Urdu: infinitive agreement, again

MonsieurGonzalito

Senior Member
Castellano de Argentina
Friends,

Is the lack of agreement of infinitives with their objects becoming the norm in Urdu?
(i.e کِتاب پڑھنا instead of کِتاب پڑھنی) ?

For example:

(from the BBC)
صف ججہ، ٹورنٹو:
مجھے کتابیں پڑھنا بہت پسند ہے اور میں نے سائینس اور شاعری کی بہت سی کتابیں پڑھی ہیں لیکن یہاں آنے کے بعد میں نے مختلف مذاہب پر مختلف کتابیں پڑھی ہیں جن میں عیسائیت اور سکھ مت اہم ہیں۔ مجھے ان کتابوں کو پڑھنا بہت اچھا لگتا ہے اور یہ بات کھل کر نظر آتی ہے کہ تمام مذاہب ایک ہی سبق دیتے ہیں جو انسانیت سے پیار ہے۔​

What about the plurals? (even if we agree to call them "gerundives"، i.e. "clothes to be purchased")

مَیں کَپْڑے خَرِیدْنے چاہتا ہوُں or مَیں کَپْڑے خَرِیدْنا چاہتا ہوُں ?

Thanks in advance for any answers or comments.
_______________________________________________________________
[EDIT]: For those who know Hindi, is perhaps the lack of agreement mostly an Urdu thing?
 
  • Would you say or write۔۔۔۔

    میں کتاب پڑھنی چاہتا ہوں۔
     
    Alhough apparently minoritary, there are plenty of appearances on the Internet, which seem serious (or at least, articulated language). For example:

    Also from the BBC

    فرنینڈیس کا کہنا ہے کہ یہ اُن کے لیے بھی فائدہ مند ہے جنھیں واضح طور پر یہ پتا نہ ہو کہ انھیں پوری کتاب پڑھنی چاہیے یا نہیں۔​

    This place specifically prescribes the agreement:


    If the verb is transitive, and a direct object occurs in the sentence, the gerundive agrees with the direct object in gender:

    ان کو یہ کتاب پڑھنی چاھیے

    un ko yah kitaab paRhnii caahiye

    'They should read this book'.​

    Rekhta


    معلوم ہوجاتا ہے کہ کتاب پڑھنی بھی چاہیے یا نہیں۔یہ کتاب دراصل ثروت زہرا کی نظموں​

    Urduweb


    اس لیے معاشی خوشحالی کا ایک نسخہ یہ بھی ہے کہ آپ مسلسل اور اچھا پڑھنے والے بن جائیں۔ اس لیے آج سے یہ کام اپنے اوپر فرض کر لیں کہ بلا ناغہ آپ نے صرف پانچ منٹ ایک کتاب پڑھنی ہے آہستہ آہستہ یہ دورانیہ بڑھاتے جائیں اور ایک وقت آئے گا آپ کو کتاب بینی کی عادت ہو جا ئے گی​
     
    Using what we discussed previously: If we use the letter X to denote either -aa or -ii, one can probably say that the sentences

    (1) mujhe kitaabeN paRhnX chaahi'e(N).
    (2) mujhe kitaabeN paRhnX haiN.
    (3) maiN kitaabeN paRhnX chaahtaa huuN.
    (4) mujhe kitaabeN paRhnX pasand hai.

    differ in that paRhnX appears as a gerundive in (1) and (2), and an infinitive in (3) and (4). In the lect that I speak and hear, the gender/number agreement is (very) obligatory in (1) and (2) -- and so the X's that appear there would be -ii -- but agreement is optional in (3) and (4). In other words, none of the sentences presented in this thread so far strike me as particularly "marked."

    PS. The following remarks about the optionality of the agreement in (3) and (4) were already made in the other thread:
    This suggests that the phenomenon of infinitives (ie, -naa forms functioning as verbal nouns) inflecting to show gender/number agreement is in relatively free alternation with masculine singular infinitives.
    (o) bAt karnI kA`irAda haE
    (o) bAt karnI kI aOqAt haE.

    I'm sure you must have found the last two sentences revolting!
    I guess, to the extent that @aevynn's observation that "This suggests that the phenomenon of infinitives (ie, -naa forms functioning as verbal nouns) inflecting to show gender/number agreement is in relatively free alternation with masculine singular infinitives." holds, it is limited to the direct case context. Even in the direct case, there are further constraints.

