Hindustani grammar

Hindustani distinguishes two genders (masculine and feminine), two noun types (count and non-count), two numbers (singular and plural), and three cases (direct, oblique, and vocative).[1]^:43 Nouns may be further divided into two classes based on declension, called type-I (marked) and type-II (unmarked). The basic difference between the two categories is that the former has characteristic terminations in the direct singular while the latter does not.[2]

The table below displays the suffix paradigms. A hyphen symbol (for the marked type-I) denotes change from the original termination to another (for example laṛkā to laṛke in the masculine singular oblique), whereas a plus sign (for the unmarked type-II) denotes an ending which should be added (seb to sebõ in the masculine plural oblique).

The next table of noun declensions, mostly adapted from Shapiro (2003:263), shows the above suffix paradigms in action. Words: laṛkā ('boy'), kū̃ā ('well'), seb ('apple'), vālid ('father'), cāqū ('penknife'), ādmī ('man'), mitr ('friend'), laṛkī ('girl'), ciṛiyā ('finch'), kitāb ('book'), bhāṣā ('language'), and aurat ('woman').

Notes for noun declension:

• ^1 This is also the ending used for the vocative masculine singular.
• ^2 A small number of marked masculines like kuā̃ display nasalization of all terminations.[4]
• ^3 Some masculines ending in ā don't change in the direct plural and fall in the unmarked category. i.e. vālid "father", cācā "uncle", rājā "king".[5]
• ^4 Unmarked nouns ending in ū and ī generally shorten this to u and i before the oblique (and vocative) plural termination(s), with the latter also inserting the semivowel y.[5][6][7]
• ^5 Many feminine Sanskrit loanwords such as bhāṣā ('language') and mātā (mother) end in ā, therefore the ā is not a reliable indicator of noun gender.[5]
• The iyā ending is also not a reliable indicator of gender or noun type. Some words such as pahiyā ('wheel') and Persian takiyā ('pillow') are masculine type-I: pahiye ('wheels'), takiye ('pillows'). Feminine loanwords such as Arabic duniyā ('world') and Sanskrit kriyā ('action') use feminine type-II endings: duniyāẽ ('worlds'), kriyāẽ ('actions').
• In Urdu, many Arabic words retain their Arabic plurals.
• Perso-Arabic loans ending in final unpronounced h are handled as masculine marked nouns.[8] Hence bacca(h) → baccā. The former is the Urdu spelling, the latter the Hindi.
• Some Arabic loans may use their original dual and plural markings. i.e. vālid "father" → vālidain "parents".

Adjectives may be divided into declinable, and indeclinable categories.[9] [10] 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 —

Indeclinable adjectives are completely invariable, and can end in either consonants or vowels (including ā and ī ). A number of declinables display nasalisation of all terminations.[9] Dir. masc. sg. (-ā) is the citation form.

• Examples of declinable (type-1) adjectives: baṛā "big", choṭā "small", moṭā "fat", acchā "good", burā "bad", kālā "black", ṭhaṇḍā "cold".
• Examples of declinable (type-2) adjectives: baṛhiyā "great/awesome", ghatiyā "of bad quality or nature", cūtiyā "idiot"/ "asshole".
• Examples of declinable (type-3) adjectives: dāyā̃ "right (direction)", bāyā̃ "left (direction)"
• Examples of indeclinable adjectives: xarāb "bad", sāf "clean", bhārī "heavy", murdā "dead", sundar "beautiful", pāgal "crazy/mad", lāl "red".

All adjectives can be used either attributively, predicatively, or substantively. Substantively they are 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.[11]

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, so that in the absence of either "more" will be inferred.

In the absence of an object of comparison ("more" of course is now no longer optional):

Superlatives are made through comparisons with "all" (sab). Comparisons using "least" are rare; it is more common to use an antonym.

In Sanskritised and Persianised registers of Hindustani, comparative and superlative adjectival forms using suffixes derived from those languages can be found.[12]

The numeral systems of several of the Indo-Aryan languages, including Hindustani and Nepali, are typical decimal systems, but contracted to the extent that nearly every number 1–99 is irregular. The first four ordinal numbers are also irregular. The suffix -vā̃ marks ordinals beginning at the number five.

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 sometimes used adverbially[13]), and it is with them that the locus of grammatical function or "case-marking" then lies. There are seven such one-word primary postpositions.

