Hindi verbs

In Hindi, all the verbs have a base form called the infinitive which is marked by the -nā ending of verbs.[2] Some of the most common verbs are: honā (to be), karnā (to do), rêhnā (to stay), calnā (to walk), bolnā (to speak).

Hindi is extremely rich in complex verbs which are formed by the combinations of noun/adjective and a verb. Complex verbs are of two types: transitive and intransitive.[3]

• The transitive verbs are obtained by combining nouns/adjectives with verbs such as karnā ‘to do’, lenā ‘to take’, denā ‘to give’, jītnā ‘to win’ etc.

• The intransitive verbs are formed with the help of verbs such as honā ‘to be/happen’, lagnā ‘to feel’, ānā ‘to come’ etc.

Complex verbs (Complex predicates) are of the following three combinations:

1. Noun + Verb
2. Adjective + Verb
3. Verb + Verb

where the noun, adjective or the first verb contributes the semantic content and the verb or second verb accounts for the syntactic information of the construction. Noun/adjective and verb combinations are termed conjunct verbs, as in (1) and (2) in the examples below whereas the combinations of two verbs are called compound verbs, as in the example (3) below:

In the above five example sentences, there are five types of Hindi verbal constructions which can be grouped into two categories of complex verbs in Hindi, namely, conjunct verbs and compound verbs.[3] (1) and (2) are examples of conjunct verbs since in (1) we find a noun kām ‘work’ and a perfective form of the verb karnā, ‘do’ whereas in (2) the verbal predicate exhibits a complex construction made of two elements, namely an adjective sāf ‘clean’ plus a verb karnā, ‘do’. The examples in (3), on the other hand, are considered be compound verbs as their predicates exhibit two or more than two verbal elements, bol ‘tell’, denā ‘give’, and diyā 'gave'.

There are three primary grammatical aspects in Hindi: Habitual Aspect, Perfective Aspect and Progressive Aspect.[4] Periphrastic Hindi verb forms consist of two elements, the first of these two elements is the aspect marker and the second element is the tense-mood marker.[4] These three aspects are formed from their participle forms being used with the copula verb (honā "to be") of Hindi. However, the primary participles which mark the aspects can be modified periphrastically by adding auxiliary participles constructed from auxiliary verbs of Hindi such as rêhnā (to stay/remain), ānā (to come), jānā (to go) after the primary participle to add a nuance to the aspect.[5][6]

There are five grammatical moods which the three aspects of Hindi can be put into.[1][7] Moods in Hindi are mentioned below:

1. Indicative Mood
2. Presumptive Mood
3. Subjunctive Mood
   • Regular Subjunctive
     • Present Subjunctive
     • Future Subjunctive
   • Perfective Future Subjunctive[8]
4. Contrafactual Mood
   • Conditional
   • Past Subjunctive
5. Imperative Mood
   • Present Imperative
   • Future Imperative[9]

Notes:

• When making an if-clause, the conditional mood is used in both apodosis and the protasis unlike other languages such as the ones in the Romance branch which make use of unique past-subjunctive and conditional verb forms in the apodosis and the protasis, respectively.[10]
• The regular future subjunctive is replaced by the perfective future subjunctive when an if-clause or a relative clause is used.

Subjunctive mood in Hindi can be put into 2 tenses, the present and future tense. The only verb in Hindi that has both the present and future subjunctive conjugations is the verb honā "to be" while all the other verbs only have the future subjunctive conjugations.

The present subjunctive conjugations for the verb honā "to be" are mentioned below. Present subjunctive conjugations of honā "to be" act as copulas that mark present subjunctive when used with aspectual participles.

The future subjunctive forms are constructed the following way by adding the conjugational suffixes to the verb root. The future subjunctive conjugations for the regular verb bolnā "to speak" (the verb root is bol-) is shown below. Future subjunctive conjugations of honā "to be" and rêhnā "to stay" act as copulas that mark future subjunctive when used with aspectual participles.[4]

There are a couple of verbs with irregular future subjunctive forms, they are mentioned below. Every one-syllabled verb root such as in pīnā "to drink", jīnā "to live" and sīnā "to sew" etc change their long vowel ī to short vowel i when conjugated into future subjunctive.