    PPS. Given that you responded in #4 using some چاہیے sentences after @Qureshpor jii proposed a چاہتا ہوں sentence in #2, it may be worth pointing out that (1) and (3) also carry distinct semantics: (1) means something like "I should read books" while (3) is closer to "I want to read books."
     
    If the paRhnX forms are used as a gerundives, in my understanding, that makes the book the head word of the construction, which becomes somethig like "books to be read" "legendas books".

    If, on the contrary, the paRhnX forms are used as infinitives, they become the (verbal) head word of the construction, and the books become their object (inside the main object) = "to read books".

    (I already posed this question in the previous discussion, but it was kind of dismissed saying basically that "the end result / translation ends up being (roughly) the same").

    So @aevynn jii, if I interpret you answer above correctly, you are saying that in (1) and (2) your needs revolve around the books, whereas in (3) and (4), your needs (or taste) revolve around an activity.
     
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    So @aevynn jii, if I interpret you answer above correctly, you are saying that in (1) and (2) your needs revolve around the books, whereas in (3) and (4), your needs (or taste) revolve around an activity.

    I feel that the above is unnecessarily muddying the waters. Especially as (2) can have a variety of translations.

    For me they are simply:
    (1) I should read books.
    (3) I want to read books.
    (4) I like reading books.

    It's hard for me to come up with a coherent framework where some of the above are book-centered and other are reading-centered, as per your quote above.

    For (2) I can see meanings of wanting to reading and having to read, depending on context.
     
    (1) mujhe kitaabeN paRhnX chaahi'e(N).
    (2) mujhe kitaabeN paRhnX haiN.
    (3) maiN kitaabeN paRhnX chaahtaa huuN.
    (4) mujhe kitaabeN paRhnX pasand hai.
    3) maiN kitaabeN paRhnii chaahtaa huuN (?)... maiN roTiyaaN khaanii chaahtaa huuN.... maiN chiTThiyaaN likhnii chaahtaa huuN...

    Doesn't sound right!

    4) mujhe kitaabeN paRhnii pasand hai (?)

    Same as above.
     
    It's hard for me to come up with a coherent framework where some of the above are book-centered and other are reading-centered, as per your quote above.
    Unless one is prepared to say that some (whatever) of the sentences mean: "I (want/like/need) books to be read" versus another whatever groups means "I (want/like/need) to read books", then, in my opinion, it doesn't make much sense to throw the term "gerundive" around.
     
    Unless one is prepared to say that some (whatever) of the sentences mean: "I (want/like/need) books to be read" versus another whatever groups means "I (want/like/need) to read books", then, in my opinion, it doesn't make much sense to throw the term "gerundive" around.
    Yes, exactly, 'gerundive' is not at all appropriate here. My point above is that no one construes any of the 4 options that aevynnji has listed as anything akin to 'books to be read.'
     
    "I (want/like/need) books to be read"
    None of the sentences mean this.

    ... then, in my opinion, it doesn't make much sense to throw the term "gerundive" around.
    From what I understood of the previous discussion, the circle of ideas that one is attempting to convey with the use of the word "gerundive" is that the syntactic structure of the sentence "mujhe kitaabeN paRhnii chaahi'e(N)" is more like that of "mujhe kamraa Saaf chaahi'e" (I want the room clean) or "mujhe chaa'e garam chaahi'e" (I want my tea hot), than it is like "mujhe gaaRii chaahi'e" (I want a car), in the sense that:

    - The word "paRhnii" is functioning as an adjective, just like "Saaf" and "garam" are in their respective sentences, and
    - The substring "kitaabeN paRhnii" is not a constituent, just as "kamraa Saaf" and "chaa'e garam" are not constituents in their respective sentences (whereas "gaaRii" is a constituent of its sentence).

    I underlined "syntactic structure" above because (again) the semantics of the sentence "mujhe kitaabeN paRhnii chaahi'e" in English translation are not "I want the books to be read," but rather "I should read books."

    Using the word "gerundive" to express this circle of ideas is not without problems:
    In a sense, your critic is indeed fair, because the "two" forms are essentially identical, except for the inflections.
    and the circle of ideas itself is not entirely without problems:
    ... it can be an infinitive agreeing with the object. Or, is it a gerundive? Who knows! Anyway, both analyses are also possible at the same time, if both testcases pass. Bottomline, I think, the whole mess is caused by trying to fit the H/U "-naa" form to the a-priori grammatical distinction of infinitive/gerund vs. gerundive, which is hard to clearly distinguish for this language, given the existence of such borderline cases.
    I agree with these comments that @Dib made, so to the extent that these are the basis for your opposition to the word "gerundive," I agree with you.