• Some verbs like bolnā (to speak/say) when used, the patient in the sentence can use both the instrumental and the accusative marker. For example, rāhul se bolo and rāhul ko bolo translate to the same "Say (it) to Rahul".

• Beyond these above there are a large range of compound postpositions, constructed majoritarily from the genitive primary postposition kā in the oblique form (ke, kī) plus an adverb. When using with pronouns, these all the compound postpositions can only be used with the Genitive Oblique case pronouns and the genitive kī/ke must be omitted before attaching them with the genitive oblique case.

Some compound postpositions do not have the genitive marker as their primary postposition, such as:

Some other compound postpositions with two secondary postpositions (called tertiary postposition) can be constructed by adding primary postpositions to some of the compound postpositions shown above.

Some compound postpositions in Hindustani are formed by borrowing prepositions of English and using them as secondary postpositions of the compound postpositions. Some of the following are optional to use in certain contexts, but some do not have any equivalent in Hindustani and they are the default way to express the ideas they express. The meaning expressed by the compound postpositions formed using the English prepositions stay the same as their original meaning in English.

Hindustani has personal pronouns for the first and second persons, while for the third person demonstratives are used, which can be categorised deictically as proximate and non-proximate.[17] Pronouns distinguish cases of direct, oblique, and dative/accusative. The latter-most, 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 mãĩ-ne and tū-ne, and for the 3rd person, along with in-ne and un-ne (dialectal) special ergative oblique forms inhõ-ne and unhõ-ne (standard forms) are used. Compound postpositions must be used with the genitive oblique cases. So, *mujh-ke andar and mujh andar are wrong and instead it should be mere andar. The compound postpositions that have the primary postposition -kī in place of -kā must have the genitive oblique case declined to the feminine gender. So, when using the postposition kī taraf – "towards", it should be merī taraf and not merā taraf or mere taraf.

tū, tum, and āp are the three second person pronouns ("you"), constituting a threefold scale of sociolinguistic formality: respectively "intimate", "familiar", and "polite". The "intimate" conjugations are grammatically singular while the "familiar" and "polite" conjugations are grammatically plural.[12] When being referred to in the third person however, only those of the "polite" level of formality are grammatically plural.[18] The following table is partly adapted from Shapiro (2003:265).

Notes for pronouns:

• Postpositions are treated as bound morphemes after pronouns in Hindi, but as separate words in Urdu.[19]
• The varying forms for the 3rd person. dir. constitute one of the small number of grammatical differences between Hindi and Urdu. yah "this" / ye "these" / vah "that" / ve "those" is the literary set for Hindi while ye "this, these" / vo "that, those" is the set for Urdu and spoken and colloquially written Hindi.
• The above section on postpositions noted that ko (the dative/accusative case) marks direct objects if definite. As "the most specific thing of all is an individual", persons (or their pronouns) nearly always take the dative case or postposition.[20]
• It is very common practice to use plural pronouns (and their accompanying conjugation) in polite situations, thus tum can be used in the second person when referring to one person. Similarly, some speakers prefer plural ham over singular mãĩ. This is usually not quite the same as the "royal we"; it is rather colloquial.[21]

Emphatic pronouns of Hindustani are formed by combing the exclusive emphatic particle hī or the inclusive emphatic particle bhī (with the interrogatory and relative pronouns) and the pronoun in their regular oblique and direct case. Combing the emphatic particles and the pronouns with end with the consonant -h form a new set of emphatic direct case and emphatic oblique case pronouns. The rest of the pronouns can also be combined with the exclusive emphatic particle but they do not form true pronouns, but simply add the emphatic particle as an adposition after them. The Relative and Interrogatory pronouns can only take the inclusive emphatic particle bhī as an adposition and never the exclusive emphatic particle hī.