(The conjugations for future perfective subjunctive are the same as past perfect conjugations and they are discussed in the past perfect section below)

There are two future subjunctive moods in Hindi, first the regular subjunctive and the second, the perfective subjunctive which superficially has the same form as the perfect past forms of verbs but still expresses future events, it is only used with if clauses and relative clauses. In a semantic analysis, this use of the perfective aspect marker would not be considered perfective, since it is more closely related to subjunctive usage. Only the superficial form is identical to that of the perfective.[14][8] This usage of perfective past as a future subjunctive is especially common colloquially; by describing the future action with a perfective verb and so stressing its completion.[15]

The regular subjunctive when used implies that the event in question is not envisaged as definetely, but does not at all imply that it is unlikely to come about. It also expresses desire or wish.

1. āp cāhẽ to ma͠i āpse hindi bolū̃gā. — "If you like, I'll speak Hindi you".
2. acchā rahegā agar āp āyẽ — It'll be better if you come.
3. vo cāhtī hai ki ma͠i āū̃. — "she wants that I come."
4. usne bolā ki tum nā jāo. — "s/he said (wanted) that you don't go."

The perfect future subjunctive either assumes that an event will definitely happen or the event is actually going to happen. Perfective future subjunctive are not used with events that are relatively unlikely happeningsː

1. agar vo āye to mujhe usse milvānā. — Introduce me to him in case he comes.
2. jab vo āye to mujhe usse milvānā. — Introduce me to him when he comes.

Usually with if-clauses using either the regular future subjunctive or the perfect future subjunctive will give grammatically correct sentences, the meanings however will be different. There's a nuance of precaution, and perfective (completed) action attached to the future perfective subjunctive, it is also used when giving out warnings, while the regular subjunctive expresses just a desire or wishː

1. agar tūm kaho to ma͠i nahī̃ gāū̃gā — I won't sing if you say. (nuanceː "If you say so then I'll take your advice and won't sing.")
2. agar tūmne (kuch bhī) kahā to ma͠i nahī̃ gāū̃gā — I won't sing if you say (anything). (nuanceː "If you'd say anything to me, I won't sing at all.")

And usually replacing the perfective subjunctive with the regular subjunctive in relative clauses makes the sentence ungrammatical. However, replacing the perfective subjunctive with indicative future would still result in a grammatical sentence but the nuanceː

1. jis din tum āye us din karū̃gā — I'll do it the day you come.
2. *jis din tum āo us din karū̃gā — (intended) I'll do it the day you (will) come.
3. jis din tum āoge us din karū̃gā — I'll do it the day you will come.

The only verb in Hindi that has indicative present tense forms is the verb honā "to be" and all other verbs lack this conjugation. Older forms of Hindi used to have present indicative forms but over time their meaning have change and now those forms are considered the future subjunctive forms which are discussed in the section above. These conjugations act as the present indicative copula with aspectual participles.

Indicative present tense conjugations of honā "to be" act as copulas that mark the indicative present tense when used with aspectual participles.

The indicative perfect conjugations in Hindi are derived from a participle and hence decline according to number and gender of the pronoun and not the pronoun itself. They are constructed by taking the verb root and adding the vowels -ā, -e, -ī, & -ī̃ respectively for masculine singular, masculine plural, feminine singular, and feminine plural. The perfect past conjugation also doubles as the perfective participle. Past perfect conjugations for the regular verb bolnā "to speak" (verb root is bol-) is shown below. Past perfect tense conjugations of honā "to be" and rêhnā "to stay" act as copulas that mark future perfective subjunctive when used with aspectual participles.

There are a couple of verbs that have irregular perfect past forms, these are mentioned belowː

The only verb in Hindi that has indicative present tense forms is the verb honā "to be" and all other verbs lack this conjugation. These indicative imperfect forms of honā "to be" come from Sanskrit स्थित (stʰita) "standing, situated" which are derived from the PIE root *steh₂- (“to stand”).[16] Imperfect past tense conjugations of honā "to be" act as copula that mark indicative imperfect past when used with aspectual participles.

The indicative future tense forms are constructed using the future subjunctive conjugations (which are discussed above) by adding the future marking suffix -gā that declines for the number and the gender of the noun that the pronoun refers to.

The only verb in Hindi that has presumptive mood conjugations is the verb honā "to be" and all other verbs lack this conjugation. These are constructed from the present subjunctive by adding the future suffix -gā. The same conjugation is used for all three tensesː present, past, and future. Presumptive mood conjugations of honā "to be" act as copulas that mark presumptive mood when used with aspectual participles.

