Hindi, Urdu: about indirect questions

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Frieds,

I understand the general idea that referred speech in HU is normally introduced using ki(h), and then repeated verbatim, i.e., without the person, place and space adjustments that are typical for indirect speech in English (or Spanish).

1. mahilaa ne pulis ko qabuul kiyaa ki me_ne apne pati kii hatyaa kar di

However, for referred questions, it seems that the same rules of #1 do not apply. It we are talking about the police interrogating the woman, and we followed the same pattern of reproducing the question verbatim, I would have expected:

2. pulis ne mahilaa se puuchhaa ki(h) kyaa tum_ne apne pati kii hatyaa kii hai

but instead (on the Internet at least), I find the following pattern

3. pulis ne mahilaa se puuchhaa ki(h) kyaa us_ne (us_ke) pati kii hatyaa kii hai

This suggests that, to some degree, indirect questions don't behave exactly the same as other types of referred speech in HU, and that they undergo some degree of transformation (In the examples above, the evident transformation is that the person is adjusted for the sake of the narration).

Which example sounds more natural to HU speakers? #2 or #3?

 

[Qureshpor]

mahilaa ne pulis ko qabuul kiyaa ki me_ne apne pati kii hatyaa kar di

@MonsieurGonzalito SaaHib, with due respect, you include Urdu in the title of your thread but by any stretch of the imagination, the sentences you have quoted are not Urdu. We don't use the word "mahilaa", "pati" and "hatyaa". Most certainly not me_ne but maiN ne. These words are not joined in Urdu, in the manner that you have written them (tum_ne, us_ne (us_ke).

عورت نے پولیس سے اِعتِراف کیا کہ میں نے اپنے خاوند یا شوہر کا قتل کیا ہے

یا عورت نے پولیس سے اِعتِراف کیا کہ میں نے اپنے خاوند کی جان لی ہے۔

2. pulis ne mahilaa se puuchhaa ki(h) kyaa tum_ne apne pati kii hatyaa kii hai

پولیس نے عورت سے پوچھا کہ کیا تم نے اپنے خاوند کا قتل کیا ہے۔

3. pulis ne mahilaa se puuchhaa ki(h) kyaa us_ne (us_ke) pati kii hatyaa kii hai

پولیس نے عورت سے پوچھا کہ کیا اُس نے اپنے خاوند کا قتل کیا ہے

Police asked the woman if she had murdered her (own) husband.

پولیس نے عورت سے پوچھا کہ کیا اُس نے اُس کے خاوند کا قتل کیا ہے

Police asked the woman if she had murdered her (another woman's) husband.

 

[Qureshpor]

پولیس نے عورت سے پوچھا کہ کیا اُس نے اپنے خاوند کا قتل کیا ہے

Police asked the woman if she had murdered her (own) husband.

Police asked the woman if she (not the woman being addressed but another woman) murdered her (own) husband.

پولیس نے عورت سے پوچھا کہ کیا اُس نے اُس کے خاوند کا قتل کیا ہے

Police asked the woman if she had murdered her (another woman's) husband.

Police asked the woman if she (not the woman being addressed but another woman) murdered her (the woman being addressed's or another woman's) husband.

I should have added that these sentences carry additional meanings.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

@MonsieurGonzalito SaaHib, with due respect, you include Urdu in the title of your thread but by any stretch of the imagination, the sentences you have quoted are not Urdu. We don't use the word "mahilaa", "pati" and "hatyaa". Most certainly not me_ne but maiN ne. These words are not joined in Urdu, in the manner that you have written them (tum_ne, us_ne (us_ke).

@Qureshpor Sahiib, all of this is done out my ignorance about what is acceptable or expected in Hindi vs Urdu. I mean no offense.
Given my total lack of knowledge on the subtleties of each register, my only recourse is to go to the Urdu Lughat. For what is worth, both hatyaa and pati (written ہَتِّیا and پَتی respectively) are there.
And me_ne is probably wrong no matter the language.
But I do take into account your valuable (and for me, decisive) observations about what is unheard of or rare in Urdu.

On the particular subject of the underscore, I think it is a nice compromise solution to reflect both joining styles in transliteration. (I didn't invent it, it is used plenty in this forum).

Also, thank you for pointing out the correct usages and possible interpretations of "apne / us ke". It really doesn't come natural to me, and I often get it wrong.