• Some pronouns are not mentioned above but that doesn't mean that those pronouns cannot be turned emphatic but only that since those pronouns do not end in the consonant -h and hence they cannot cannot assimilate the h of the emphatic pronoun hī to form a true pronoun. For the unlisted pronouns, just add the hī or bhī particle after the pronoun. However, the pronoun ham is an exception to the rule just mentioned.

apnā is a (genitive) reflexive pronoun: "my/your/etc. (own)".[22] Using non-reflexive and reflexive together gives emphasis; e.g. merā apnā "my (very) own".[23] xud, āp, and svayam are some (direct; non-genitive) others: "my/your/etc.-self".[24] Bases for oblique usage are usually apne (self) or apne āp (automatically). The latter alone can also mean "of one's own accord"; āpas mẽ means "among/between themselves".[25]

koī and kuch are indefinite pronouns/quantifiers. As pronouns, koī is used for animate singular ("someone") and kuch for animate plural and inanimates ("something").[26] As quantifiers/adjectives koī is used for singular count nouns and kuch for mass nouns and plural count nouns. koī takes the form kisī in the oblique. The form kaī "several" is partially a plural equivalent to koī.[27] kuch can also act as an adverb, qualifying an adjective, meaning "rather". koī preceding a number takes the meaning of "about, approximately". In this usage it does not oblique to kisī.[28]

Note: The feminine plural forms are commonly used as singular respect forms and the feminine singular forms often are used interchangeably with the feminine plural forms.

Hindustani has few underived forms.[29] Adverbs may be derived in ways such as the following —

• Simply obliquing some nouns and adjectives: nīcā "low" → nīce "down", sīdhā "straight" → sīdhe "straight", dhīrā "slow" → dhīre "slowly", saverā "morning" → savere "in the morning", ye taraf "this direction" → is taraf "in this direction", kalkattā "Calcutta" → kalkatte "to Calcutta".
• Nouns using a postposition such as se "by, with, -ly": zor "force" → zor se "forcefully" (lit. "with force"), dhyān "attention" → dhyān se "attentively" (lit. "with attention").
• Adjectives using post-positional phrases involving "way, manner": acchā "good" → acchī tarah se "well" (lit. "by/in a good way"), xās "special" → xās taur par "especially" (lit. "on a special way").
• Verbs in conjunctive form: hãs "laugh" → hãs kar "laughingly" (lit. "having laughed"), meherbānī kar "do kindness" → meherbānī kar ke "kindly, please" (lit. "having done kindness").[30]
• Formative suffixes from Sanskrit or Perso-Arabic in higher registers of Hindi or Urdu. Skt. sambhava "possible" + -taḥ → sambhavataḥ "possibly; Ar. ittifāq "chance" + -an → ittifāqan "by chance".[13]

The Hindustani verbal system is largely structured around a combination of aspect and tense/mood. Like the nominal system, the Hindustani verb involves successive layers of (inflectional) elements to the right of the lexical base.[31]

Hindustani has 3 aspects: perfective, habitual, and continuous, each having overt morphological correlates.[13] These are participle forms, inflecting for gender and number by way of a vowel termination, like adjectives.[32] 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 (^A), here only slightly different from that introduced previously: the f. pl. can nasalise under certain conditions. To the right are the paradigms for personal concord (^P), used by the subjunctive.

The inflection of standard Hindustani verbs includes:

• three persons: first, second and third.
• two numbers: singular and plural. (in only the 1st and the 3rd person)
• five moods: indicative, conditional (which also doubles as the past subjunctive), presumptive, subjunctive (in addition to infinitive) and imperative.
• two voices: active and passive. The passive voice uses the compound postposition ke dvarā.
• two tenses without auxiliary verbs (future and preterite) and four tenses constructed with auxiliary verbs (perfect, pluperfect, future and future perfect).

Modern Hindustani has the present indicative forms of the verb honā and it is the only verb in Hindi to have the present simple indicative form.

• The Imperfect Past forms also do not exist for any other verb except honā. Hindustani uses Present Habitual forms which roughly compensates for the loss of Present Simple Indicative forms, in the contexts where the habitual aspect cannot compensate for the present simple tense, the future simple is used. For example, "the train leaves at 11 am" will be translated as "tren gyārah baje niklegī". The present simple tense of English when it doesn't refer to a habitual action translates to the future tense of Hindustani.

• For all the verbs except honā, there are no separate forms for the present and the future subjunctive and instead they both have a common subjunctive form for all other verbs.

The verb honā can be translated as «to be», «to exist», «to happen» and «to have». The verbs in Hindi are gendered and numbered in general they agree with either the object or the subject of the sentence depending on the whether the sentence uses dative construction (quirky subject) or not. So, there are four possible forms of all verbs in Hindi, «honā», «hone», «honī» and «honī̃», the masculine singular form being the default dictionary form.

Notes

• All conjugations in the indicative mood except the future tense can be used as a copula.
• The conditional mood also duals as the habitual participle.
• There are two types of imperatives in Hindustani, the present imperative and the future imperative (also called the deferred imperative)[33]. The present imperative is used to give immediate commands and the deferred imperative is used to give deferred commands.