Just like the indicative imperfect past and the indicative perfect past conjugations, the contrafactual mood conjugations are also derived from a participle form and declines the same way as them. It is constructed by taking the verb root and adding the suffix -tā to it which declines for number and gender of the noun that the pronoun refers to. Contrafactual mood conjugations for all verbs are regular. Contrafactual mood can only be used in the past tense as it expressess hypothetical scenarios that "could have" happened but didn't. It acts as both the past subjunctive and the past conditional. Contrafactual mood conjugations of honā "to be" and rêhnā "to stay" act as copulas that mark contrafactual mood when used with aspectual participles.

The participle that makes up the contrafactual mood conjugations also double as the habitual aspect participle.

The rules to form the imperatives areː Whenever a single-syllable verb root ends in the vowel -ī then the consonant -j- is added between the imperative conjugation suffix and the verb root.

1. Intimate pronoun (tū)ː
   1. Present imperative — The verb root is the imperative form. All the present imperatives for the pronoun tū are regular.
   2. Future imperative — The suffix -iyo is added to the verb root. For the verbs lenā and denā, the verb stem changes from le- and de- to just l- and d-, respectively. Hence forming the future imperatives diyo and liyo.
2. Familiar pronoun (tum)ː
   1. Present imperative — The suffix -o (or -yo when the verb root ends in a vowel) is added to the verb root. For the verbs lenā and denā the verb root changes to l- and d-, respectively. Hence forming do and lo. For pīnā the stem changes to pi-.
   2. Future imperative — The future imperative for tum is the same as the infintive form. All future imperative forms of tum are regular.
3. Formal pronoun (āp)ː
   1. Present imperative — The suffix -iye is added to the verb root. Some verbs whose roots are one-syllabled and end in the vowel -ī or -i form the formal imperatives by adding the consonant -j- between the root and suffix as -j-iye.
   2. Future imperative — The future suffix -gā is added to the present imperative form for the pronoun āp. So, equivalently the suffix -iyegā is added to the verb root as suffix following the same rules as the present imperative for āp.

Ergative case marking in compound verb constructions is affected by the transitivity of the v2. McGregor (1972:104) notes that ‘‘Compound verbs are used in construction with -ne when both the stem verb and the auxiliary (=v2) are themselves used independently with -ne.’’ Amritavalli (1979:77–78) comments ‘‘In sentences with compound verbs it is the transitivity (and perfectivity) of v2 that determines the ergative case-marking.’’ The basic pattern of compound verb constructions is given in (1a)–(1c) below.

Certain intransitive V1s do allow for ergative subjects when the light v2 is transitive.[39] Intransitive V1s that permit ergative subjects with transitive v2’s belong to the unergative khā̃snā ‘‘to cough’’ class of verbs. Verbs in this class of intransitives in Hindi independently permit ergative subjects and the choice of -ne subjects has been argued to be associated with properties of volitionality or conscious choice. Some other voliational (intransitive) verbs which alllow ergative case assignment are bolnā "to speak", chī̃knā "to sneez", cillānā "to shout", nahānā "to take a bath" etc. In all these cases the agent has complete control and volition of the activity.[40]

Examples in (1a)–(2b) show that V1v2 compound verb constructions allow ergative subjects when both V1 and v2, when functioning as main verbs, independently allow ergative subjects. Crucial evidence as to the source of ergativity in V1v2 constructions comes from pairings in which the case properties of the V1 are distinct from those of the v2. Though it is rare to find V1(intransitive)v2(transitive) sequences in which the V1 is not independently an ergative case licensing verbs, such examples do exist: cal denā ‘‘to move-give’’ (=move, depart), khisak lenā ‘‘to slip away-take’’ (=to slip away) and sarak lenā ‘‘crawl-take’’ (=to slip away/to move away). Interestingly, V1v2 sequences of this type do not permit ergative subjects, despite the ability of the v2 to license ergative subjects when functioning as main verbs.

Examples in (4a)-(4b) below show that the ergative case licensing property of the light v2 is nevertheless critical, as intransitive (usually unaccusative) v2’s never allow ergative subjects, regardless of the ergative case licensing properties of the V1.

All the verbs in Hindi except the verb honā (to be) are defective and cannot be conjugated into these following moods and tenses in their non-aspectual forms (or simple aspect):

• present indicative
• imperfect indicative
• presumptive mood
• present subjunctive

The verb honā (to be) serves as the copula whose conjugations are used to form the three aspectual forms of verbs (habitual, perfective, and progressive). In the tables below all the conjugations of the copula are shown on the left and all the conjugations of the verb karnā (to do) (like which all other verbs behave) are shown on the right.

Using the three aspectual participles, the habitual, perfective, and the progressive aspectual forms are constructed. The aspectual forms for the verb karnā (to do) are shown in the table below: