Hindi (Urdu): is faisle ke piichhe kii vajah

[MonsieurGonzalito]

Friends,

I am a little confused by the syntactic structure of this phrase, which seems to be abundantly used.
Specifically I don't understand how the "decision" is linked with the "reason".

Either the reason "is behind" the decision, or "belongs" to the decision, but it can't be both at the same time!

I offer a simple example, but there are thousands:

is faisle ke piichhe kii vajah kyaa hai?

Isn't the kii superfluous? If not, why?

 

[aevynn]

Perspective 1

It may help to note that most of the "compound prepositions" are etymologically nouns, and still continue to behave like nouns in many ways. piichaa is "really" a noun, and I can use the oblique noun phrase is faiSle ke piichhe as an adverbial phrase as an adjunct to a verb, or I can also use the genitive noun phrase is faiSle ke piichhe kaa as modifier on a noun.

Perspective 2

Consider the following English sentences:

(1A) What is the reason behind this decision?
(1B) What reason is there behind this decision?

The sentences are semantically almost identical, but I think there's a difference in the syntactic structure. In (1A), the prepositional behind this decision modifies the noun reason, while in (1B), the prepositional phrase behind this decision is an adjunct to the verb phrase.

Similarly, the two HU sentences:

(2A) is faiSle ke piichhe kii wajah kyaa hai?
(2B) is faiSle ke piichhe wajah kyaa hai?

They are both possible and semantically almost identical. But I think the syntax of (2A) is similar to that of (1A) in the sense that the genitive noun phrase is faiSle ke piichhe kii wajah modifies wajah. And the syntax of (2B) is similar to (1B) in that there the oblique noun phrase is faiSle ke piichhe is an adjunct to the verb.

 

[MonsieurGonzalito]

BTW, in view of what was indicated earlier, I was checking what compound posptpositions were "nouns or derived from nouns".
For most, it is clear. There is only 2 I am in doubt about:

- ke liye: does "lie/liye" mean anything? I read somewhere that its etymology is uncertain, and that it is not related at all with the participle of lenaa.

- ke bare meN: does baraa mean anything as a noun? I found that "bare" can mean something like "finally, at last" as an adverb, but, is there a corresponding baraa?