Periphrastic Hindustani verb forms consist of two elements. The first of these two elements is the aspect marker. The second element is the tense-mood marker.[3]

Like English and many other Indo-European languages, Hindustani also doesn't differentiate between Continuous and the Progressive aspects.[3] To construct the continuous aspect and forms, Hindustani makes use of the progressive participle rahā which is derived from the verb rahnā ("to stay" or "to remain").

Notes

• Habitual Aspect in Hindustani cannot be put into any future moods nor the conditional mood. However, imperfect progressive forms can be used to form the future forms for habitual aspect do exist as they refer to the future with reference to the present as a progressing state.
• The progressive aspect refers to an action that either is happening at the moment or a general action that continues happening. For example, "vo ye kitāb paṛh rahā hè (abhī)" "He is reading a book (right now)." and "vo ye kitāb paṛh rahā hè (āj-kal)" "He is reading a book (these days)". However, there is also a continuous aspect in Hindustani which unlike the progressive aspect, conveys only a continuous action instead of a progressive action.
  

Along with the progressive aspect, the imperfect aspect can also have progressive forms, namely, the habitual progressive and the perfective progressive.

Note:

• The perfective progressive refers to an already ongoing continued action. For example, "khaṛā huā rahā hè" (he has stayed standing) [lit. he has stayed stood (up)], "baiṭhā rahā hè" (he has stayed sitting) [lit. he has stayed sat (down)]. Not all verbs can be put into a preterite continuous aspect.
• The progressive habitual refers to an habitual aspect that has started some time in the past and continues to some point at the past, the present or some point in the future (definite or indefinite). "bādal garajte rahe the us din" (the clouds had kept thundering that day.)

Unlike the Habitual, Perfective and the Progressive Aspects, the Imperfective Progressive Forms can also be put into the imperative mood.

Although there is no continuous aspect in Hindustani[3], however such forms which convey solely continuity (and not progressivity) of an action or a state can be constructed by converting the verbs (which are not already compound verbs) into compound verbs which express continued state. The process is shown below:

1. baiṭhnā (to sit) → baiṭhā honā (to be sitting) → baiṭhā huā (adjectival form) → baiṭhā huā honā (to be sitting) [continuous action form of verb]
2. khaṛā honā (to be standing) → khaṛā huā (adjectival form) → khaṛā huā honā (to be standing) [continuous action form of verb]
3. marnā (to die) → marā honā (to be dead) → marā huā (adjectival form) → marā huā honā (to be dead) [continuous action form of verb]
4. honā (to happen) → huā honā (to have happened) → huā huā (adjectival form) → huā huā honā (to have happened) [continuous action form of verb]
5. karnā (to do) → kiyā honā (to have done) → kiyā huā (adjectival form) → kiyā huā honā (to have done) [continuous action form of verb]

The adjectival forms, for example, "kiyā huā" means "done", "chalā huā" means "walked", "marā huā" means "dead". Using them with nouns such as "kiyā huā kām" translates as "the done work" (lit. the work which is done), "chalā huā baccā" translates as "the walked boy" (lit. the boy who has walked), "marā huā phūl" translates as "the dead flower" (lit. the flower which is dead). Adding the copula after the adjectival forms would convert the adjectival to its continued action form verb.

When this adjective construction is used used with the copula following it, the whole structure together conveys the continuity of the adjectival state. For example, "marā huā hè" would convey that "he is dead", "khaṛā huā hè" translates as "he is standing", "(shirt) pehnā huā hè" would convey "he is wearing (a shirt)" ("wearing" here is used as in not putting on but has already worn it and the action of being worn is continued.), "ṭãgā huā hè" would translate as "it is hanging."

Notes:

• The verbs above which translate to English using the copula "to be" shows that the state of action is continued to the present while when the verbs which translate with the copula "to have" in English convey that the action is done and the continued state of having being done the action is conveyed.
• The verbs above which translate to English using the copula "to be" in their non-continued action form, convey the same meaning as their continued action form of verbs, however, the verbs which translate with the copula "to have" in English do not convey a continued action in their non-continued action form. So, khaṛā hè and khaṛā huā hè both translate to "he/it is standing" and baiṭhā hè and baiṭhā huā hè both translate to "he/it is sitting". And, huā hè translates to "it has happened" but the closest translation to huā huā hè is "it has already happened" (which conveys the state of being happened continues.)

