5. Movement: The two Vs always occur in a sequence. The verb generally occurs at
the end of a clause. Following examples show that CVs resist any sort of movement.
46. *phaaR usne kitaab Daalii
tear he-erg book put
‘He tore up the book’
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47. *Daali usne kitaab PhaaR
put he-erg book tear
‘He tore up the book’
48. *likh usne chiTThii lii
write he-erg letter
take
‘He wrote the letter’
49. * lii usne chiTThii likh
take he-erg letter
write
‘He wrote the letter’
Examples 46-49 show that movement is not possible with the CVs.
4.3. Complex Predicates
The constructions which are similar to the CVs of Hindi are popularly called as Complex
Predicates in the literature. Butt (1995) proposes the following characteristics for the
cross linguistic identification of the CPs [10]. These are:
1. The argument structure is complex (two or more semantic heads contribute to
it)
2. The grammatical function structure is that of a simple predicate (there is only
a single subject and no embedding)
3. CPs can be formed either morphologically (lexically) or syntactically
In this section we will show whether the CVs in Hindi have this characteristic or not.
4.3.1 Argument structure and Case marking: In this section we will discuss the
argument structure and case marking features of the CVs in Hindi.
The verb Daalnaa (put) as a lexical item is subcategorised for the following
frame: Daalnaa‘to put’: [NP_ NP_NP (LOC)_VP]
50. usne
bartan me paanii Daalaa
3 sgPron erg vessel loc water put past Mc sg
‘(s)he put water in the vessel’
When Daalnaa ‘put’ appear as a V2 it behaves in the following way:
51. phaaR Daalnaa‘to tear up’: [NP_NP_VP]
usne
ciTThii
phaaR Daalii
3 sgPron erg letter F
tear put past F sg
‘(s)he tore up the letter’
52. sunaa Daalnaa ‘to say’: [NP_NP (DAT) _NP_VP]
usne
mujhe
saarii kahaanii sunaa Daalii
3sg Pron-erg Pron Dat whole story F tell put past F sg
‘(s)he told me the whole story’
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In 51 and 52 Daalnaa ‘put’ follows the subcategorisation frames of phaaRnaa ‘tear’ and
sunaanaa ‘say’ respectively. The frames for phaaRnaa ‘tear’ and sunaanaa ‘say’ are
given in 53 and 54.


53. phaaRnaa‘to tear’: [NP_NP_VP]
usne
kaagaz phaaRaa

3 sgPron erg paper tear past Mc sg
‘(s)he tore the paper’
54. sunaana ‘to say’: [NP_ NP (DAT)_NP_VP]
usne
mujhe ek
kahaanii sunaayii

3 sg Pron erg I dat one story F tell past F sg
(s)he told me a story’
Following examples will illustrate the case marking pattern for the CVs.
55a. usne
saaraa khaanaa khaayaa
3 sg Pron erg all
food
eat past Mc sg
‘He ate the whole meal/ He ate up everything’
55b. usne
saaraa khaanaa khaa Daalaa
3 sg Pron erg all
food
eat
put-past Mc sg
‘He ate up the whole meal/ He ate up everything’
55c. usne
saaraa khaanaa khaa liyaa
3 sg Pron erg all
food
eat take past Mc sg
‘He ate the whole meal/ He ate everything’
55d. vah
saaraa khaanaa khaa gayaa
3 sg Pron nom all
food
eat go past Mc sg
‘He ate up the whole meal/ He ate up everything’
In 55a, b and c the subject is marked with ergative case whereas in 55d it is the absolutive
case. The verbs khaanaa ‘eat’, Daalaa ‘put’ and lenaa ‘take’ are transitive and assign
ergative case to their subject. jaanaa ‘go’ is an unaccusative verb. Hence, it marks
absolutive case on the subject. Thus, it is clear that the case marking of a CV is
determined by a V2.
Based on the discussion from this section we can conclude that in a CV construction
1.the argument structure is determined by V1
2. case marking is determined by V2
A V1 does not unify with every V2. In the next section we will discuss the semantic
compatibility of the CVs.