That all said, I notice that you didn't answer my question: what pattern is more correct for indirect questions? #2 or #3?
Does one transform the person, English-like, to suit an indirect style?

pulis ne 3aurat se puuchhaa ki(h) kyaa us ne us ke xaavand kaa qatl kiyaa hai

or, on the contary, the question is reproduced exactly as it was posed?

pulis ne 3aurat se puuchhaa ki(h) kyaa tum ne apne xaavand kaa qatl kiyaa hai

 

[Qureshpor]

or what is worth, both hatyaa and pati (written ہَتِّیا and پَتی respectively) are there.

Urdu LuGhat has captured all (or almost all) of that has ever been used in Urdu but not necessarily what Urdu speakers use in this day and age.

On the particular subject of the underscore, I think it is a nice compromise solution to reflect both joining styles in transliteration. (I didn't invent it, it is used plenty in this forum).

Where you have used underscore, these words are written separately in Urdu, as I have indicated earlier.

I would go for the second option.

 

[aevynn]

I understand the general idea that referred speech in HU is normally introduced using ki(h), and then repeated verbatim, i.e., without the person, place and space adjustments that are typical for indirect speech in English (or Spanish).

1. mahilaa ne pulis ko qabuul kiyaa ki me_ne apne pati kii hatyaa kar di

You don't have to do this "repeat verbatim" thing for indirect speech (whether it's a question or not). It's totally permissible -- and very common -- to make the "adjustments that are typical for indirect speech in English." In other words, it would also[^1] be fine to say

mahilaa ne qabuul kiyaa ki(h) us_ne apne pati(i) kii hatyaa kii​

Woman accepts that she murdered her husband[^2]​

For a literary example of an indirect non-question with the same kind of person adjustment, the (very) short story khaddar kaa kafan by the famous UH writer/director Khwaja Ahmad Abbas contains this sentence:

us_ne kahaa ki(h) wo(h) ye(h) khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii hai.​

She said that she's weaving this khaddar for her own burial shroud.​

​

As above, it would be fine for this sentence to have used maiN ... huuN in the embedded clause instead.

-----
Footnotes:
[^1]: In your sentence #1, it sounds strange to use the indirect object pulis ko with qabuul karnaa. You should either drop pulis ko from your sentence, or switch the verb to e3tiraaf karnaa as Qureshpor jii suggested.
[^2]: The sentence kind of has the tone of a newspaper headline, so I intentionally chose to translate into English using syntax that's typical of newspaper headlines.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

In the Saphiro Hindi grammar that I own, which is quite dated (1989) says that the "Westernized" pattern was "becoming increasingly common". Probably 33 years later it became on even terms with the traditional ("verbatim") style.

But I wonder if there is more to it.

I wonder if we should imagine the sentences using the "ki(h) + verbatim" pattern just as a thinly idiomatic way to introduce direct speech.

In other words, perhaps (I don't know) speakers only use the "ki(h) + verbatim" pattern whenever they are reasonably certain that the cited statement / question was actually emitted.

But the "ki(h) + verbatim" makes no sense for indirect questions which are more general in nature, and that can hardly be associated with an actual speech, say:

maiN nahiiN jaantaa ki(h) vo(h) aaegaa yaa nahiiN

(because the speaker is not likely to just make up a previously non-existent "Are you coming or not?" question just to fit the non-verbatim pattern).

And similarly, a speaker would not use the "ki(h) + verbatim" pattern if he had only a general sense of what the police asked, or was referring only in general, descriptive terms about what the woman wove, but without picturing in his mind an actual speech by the police or the weaving woman.

Taking the journalistic example provided by @aevynn jii, if that same paper had obtained an actual "I killed my husband" quote from the woman, then perhaps a header saying

mahilaa ne qabuul kiyaa ki(h) maiN_ne apne pati(i) kii hatyaa kii

would have been more fitting.?
Just an idea.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

The fact that, after a ki(h), you could have either a literal or a deictically transformed citation seems problematic.

Question:
Devoid of any context (or in a context where both interpretations are possible), when a speaker hears:

laRke ne kahaa ki(h) maiN aauuNgaa

what is his first impression? That the person who will come is the boy, or the narrator?