A summary of all verb forms is given in the tables below. The sample verb is intransitive dauṛnā "to run", and the sample inflection is 3rd. masc. sg. (^P = e, ^A = ā) where applicable.

Notes

• Much of the above chart information derives from Masica (1991:292–294, 323–325).
• The future tense is formed by adding the suffix gā (~ ge ~ gī) to the subjunctive, which is a contraction of gaā (= gayā, perfective participle of jānā "to go").[32] The future suffix, conjunctive participle, and suffix vālā are treated as bound morphemes in written Hindi, but as separate words in written Urdu.[19]
• ^ The present copula (h-?) seems not to follow along the lines of the regular ^P system of terminations; while the subjunctive copula (ho-^P) is thoroughly irregular. So here are all of their forms.

Indicative and Subjunctive moods for the verb honā [35]

		Singular			Plural
		1st.	2nd.	3rd.	1st.	2nd.		3rd.
Pronoun		mãĩ	tū	ye/vo	ham	tum	āp	ye/vo
Indicative Mood		hū̃	hai		hãĩ	ho	hãĩ
Subjunctive Mood	Present	hū̃	ho		hõ	ho	hõ
	Future	hoū̃	hoe		hoẽ	ho'o	hoẽ

• For the 1. subj. sg. copula Schmidt (2003:324) and Snell & Weightman (1989:113, 125) list hū̃ while Shapiro (2003:267) lists hoū̃.
• Shapiro (2003:268) lists the polite imperative ending as -iye, while Schmidt (2003:330) lists it as -ie but -iye after ā, o, ū.
• The euphonic glide y is inserted in perfective participles between prohibited vowel clusters. It is historically the remnant of the old perfective marker.[36] The clusters are a + ā, ā + ā, o + ā, and ī + ā, resulting in āyā, ayā, oyā, iyā.[37] e.g. khāyā/khāye/khāī/khāī̃ (khā- "eat").
• In addition, the combinations ī + ī and i + ī give ī.[37] e.g. piyā/piye/pī/pī̃ (pī- "drink").
• As stated, agreement in the transitive perfective is with the direct object, with the erstwhile subject taking the ergative postposition ne. If however the direct object takes the postposition ko (marking definiteness), or if no direct object is expressed, then agreement neutralises to default m. sg. -ā.[38]
• Is this regard, there are a small number of verbs that while perhaps logically transitive still do not take ne and continue to agree with the subject, in the perfective. e.g. lānā "to bring", bhūlnā "to forget", milnā "to meet", etc.
• Besides supplying the copulas, honā "to be" can be used aspectually: huā "happened, became"; hotā "happens, becomes, is"; ho rahā "happening, being".
• -ke can be used as a colloquial alternative to -kar for the conjunctive participle of any verb.
• Hindustani displays a very small number of irregular forms, spelled out in the cells below.

Verb	Root	Perfective Stem [37]	Perfective Forms				Imperative[39]		Subjunctive. Stem [40]		Subjunctive Forms
							Familar	Polite
			Masculine Singular	Masculine Plural	Feminine Singular	Feminine Plural					Singular			Plural
											1st	2nd	3rd	2nd		3rd	1st
											mãĩ	tū	ye/vo	tum	āp	ye/vo	ham
honā "to happen"	ho-	hu-	huā	hue	huī̃	huī̃	ho		present subjunctive	h-	hū̃	ho		ho	hõ
									future subjunctive	ho-	hoū̃	hoe		ho'o	hoẽ
jānā "to go"	jā-	ga-	gayā	gaye	gayī	gayī̃	jā		jā		jāū̃	jāe		jāo	jāē̃
karnā "to do"	kar-	ki-	kiyā	kiye	kī	kī̃	kar	kījie	kar		karū̃	kare		karo	karē̃
denā "to give"	de-	di-	diyā	diye	dī	dī̃	do	dījie	d-		dū̃	de		do	dē̃
lenā "to take"	le-	li-	liyā	liye	lī	lī̃	lo	lījie	l-		lū̃	le		lo	lē̃
pīnā "to drink"	pī-	pi-	piyā	piye	pī	pī̃	piyo	pījie	pi-		piyū̃	piye		piyo	piyē̃

• The irregular forms are underlined. in the above table.