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4.3.3 Semantic compatibility of CVs: The combinatorial well-formedness of a CV
depends on the semantic compatibility between the two constituent Vs. We will explain
this here.
The V2 denaa ‘give’ is selected by V1 sikhaanaa ‘teach’ but not with sikhnaa
‘learn’. Consider,
56. usne
mujhe khaanaa banaanaa sikhaa dii
3 sg pron erg I dat food
make
teach give past F sg
‘she taught me how to cook’
57. * usne
khaanaa banaanaa sikh dii
3 sg pron erg food
make learn give past F sg
‘she learnt how to cook’
In both the cases the V1 is a transitive verb but the meaning of sikhnaa ‘learn’ implies that
the learner, the actor, is engaged in an activity of acquiring knowledge. The learner is
also a receiver because he/she acquires the knowledge. The verb denaa ‘give’ requires
that the effect of the action denoted by V2 denaa ‘give’ should be directed towards a
participant other than the actor himself. Thus the semantic entailments of sikhnaa ‘learn’
and denaa ‘give’ are contradictory.
The V2 lenaa ‘take’ is selected by V1 sikhnaa ‘learn’ but not with sikhaanaa
‘teach’. Consider,
57. usne
khaanaa banaanaa sikh lii
3 sg pron erg food
make learn take past F sg
‘she learnt how to cook’
58. *usne
khaanaa banaanaa sikhaa lii
3 sg pron erg food
make teach take past F sg
‘she taught how to cook’
The meaning of sikhaanaa ‘teach’ implies that the actor is engaged in an activity of
imparting knowledge. The teacher is not a receiver because he/she gives the knowledge.
The verb lenaa ‘take’ requires that the effect of the action denoted by V2 lenaa ‘take’
should be directed towards the actor himself. Thus the semantic entailments of sikhaanaa
‘learn’ and lenaa ‘give’ are contradictory. Hence, cannot form a combination.
The V2 Daalnaa ‘put’ is selected by V1 sikhaanaa ‘teach’ but not with sikhnaa
‘learn’. For instance,
59. usne
mujhe
khaanaa banaanaa sikhaa Daalii
3 sg pron erg 1sg pron dat food
make teach put past F sg
‘she taught me how to cook’
60. usne
khaanaa banaanaa sikh Daalii
3 sg pron erg food
make learn put past F sg
‘she learnt how to cook’
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4.4 Semantic properties of V2s
The V2s in a CV construction lose their primary meaning but they add some semantic
shades to the whole construction. We will explore this feature here. We have a list of
possible V2s in Hindi. These verbs are shown in Table1 along with their semantic
properties.
V2
Daalnaa ‘put’
lenaa ‘take’
denaa ‘give’
uThnaa ‘rise’
jaanaa ‘go’
paRnaa ‘fall’
baiThnaa ‘sit’
aanaa ‘come’
maarnaa ‘beat’
Semantic Properties
completion, undesirable outcome, negative value, definiteness,
manner
completion, self beneficiary, definiteness
completion, causative, abrupt action, definiteness
state, instantaneous action
attitude of the speaker, negativity
suddenness, undesirable outcome
undesirable outcome, perfectivity
state, instantaneous action
completion, instantaneous action
Table1
4.3.5 Features of CVs in Hindi: Based on the discussions made in the earlier sections
we enumerate the following features of the Hindi CVs
1. CVs behave as a single semantic unit.
2. The CVs share the grammatical function structure of a simple predicate. They
have a single subject and a single object.
3. In a CV the argument structure is determined by V1 and case marking is
determined by V2.
4. V2 loses its primary meaning and adds different shades of meaning to the whole
construction
5. The combination of V1 and V2 has to be semantically compatible.
Based on this features we propose to keep the CVs in a lexicon known as Verb
Knowledge Base (VKB). We will describe this VKB in the next section.
