Hindi, Urdu: auxiliar denaa used intransitively

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Friends,

I understand that denaa used as an auxiliar normally means that "the action is directed away from the doer".
My question is: how much this concept overlaps with the main verb being transitive or intransitive?
Can I for example use badalnaa intransitively, in the sense that I changed (intransitively), but for the sake of another person?

maiN tere lie badal diyaa huuN


Here is a journalistic example (in Hindi). If I understand it correctly, the "whole village" is the subject (journalistically put at the end), and it is changing intransitively, but still the change is "directed towards" the guests (the article is about some excentric rich who built a Scottish-style castle decoration for a wedding):

raajsthaan meN shaahii ... shaadii skAuTlaiND kaa kilaa banaayaa, 10 hazaar mehmaanoN ke lie badal diyaa puuraa gaaNv

Or this other citation about the UAPA (some law that allows the government to jail people without due process):

UAPA ko jis tarah kaRe qaanuun meN badal diyaa gayaa hai

So, can I conclude that "using denaa to direct the verb outwards" and "the verb being transitive" are not the same thing, and that it is possible to use verbs with denaa intransitively?

Thanks for any comments.

 

[littlepond]

maiN tere lie badal diyaa huuN

This sentence makes no sense. If you mean to say "I have changed (my nature) for you," (I've become a different person), it should be "maiN tere lie badal gayaa hooN."

But you could have said (almost) the same thing as "maiN ne tere lie apnaa svabhaav badal diyaa hai."

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Yes, I know that the normal thing is to use badal gayaa for a state change.
But what about my question, can I use badal denaa intransitively? Are the sentences I provided a valid example?

(Notice that maiN ne tere lie apnaa svabhaav badal diyaa hai is not intransitive. You are changing "something", not simply "changing")

 

[aevynn]

I don't think badal denaa can be intransitive -- or, at the very least, both of the examples you've cited are transitive:

10 hazaar mehmaanoN ke lie badal diyaa puuraa gaaNv

This needs to be understood with a tacit subject "they" (eg, the organizers of the wedding). The clause above means, "They changed the whole village for 10 thousand guests."

UAPA ko jis tarah kaRe qaanuun meN badal diyaa gayaa hai

badal diyaa gayaa hai is a passive of the transitive badal denaa. In other words, the clause quoted above means "... the way that the UAPA has been transformed into a harsh law."

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

OK, I am not focusing in badalnaa specifically, but just trying to understand if "denaa" as an auxiliar can be used in a sense of "doing the action toward others", but still be intransitive.

For example, to say that "the sun shines/comes out (equally, generously) for everybody", could I say:

suuraj sab ke lie nikal detaa hai ?

 

[aevynn]

"the sun shines/comes out (equally, generously) for everybody", could I say:

suuraj sab ke lie nikal detaa hai ?

Nope! 🙂

just trying to understand if "denaa" as an auxiliar can ... still be intransitive.

Only with a few rare verbs, I think. For example, there's gaaRii chal dii ("the car started up") or there's ro denaa ("to start to cry" or "to cry out"), as in this couplet:

wO jo ro rahaa thaa haNs paRaa, jo haNs rahaa thaa ro diyaa​

yahaaN ik jaziirA banaa diyaa, wahaaN ik jaziirA Dubo diyaa​

​

Loose translation:​

​

The weeper starts to laugh and the laugher begins to weep​

Here an island is forged and there another is drowned​

​

Even looser translation:​

​

How the tables have turned!​

​

sense of "doing the action toward others"

This phrasing feels less apt to me in general than the phrasing you used in #1 (ie, "action is directed away from the doer").

PS. In English, the word is "auxiliary" (with a final -y) 🙂

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

[toward others ...] This phrasing feels less apt to me in general

I am embarrassed to be asking something so basic, but, up until now, I was under the impression that the difference between
"maiN aaluu xariid letaa huuN" and "maiN aaluu xariid detaa huuN", was that with letaa huuN there was a higher chance that the potatoes were for my consumption, and with detaa huuN, for others'.

Do I need strike "for whose benefit" from what "direction of the action" means?

 

[littlepond]

I am embarrassed to be asking something so basic, but, up until now, I was under the impression that the difference between
"maiN aaluu xariid letaa huuN" and "maiN aaluu xariid detaa huuN", was that with letaa huuN there was a higher chance that the potatoes were for my consumption, and with detaa huuN, for others'.

Do I need strike "for whose benefit" from what "direction of the action" means?

There is no "aaluu khariid denaa." And there is nothing in the language that denotes for whose consumption the bought aaloo are, regardless of what kind of wording you use.