• There are two subjunctive stems for the verb honā, one being regular and the other being irregular. The regular set is the future subjunctive forms and the regular ones are the as the present subjunctive forms. honā is the only verb in Hindi to have distinct forms for the future and the present subjunctive, for all other forms there is one common subjunctive form which is used as both the present and the future subjunctive.

• ^ However, it is jā- that is used as the perfective stem in the rare instance of an intransitive verb like jānā being expressed passively, such as in a passivized imperative/subjunctive construction: ghar jāyā jāe? "Shall [we] go home?" (lit. "Shall home be gone to [by us]?").[41]

Transitives are morphologically contrastive in Hindustani, 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.[42] There are five verb forms that a verb in Hindustani can have —

1. Self Action Form - conveys that the action by the verb was unintentional or happened automatically. It is always intransitive.
2. Direct Action Form - conveys that the action of the verb was done by the subject of the sentence.
3. Indirect Action Form - conveys that the subject of the verb made the direct object of the sentence do the action of the verb.
4. Reflexive Action Form - conveys that the subject of the sentence was the receiver of the action of the verb done by the direct object of the sentence.
5. Causative Form - conveys that the subject of the sentence is the cause for the end result of the action of the verb.

The Indirect Action form and the Reflexive Action Form are always the same. Also, for many verbs the Direct Transitive is same as the Indirect & Reflexive Action form. Hence, there are either three or four unique verb action forms forms in total depending on the verb.

Starting from self-action or the direct transitive verb stems further transitive/causative stems are produced according to these following assorted rules —

The majority of the following are sets culled from Shapiro (2003:270) and Snell & Weightman (1989:243–244). The lack of self action forms for the verb sets for khānā and kehnā implies that there is no such single-word form for such verbs, however, the equivalent self action forms can be constructed making use of double stemmed compound verbs. Self Action form for khānā (to eat) is xā liyā jānā, and for kehnā (to speak/talk) is either keh liyā jānā or keh diyā jānā, for sīkhnā (to learn) is sīkh liyā jānā. The word liyā (from the verb lenā "to take") means the action was done for the benefit of the subject of the sentence, while the word diyā (from the verb denā "to give") signifies that the action was done for the benefit of the object of the sentence.

• 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 (also called "subsidiary", "explicator verb", and "vector"[43]) loses its own independent meaning and instead "lends a certain shade of meaning"[44] to the main or stem verb, which "comprises the lexical core of the compound".[43] While almost any verb can act as a main verb, there is a limited set of productive auxiliaries.[45] Shown below are prominent such auxiliaries, with their independent meaning first outlined, followed by their semantic contribution as auxiliaries. 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.[46] The auxiliaries when combined with the main verb changes the aspect of the main verb it modifies. Auxiliary verbs such as jānā "to go", ānā "to come", cuknā when combined with the main verb give the formed compound verb a perfective aspect, while retaining the original meaning of the main verb.

The first three auxiliaries in the above table are the most common of auxiliaries, and the "least marked", or "lexically nearly colourless".[48] The nuance conveyed by an auxiliary can often be very subtle, and need not always be expressed with different words in English translation. 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.[46]

Another notable aspect of Hindi–Urdu grammar is that of "conjunct verbs", composed of a noun or adjective paired up with a general verbaliser, most commonly transitive karnā "to do" or intransitive honā "to be", "to happen", functioning in the place of what in English would be single unified verb. All conjunct verbs formed using karnā are transitive verbs and all conjunct verbs formed using the verb honā are intransitive verbs.

In the case of an adjective as the non-verbal element, it is often helps to think of karnā "to do" as supplementarily having the senses of "to cause to be", "to make", "to render", etc.

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.[55]

With English it is the verb stems themselves that are used. All English loan words are used by forming compound verbs in Hindi by using either honā (intransitive) or karnā (transitive).