 

[aevynn]

The fact that, after a ki(h), you could have either a literal or a deictically transformed citation seems problematic.

Question:
Devoid of any context (or in a context where both interpretations are possible), when a speaker hears:

laRke ne kahaa ki(h) maiN aauuNgaa

what is his first impression? That the person who will come is the boy, or the narrator?

Syntactic ambiguity is not "problematic." It's a ubiquitous and cross-linguistic fact of life. A sentence like

​

I saw him with binoculars.​

​

can mean either that "I used binoculars to see him," or that "He had binoculars when I saw him." I don't think anything it makes much sense to ask what this English sentence means "devoid of any context," and so too with UH sentences involving speech.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Syntactic ambiguity is problematic, @aevynn jii.
It is true that we have to deal with it, provide context when necessary, and none of this means an injunction against any language.

It is also true that in many potentially ambiguous linguistic situations there is often a stronger, default line of interpretation, and that is what I was asking.
Especially taking into account that some materials (maybe outdatedly or wrongly) claim that one of the posiible interpretations (the deictically transformed indirect speech) is "relatively recent" or "extraneous to the nature of the language", etc.

If, as I deduct from your answers, you are saying that the transformed indirect speech is not extraneous (anymore, or ever), and that a speaker in the ambiguous situation described above can legitimately lean 50%/50% towards either interpretation, then that settles it for me.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

us_ne kahaa ki(h) wo(h) ye(h) khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii hai.

Incidentally, this speech doesn't seem to be fully objetivized. If one were really punctilious and demaded a full shift to indirect style here, shouldn't "vo" and "rahii thii" have been used?

I understand that if one starts replacing every "yahaaN" for "usii jagah", every "kal" for "agle din", etc., it results in a very long, starchy speech.

And again, I am not "complaining" about HU. This kind of incomplete objectivization (contaminated with direct speech) is something we would be guilty of in Spanish as well. I am just trying to ascertain to what degree this is more like a "feature" in HU, rather than an incompletely achieved ideal.
___________________________________________________________________________
[EDIT]: and, in fairness, the same goes for the example I offered:
pulis ne 3aurat se puuchhaa ki(h) kyaa us ne us ke xaavand kaa qatl kiyaa thaa, not "hai"

(I suspect if there is no indirect tense mapping for the HU future in "laRke ne kahaa ki(h) maiN aauuNgaa", so that one remains ambiguous, I guess).

 

[littlepond]

Incidentally, this speech doesn't seem to be fully objetivized. If one were really punctilious and demaded a full shift to indirect style here, shouldn't "vo" and "rahii thii" have been used?

No. The usage of "rahii hai" brings the reader inside the story, brings immediacy. It has nothing to do with direct or indirect demands.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

The way the reader is "brought inside the story" is, precisely, inserting elements of direct speech.

 

[littlepond]

I understand that if one starts replacing every "yahaaN" for "usii jagah"

"usii jagah" is not a replacement for "yahaaN." It would be "uske vahaaN."

pulis ne 3aurat se puuchhaa ki(h) kyaa us ne us ke xaavand kaa qatl kiyaa thaa, not "hai"

But this is a different type of example than "bun rahii hai" sentence, as the murder has already happened before the police interrogation.

(I suspect if there is no indirect tense mapping for the HU future in "laRke ne kahaa ki(h) maiN aauuNgaa", so that one remains ambiguous, I guess).

laRke ne kahaa ki voh aayegaa.

 

[Qureshpor]

laRke ne kahaa ki(h) maiN aauuNgaa

what is his first impression? That the person who will come is the boy, or the narrator?

My first impression would be that the "laRkaa" will be coming.

Supposing we went for the other option that you have in mind.

laRke ne kahaa kih vuh aa'e gaa

The boy said that he would come.

But isn't "vuh" here also ambiguous? The narrator could mean the boy is referring to another person who is going to come!

Incidentally, this speech doesn't seem to be fully objetivized. If one were really punctilious and demaded a full shift to indirect style here, shouldn't "vo" and "rahii thii" have been used?

"us ne kahaa kih vuh yih khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii hai."

This sounds perfectly natural to me. When a question such as "tum yih khaddar kis ke liye bun rahii ho?" is posed to her by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, at the very same time her response is "maiN yih khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii huuN". When you ask Khwaja Ahmad Abbas what she said to him, he would say, "us ne kahaa kih vuh yih khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii hai."