Also, the sentence

"maiN aaluu xariid letaa huuN"

is awkward. One would say "maiN aaluu khariidtaa hooN." If you want to use the verb with lenaa, then an example sentence could be something like "arre, us ne aaluu to khariid lie, par mirch khariidnaa bhuul gayaa! ab samose kaise boriyat vaale baneNge!" And who is going to consume the aaloo/samose is and cannot be specified.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

arre, us ne aaluu to khariid lie, par mirch khariidnaa bhuul gayaa! ab samose kaise boriyat vaale baneNge!"

What is the nuance added by kharid lie in this sentence, in relation to simply khariide?
You proposed that example for a reason, which I don't understand. What makes lenaa be adequate in it, but not in maiN aaluu xariid letaa huuN?

[EDIT]
Perhaps lenaa is equivalent to the pleonastic, sort of vulgar objective pronoun in English: "we bought us potatoes, but forgot the condiment?"

 

[Qureshpor]

OK, I am not focusing in badalnaa specifically, but just trying to understand if "denaa" as an auxiliar can be used in a sense of "doing the action toward others", but still be intransitive.

denaa/lenaa (From Urdu: Essential Grammar - Ruth Laila Schmidt)

میں نے لفافہ تمھارے بٹوے میں رکھ دیا ہے۔

maiN ne lifaafah tumhaare baTu'e meN rakh diyaa hai.

I have put the envelope in your bag (I have done it for you)

میں نے لفافہ اپنے بٹؤے میں رکھ لیا۔

maiN ne lifaafah apne baTu'e meN rakh liyaa.

I put the envelope in my bag (I did it for myself.)

The Urdu couplet that @aevynn SaaHib has quoted is from a Ghazal by Ihtishamu_lHaq Siddiqi. Another couplet from the same Ghazal which would illustrate the above point is:

وہ جہانِ ہست کے موتیوں کو پرو رہا تھا کمال میں
میں بھی سامنے تھا پڑا ہؤا تو مجھے بھی اُس نے پرو دیا

vuh* jahaan-i-hast ke motiyoN ko piro rahaa thaa kamaal meN
maiN bhii saamne thaa paRaa hu'aa to mujhe bhii us ne piro diyaa

He* was threading the pearls of existence in his quest for perfection
I too was lying before him. So, he (decided to) thread me as well (for his design)

* God

 

[aevynn]

I am embarrassed to be asking something so basic, but, up until now, I was under the impression that the difference between
"maiN aaluu xariid letaa huuN" and "maiN aaluu xariid detaa huuN", was that with letaa huuN there was a higher chance that the potatoes were for my consumption, and with detaa huuN, for others'.

Do I need strike "for whose benefit" from what "direction of the action" means?

It may have been better for me to include some italics or underlines to indicate the words I wanted to emphasize in my comment in #6 😅 (Eg, I might have underlined the words "in general.") My point was not that the "for the benefit of others" sense of denaa is wrong -- that sense is a common way in which this is used! Rather, my point was that "directed out/away" might be a more general way of expressing the sense that this auxiliary conveys: actions can certainly be "directed out/away" if they are "for the benefit of others," but they can also be "directed out/away" in other ways...!

xariid denaa can be, and is frequently, used in the sense of "to buy for someone else." For example, a child might say to her parents something like, mujhe ye(h) khilaunaa xariid do. [I imagine that @littlepond jii's first sentence in post #8 is more about using this compound verb with aaluu specifically, given how mundane potatoes are...? It's hard for me to imagine a situation where a purchasing of potatoes is done with someone's benefit actively in mind, but probably if context really demands it, aaluu xariid denaa is probably fine?]

But we've also seen numerous examples in this thread where it feels to me that the sense imparted by denaa is not really that the action is "for the benefit of others," but that it is "directed out/away" in the sense that it is somewhat transformative and/or unexpected (ie, results in something moving "away" from its original state, or something like that). For example:

• I gave the example of gaaRii chal dii. Cars are not conscious and can't really have someone else's benefit in mind...! Again here, the sense is rather that something like the car (perhaps unexpectedly) starts moving, "away" from where it was just standing (an unexpected transformation of a motionless car into a moving car, etc)
• I also gave an example of ro denaa. The crying is again not being done for anyone's benefit...! To me the sense that emerges by using ro diyaa instead of just a bare royaa is a kind of outburst of crying (something like, tears flowing "out" of the crier's eyes, an unexpected transformation of the laugher into a crier, etc).

Anyway, it is somewhere between hard and impossible for me to come up with adequate generalities to describe the semantics of HU auxiliaries. It's just very context dependent! The point I wanted to make at the end of #6 (and that I have tried to elaborate on here) is merely that "for the benefit of others" is only one possible sense that compounding with denaa can impart. If you're going to work with generalities, it feels to me that "directed out/away" is more broadly applicable; but I also really think that you should try to infer the sense that an auxiliary might be imparting from context rather than trying to apply bookish generalities to derive what the sense might be.