5. Verb Knowledge Base (VKB)
VKB is a hierarchical arrangement of verbs. We are building a verb knowledge
base for both English and Hindi. In this VKB we take verbs from British National Corpus
(BNC) [] for English verbs and Hindi verbs from CIIL corpus []. Different senses of a
verb are given with help from WordNet 2.0 [], Oxford Genie [] various Hindi dictionaries
[]. Restrictions and case relations are specified in terms of Universal Networking
Language (UNL) [].
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UNL is an electronic language for computers to express and exchange
information. UNL system consists of Universal words (UW) (explained below), relations,
attributes, and the UNL knowledge base (KB). The UWs constitute the vocabulary of the
UNL, relations and attributes constitute the syntax and the UNL KB constitutes the
semantics. The KB defines possible relationships between UWs. UNL represents
information sentence-by-sentence as a hyper-graph with concepts as nodes and relations
as arcs. The representation of the sentence is a hypergraph because a node in the structure
can itself be a graph, in which case the node is called a compound word (CW). Figure 2
represents the sentence John eats rice with a spoon.
@ entry @ present
eat(icl>do)
agt
obj
John
(iof>person)
ins
spoon
(icl>artifact)
rice (icl>food)
Figure 2. UNL graph of John eats rice with a spoon
In this figure, the arcs labeled with agt (agent), obj (object) and ins (instrument) are the
relation labels. The relations between UWs in binary relations have different labels
according to the different roles they play. A relation label is represented as strings of 3
characters or less. The most recent specification of the UNL contains 41 relation labels.
The nodes eat(icl>do), John(iof>person), rice(icl>food) and spoon(icl>artifact) are the
Universal Words (UW). These are language words with restrictions in parentheses. icl
stands for inclusion and iof stands for instance of. UWs can be annotated with attributes
like number, tense etc. which provide further information about how the concept is being
used in the specific sentence. Any of the three restriction labels- icl, iof and equ- can be
attached to an UW for restricting its sense.
After specifying the UNL relations sentence frames and semantic attributes of a verb is
given. Figure 3 is a sample from Hindi VKB. Everywhere, we first give the name of the
verb, followed by UNL relations, an example sentence, gloss, the syntax frame and
finally the grammatical and semantic attributes (VTRANS, VOA-ACT etc.).
calanaa ‘move’
(icl>act(agt>person))
ve loga dhiire dhiire chal rahe hai. ‘They are moving slowly’.
(gaman karnaa) ‘to move’
Frame:NP1; NP1_NOM
[VINT, VOA, VOA-BACT]
 caRhanaa ‘climb’
(icl>move{>act}(agt>person)
ve loga dhiire dhiire chaRha rahe hai. ‘They are climbing slowly.’
upar ki or jaanaa ‘to move upwards’
Frame:NP1; NP1_NOM
[VINT, VOA, VOA-BACT]
Figure3. Sample Example from ‘move class’
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5.1. CPs in Verb Knowledge Base
We propose to keep the conjunct and the compound verbs in the knowledge base
specifying all their semantic and syntactic properties. Thus, a conjunct verb like jamhaai
lenaa ‘yawn’ and a compound verb maar Daalnaa ‘kill’ will be kept in the lexicon as in
61 and 62.
61. jamhaai lenaa ‘yawn’
(icl>act(agt>person))
Frame:NP1; NP1_ERG
[Conj-V, VOA, VOA-BACT]
62. maar Daalnaa ‘kill’
(icl>do (agt>person, obj>living thing))
Frame: NP1 NP2; NP1_ERG, NP2_ACC
[Comp-V, VOA, VOA-VACT, DEF, PERF]
The Frame in 61 specifies that jamhaai lenaa ‘yawn’ marks ergative case to its subject
NP. In the attribute field Conj-V stands for conjunct verb, VOA for verb of action and
VOA-BACT for bodily action. In 62 the subject NP is assigned ergative case and the
object NP is assigned accusative case. Comp-V stands for compound verb, VOA-VACT
for violent action, DEF for definite and PERF for Perfective or completion.
6. Conclusion
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