If he said, ""us ne kahaa kih vuh yih khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii thii.", this would imply a past time in reference to the time they are having the conversation.

 

[Qureshpor]

Syntactic ambiguity is problematic, @aevynn jii.

I think Urdu or Hindi are probably less ambiguous than English but I haven't done any quantitative research on this matter. There is bound to be some ambiguity in every language and certainly in Urdu, a poet like Mirza Assadullah Khan "Ghalib" has perhaps used this phenomenon more than anyone else in the field of Urdu poetry for the sake of "ma3nii aafriinii" (meaning creation).

ان کے دیکھے سے جو آ جاتی ہے رونق منہ پر
وہ سمجھتے ہیں کہ بیمار کا حال اچھا ہے

un ke dekhe se jo aa jaatii hai raunaq muNh par
vuh samajhte haiN kih biimaar kaa Haal achchhaa hai

You tell me who is looking at whom and on whose face is the "raunaq"?

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

You tell me who is looking at whom and on whose face is the "raunaq"?

The person looking could be he, who experiences an improvement upon seeing her, or it could be her, who casually reckons that he is alright, unknowingly of his internal bereavement.
The face experimenting the "radiance" could be hers (in a general sense of praising her beauty), but most likely is his, which would prepare and explain the second verse about the improvement.

174_05

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

"usii jagah" is not a replacement for "yahaaN." It would be "uske vahaaN."

Yes, sorry. I meant replacing vahaaN with usii jagah.

laRke ne kahaa kih vuh aa'e gaa

The boy said that he would come.

But isn't "vuh" here also ambiguous? The narrator could mean the boy is referring to another person who is going to come!

Yes. I am focusing on the ambiguity regarding direct or indirect style, but there are, as you point out, still other interpretations.

(I suspect if there is no indirect tense mapping for the HU future in "laRke ne kahaa ki(h) maiN aauuNgaa", so that one remains ambiguous, I guess).

laRke ne kahaa ki voh aayegaa.

Sorry, my example above is wrong. What I was trying to express here, is that in English one would "map" a planned future action narrated in the past, using the conditional tense. "He said he would come".
But in HU the future can also be non-presumptive, hence, in my understanding, "laRke ne kahaa ki voh aayegaa" could be both:
"The boy said he would come". and "The boy said he will come" (one with the tense mapping one would expect for indirect discourse, and the other without such mapping).

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

If he said, ""us ne kahaa kih vuh yih khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii thii.", this would imply a past time in reference to the time they are having the conversation.

pulis ne 3aurat se puuchhaa ki(h) kyaa us ne us ke xaavand kaa qatl kiyaa thaa, not "hai"

But this is a different type of example than "bun rahii hai" sentence, as the murder has already happened before the police interrogation.

If I had my way, I would have written that one as:

us_ne kahaa kih voh (she) voh (that) khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii thii.
(I don't know if that "voh voh" is acceptable, but let's assume it is).
However, that is not what the author is doing. He is starting the speech with a "ye khaddar ...", which sets the tone of a direct speech. Since he does that, yes, the rahii thii would take us back into the past yet further than desired.

But if it were written as "voh khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii thii", wouldn't the rahii thii be legitimate, just in order to adjust the tense of the speech to the general past tense of the narration?

 

[Qureshpor]

Yes, sorry. I meant replacing vahaaN with usii jagah.

"vahaaN" is "vah" + "haaN" (that place). In Urdu, "yahaaN" is preferred in place of "vahaaN" in the sense of being at someone's place.

maiN ne un ke yahaaN mushaa3irah paRhaa hai

maiN ne un ke haaN mushaa3irah paRhaa hai

us_ne kahaa kih voh (she) voh (that) khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii thii.

I would still go for..

us ne kahaa kih vuh (she) vuh khaddar (that khaddar), apne kafan ke liye bun rahii hai.

But if it were written as "voh khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii thii", wouldn't the rahii thii be legitimate, just in order to adjust the tense of the speech to the general past tense of the narration?

If it is the author's observation, then yes, this is correct. In relation to the time the author is telling us about the event, the event took place before this time.

vuh (she) khaddar apne kafan ke liye bun rahii thii.