MonsieurGonzalito
Senior Member
Castellano de Argentina
Friends,
I have a doubt regarding a couple of constructions where the participle is supposed to be idiomatically masculine, even if the person doing the action is feminine.
The first, is that antiquated use of chahnaa meaning "to be about to, imminence" rather than "to want".
My understanding is that, for a man, one would say:
"He is about to go (leave)" = vo jaayaa chahtaa hai
but for a woman, to say "She is about to die", would I still use the masculine participle: vo maraa chahtii hai ?
(BTW, I am aware, per some earlier threads, that the above example is increasingly weird for modern speakers, and it would mean something like "she wants [some man] dead" in normal speech).
The second case is with the "(in)capacity construction" Again, the gender of the participle is supposed to be always masculine (I think).
So, if I wanted to say: "Ram could (was able to) eat bread"
would I say
raam se roTii khaayaa gayaa
or
raam se roTii khaaii gaii?
Thanks in advance for any answer.
I have a doubt regarding a couple of constructions where the participle is supposed to be idiomatically masculine, even if the person doing the action is feminine.
The first, is that antiquated use of chahnaa meaning "to be about to, imminence" rather than "to want".
My understanding is that, for a man, one would say:
"He is about to go (leave)" = vo jaayaa chahtaa hai
but for a woman, to say "She is about to die", would I still use the masculine participle: vo maraa chahtii hai ?
(BTW, I am aware, per some earlier threads, that the above example is increasingly weird for modern speakers, and it would mean something like "she wants [some man] dead" in normal speech).
The second case is with the "(in)capacity construction" Again, the gender of the participle is supposed to be always masculine (I think).
So, if I wanted to say: "Ram could (was able to) eat bread"
would I say
raam se roTii khaayaa gayaa
or
raam se roTii khaaii gaii?
Thanks in advance for any answer.