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.[56]

Hindustani is an SOV language. It is neither purely left-branching nor 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".[57]

• Subject precedes the direct object of the sentence if both the dative and the accusative case marks the objects of a sentence. Prescriptively, the relative position is fixed in order to make it unambiguous which is the direct object and which is the in-direct object in the sentence as both the dative case and the accusative case is the same in Hindustani and are marked by the same postposition -ko.
• Attributive adjectives precede the noun they qualify by default, but can also be placed after the noun, doing that usually makes the sentence sound either more poetic or gives as stronger emphasises on the attribute that the adjective describes.
• Adverbs precede the adjectives they qualify.
• Negative markers (nahī̃, na, mat) and interrogatives precede the verb by default but can appear after it too, however the position for negation can be more flexible and the negation can occur before or after the auxiliary verbs too if the sentence has an auxiliary verb. Whenever the negation comes after the verbs instead of before the verb, it always emphasises the negation. The negation can never come before a noun.
• kyā ("what?") as the yes-no question marker occurs at the beginning or the end of a clause as its default position but it usually can be put anywhere in the sentence where it cannot be interpreted as the its original meaning "what".

In the example below, it is shown that all word orders make sense for simple sentences. As a general rule, whatever information comes first in the sentence gets emphasised and the information which appears at the end of a sentence gets emphasised the least.

As long as both dative and the accusative case are not used in the sentence, the word order flexibility remains. For example, in the table below the locative and the accusative case is used in the same sentence, the word order is flexible because the markers for the locative and the accusative cases are different but in Hindustani, the marker for the accusative and the dative case are the same, which is ko for nouns and the oblique case pronouns or they have their own unique pronoun forms which are the same for dative and the accusative case.

When noun and pronoun are used together in a sentence and one is in accusative case while the other is in the dative case, there is no way to differentiate which one is which just by looking at the sentence. Usually in such cases, owing to the default word order of Hindi (which is SOV) which noun/pronoun comes earlier in the sentence becomes the subject of the sentence and what comes later becomes the object of the sentence. But, this rule often gets broken, and in general, the sentence remains ambiguous without any prior context.

Nouns in Hindi are put in the dative or accusative case first having the noun in the oblique case and then by adding the postposition ko after it. However, when two nouns are used in a sentence in which one of them is in the accusative case and the other in the dative case, the sentence somehow becomes grammatically wrong and stops making sense, so, to make sense of the sentence, one of the noun (which is assumed to be in the accusative case) is put into the nominative case and the other one is left as it is (in the dative case). The noun which is put into the nominative case becomes the direct object of the sentence and the other one (which is now in the Accusative case) becomes the indirect object of the sentence.

When both the nouns use the ko marker, generally, all permutations of a sentence become grammatically wrong and convey no sense [58]. However, some permutations are more wrong than the others, for example, the sentences which do have a translation in the following permutation set of sentences can still convey the desired meaning when spoken with proper intonation and pauses but obviously when no prior context is provide, the ambiguity that which noun is the direct object and which noun is the indirect object of the sentence still exists.

The ko marker in front of the word sā̃p has been removed, leaving it in the nominative case. Now, it acts as the indirect object of the sentence and sapera becomes the direct object of the sentence. The English translation becomes "Give the snake-charmer a snake." and when the opposite is done, the English translation of the sentence becomes "Give the snake a snake-charmer."

When two pronouns are used in a sentence, all the sentences remain grammatically valid but the ambiguity of precisely telling the subject and the object of the sentence remains. However, just as we did above, converting one the pronoun into nominative case does not work for all pronouns but only for the 3rd person pronouns and doing that for any other pronoun will leave the sentence ungrammatical and without sense. The reason that this works only for the 3rd person pronoun because these are not really the "regular" 3rd person pronouns but are instead the demonstrative pronouns. Hindustani lacks the regular 3rd person pronouns and hence compensates for them by using the demonstrative pronouns.

So, the ambiguity cannot completely be removed in this case here, unless of course it is interpreted that what comes first becomes the subject of the sentence. The English translation becomes either "Give me to that/him/her/it." or "Give me that/him/her/it." depending on which pronoun appears first in the sentence.

Unlike English and many other Indo-European languages, Hindustani doesn't have a verb which directly transate to "to have" of English. Possession is reflected in Hindustani by the genitive marker kā (inflected appropriately) or the postposition ke pās ("near") and the verb honā. Possible objects of possession fall into the following three main categories in Hindustani,

1. Fundamental possessions: These are possessions that are of permanent nature, which one has not obtained but got naturally and cannot be owned. These include, family relations, body parts, etc.
2. Non-Fundamental possessions: These are possessions that one has obtained or can be owned. These include possession of any object, living beings (including humans), etc.
3. Proximal possessions: These are possessions that show that someone or something has something near themselves.