PS. In the OP, you had two quotes involving badal diyaa. I think the sense that denaa imparts in those examples is ambiguous and/or multivalent. For the village example, it's certainly saying that the change was "for the benefit of" the 10,000 guests, but at the same time, it's also conveying that the change was transformative and/or unexpected: an entire village completely changes to something very different than it was before. In the UAPA example you quoted, someone with particular political views might try to argue that stripping citizens of due process might be strict but it is "for the benefit of" the country; but the sentence does not have to be understood that way, and someone on the opposite end of the political spectrum might still use the same sentence to convey that the law has been radically transformed so that it is much more draconian than it was before or than it was originally intended to be, or something like that.

PPS. There's similar potential for multivalence with the denaa in the couplet of #10. If we again compare to just using a bare piroyaa, it could be that the threading is done "for the benefit" of me. But at the same time, it also imparts a sense that the threading was somehow transformative and/or unexpected (something like, he was threading beautiful and iridescent pearls, but then he saw me, and even though I am lowly and nothing like those beautiful pearls, he unexpectedly decided to pick me up and thread me too, and maybe his deciding to have done this somehow transformed me).

 

[Alexu]

raajsthaan meN shaahii ... shaadii skAuTlaiND kaa kilaa banaayaa, 10 hazaar mehmaanoN ke lie badal diyaa puuraa gaaNv

In my opinion, this sentence has a passive character. Just omitted the linking verb. And 'badalnaa' is transitive verb..
shaadii skAuTlaiND kaa kilaa banaayaa [ hai ], 10 hazaar mehmaanoN ke lie badal diyaa [ hai ] puuraa gaaNv.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

I gave the example of gaaRii chal dii. Cars are not conscious and can't really have someone else's benefit in mind...! Again here, the sense is rather that something like the car (perhaps unexpectedly) starts moving, "away" from where it was just standing (an unexpected transformation of a motionless car into a moving car, etc)

FWIW, this is exactly how I pictured it. The conscious car, in a considerable, "altruistic", not-to-be-taken-for-granted effort, deigning to start up. Giving of itself the boon of starting.
Is chal denaa any more likely to be used with an old clunker than with a new, perfectly working machine, by any chance?

 

[aevynn]

Hello and welcome, @Alexu !

FWIW, this is exactly how I pictured it. The conscious car, in a considerable, "altruistic", not-to-be-taken-for-granted effort, deigning to start up. Giving of itself the boon of starting.

🙂 Not strictly impossible if context demands it, I suppose, but this is probably not the "default" image that is evoked by chal denaa.

Is chal denaa any more likely to be used with an old clunker than with a new, perfectly working machine, by any chance?

I think so, and maybe just because the auxiliary imparts a sense of "unexpectedness" to the motion? A perfectly working machine starting up isn't very surprising.

 

[Alexu]

FWIW, this is exactly how I pictured it. The conscious car, in a considerable, "altruistic", not-to-be-taken-for-granted effort, deigning to start up. Giving of itself the boon of starting.
Is chal denaa any more likely to be used with an old clunker than with a new, perfectly working machine, by any chance?

I think it's much easier .... with intransitive verbs - the inchoative mode of action. Directly opposite meaning in combinations with lenaa... for example : वर्षा लगभग हो ली

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Another way in which these answers correct my original assumptions about denaa (and lenaa) is that I thought they were quite grammaticized and "pluggable" to pretty much any verb root, to add the nunance of outwardness or inwardness.
But it seems they are limited to certain, idiomatic combinations only?

"suuraj sab ke lie nikal detaa hai" is wrong because denaa is not usually combined with nikalnaa, or because the phrase doesn't mean what I think it does?

 

[aevynn]

I can't think of any context or meaning in which *nikal denaa is acceptable.

Not every auxiliary is used with every verb. denaa is rarely okay with intransitives. It's generally okay with transitives, but even here, the situation is not totally uniform: for example, khaa denaa feels kind of marginal.

 

[Alexu]

As for combinations with lenaa / denaa ... there is a classification of transitive verbs - all verbs are divided into 3 groups:
1. only with lenaa
2. only with denaa
3. combinations with both verbs are possible.
Khanaa belongs in this classification to the first group. You can come up with examples for other groups .. 2. giranaa ( giraa denaa ) 3. likhnaa ( likh lenaa / likh denaa )

 

[littlepond]

2. only with denaa
.. 2. giranaa ( giraa denaa )

When "giraanaa" is used in the sense of getting an abortion, "giraa lenaa" also exists (though "giraa denaa" is the more frequently used idiom).