• For indicating fundamental possessions, kā appears after the subject of the possession. With personal pronouns, this requires the use of the possessive pronoun (inflected appropriately).
• For indicating non-fundamental possessions, the compound postposition ke pās (literally, "of near") is used. However, this postposition cannot ever be translated as "near", showing proximity.
• For indicating proximity of the object to the subject, the double compound postposition ke pās mẽ (literally, "of near in") is used. It translates as "nearby".

Note: The verb honā can be translated as "to be", "to have/possess", "to exist" or "to happen" depending on the context. The third person singular and plural conjugations can be translated as "there is" and "there are" respectively.

Note: Sometimes when talking about physical objects (including animals) both the fundamental and non-fundamental possessions are used interchangeably when the meaning conveyed in both cases doesn't lead to confusion. For example, mere do kutte haĩ and mere pās do kutte haĩ (both translating as, "I have two dogs.") are often used interchangeably when referring to pet dogs, with the sentence with the fundamental possession showing or having more emotional attachment. The reason these both are used interchangeably because it is a priori understood that the dogs in the context must be pet dogs. Same happens with the second example above on both the tables conveying the possession of eyes; it is understood that the eyes in the context are one's own. In the contexts where such a priori information is not immediately understood, these two types of possessions cannot be used interchangeably.

Rather than using relative clauses after nouns, as in English, Hindustani uses correlative clauses. In Hindustani, a correlative clause can go before or after the entire clause, the adjective, the noun, the pronoun or the verb it relativises.

Note: The relative pronoun jo can be used as both relative "what" and relative "who".

Pre-adjective relative clauses often have two relative pronouns whenever the adjective is used relative to a noun, the first relative pronoun is the actual relative pronoun jo and the second is the demonstrative pronoun vo which doubles as the secondary relative pronoun. The sentence jo acchī haī vo laṛkī haī. also is grammatically correct but means "[the (girl)] who is good is (a) girl." (which is a redundant sentence in Hindustani) and "jo acchī haī vo vo laṛkī haī." means "the girl who is good is that girl."

Hindustani has tripartite case-marking, which means that the subject in intransitive clauses, and the agent and the object in transitive clauses each can be marked by a distinct case form. The full set of case distinctions is however only realized in certain clause types.[60][61]

In intransitive clauses, the subject is in direct case. The verb displays agreement with the subject: depending on aspect and mood, the verb agrees in gender and number, and/or person and number.[60]

laṛkā

boy:DIR

kal

yesterday

āyā

come:PRF:MASC:SG

laṛkā kal āyā

boy:DIR yesterday come:PRF:MASC:SG

'The boy came yesterday.'

In transitive clauses, there are three patterns:[62]

1. Perfective clauses with animate/definite object

Fully distinctive case marking is found in perfective clauses with animate and/or definite objects. Here, the agent takes the ergative case marker ne, while the object takes the accusative case marker ko. The verb does not agree with either of the core arguments (agent and object), but is marked per default as third person masculine singular (calāyā hai).[lower-alpha 1]

laṛke=ne

boy:OBL=ERG

gāṛī=ko

car=ACC

calāyā

drive:PRF:MASC:SG

hai

be:PRES:3.SG

laṛke=ne gāṛī=ko calāyā hai

boy:OBL=ERG car=ACC drive:PRF:MASC:SG be:PRES:3.SG

'The boy has driven the car.'

2. Perfective clauses with inanimate/indefinite object

In perfective clauses with an indefinite object, the agent keeps the ergative case marker, but the object is in direct case. The verb agrees with the object: the perfective form calāyī hai is marked for feminine gender, agreeing with the gender of the object gāṛī.

laṛke=ne

boy:OBL=ERG

gāṛī

car

calāyī

drive:PRF:FEM:SG

hai

be:PRES:3.SG

laṛke=ne gāṛī calāyī hai

boy:OBL=ERG car drive:PRF:FEM:SG be:PRES:3.SG

'The boy has driven the car.'

3. Non-perfective clauses

In all other clause types, the agent is in direct case and triggers agreement on the verb. The object is either in direct case or accusative case, depending on animacy/definiteness

laṛkā

boy:DIR

gāṛī

car:DIR

calātā

drive:IMPF:MASC:SG

hai

be:PRES:3.SG

laṛkā gāṛī calātā hai

boy:DIR car:DIR drive:IMPF:MASC:SG be:PRES:3.SG

'The boy has drives a car.'

The following table summarises the three case-marking and agreement types.