    For what it's worth, I think using the word "infinitive" in this context is problematic for similar reasons as "gerundive" and maybe it would be best to refer just to the morphology alone and call it the "-naa forms" or "-nX forms" or something like that. I don't know 🤷‍♂️
     
    A despotic restaurant owner to his dishwasher:

    mujhe bartan Saaf chaahi'e, is_lie, terii qismat meN bartan dhone likhe haiN!

    Is that dhone still not a gerundive, and do most speakers think that what is written in that poor man's destiny is "washing", not (dirty) dishes?
     
    I wonder if different things are being accidentally conflated?

    The way this was taught to me at university goes as follows:

    There are 'direct verb constructions', using the usual pronouns (main, tu/tum, vo, hum, aap, vo). In such cases, when you're using an infinitive, it usually is not inflected.

    So, e.g.

    main aapse baat karnaa chaahtaa/tii hoon

    I want to talk to you.

    The conjugated part of the verb, 'chaahna', is conjugated according to the subject, 'mai.n'.

    Then you have the example of the 'bartan dhona'.
    e.g. main bartan dhone jaa rahaa hoon
    Or your example, 'teri qismat mein bartan dhone likha hai'.
    There's an implicit 'ko' in both cases, which causes the infinitive verb to inflect. It's often dropped, but still indicated in the infinitive verb.

    This is a separate matter from indirect verb constructions using pronouns like 'mujhe, tujhe, ise/use, humein, aapko, inhen/unhen'. In such sentences, the topical subject is not always the grammatical subject, the implicit 'ko' in the pronouns (mujhe=mujhko, etc.,etc.) effectively blocking agreement with the topical subject.

    So you can have sentences like the following:

    mujhe naye kapaDe kharidne hain
    I need to buy new clothes
    The 'ko' inherent to mujhe blocks agreement with the topical subject, and the noun becomes the grammatical subject that the verb conjugates with. So the infinitive verb conjugates to masculine plural in agreement with 'kapade'.

    mujhe aapse baat karni hai
    I have to talk to you (baat is femine singular).

    In Urdu, you don't necessarily have agreement in this way, though. It's normative to say,
    mujhe naye kapade kharidnaa hai
    mujhe aapse baat karnaa hai

    etc.

    So the infinitive never inflecting depends on the dialect, I suppose. It's true for Urdu, but not necessarily for all dialects across Hindi-Urdu. This is my understanding, of course, if I'm off-base, I look forward to hearing from all of you. ;)
     
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    My inflected infinitives have been corrected recently by an Urdu speaker. And a couple of years ago, my uninflected infinitives had been corrected by a Hindi speaker of Punjabi background (perhaps the agreement is the norm in Punjabi?). So at this point, it is probably safe to assume it is a "lect" thing, as proposed above.

    What I find intriguing is the two grammatical rationalizations attached to the usage (mutually complementary and reinforcing each other) in the line of "the infinitive plural doesn't exist" and "it is a gerundive".

    (If I am forgiven the digression, I would like to ask the wider question of whether of not something like the "gerundive" exists in general in HU, aside for the thread at hand).

    It seems to be also true that not all inflections are equal, in terms of speakers being amenable to do the agreement. Feminine seems to be more likely, and plurals less likely.

    And one last point I find interesting is that, even inside a "lect", some external structures (as listed by @aevynn jii at #5) are more prone to produce the agreement than others (for reasons not obvious to me).
     
    My inflected infinitives have been corrected recently by an Urdu speaker. And a couple of years ago, my uninflected infinitives had been corrected by a Hindi speaker of Punjabi background (perhaps the agreement is the norm in Punjabi?). So at this point, it is probably safe to assume it is a "lect" thing, as proposed above.
    I don't think it's a "Hindi-vs-Urdu" thing. It probably is a geographical thing, but I am skeptical that Punjabi should be "blamed." @Qureshpor jii speaks both Punjabi and Urdu and passed the following acceptability judgments in #8:
    3) maiN kitaabeN paRhnii chaahtaa huuN (?)... maiN roTiyaaN khaanii chaahtaa huuN.... maiN chiTThiyaaN likhnii chaahtaa huuN...

    Doesn't sound right!

    4) mujhe kitaabeN paRhnii pasand hai (?)

    Same as above.
    @littlepond jii speaks Hindi and has stated elsewhere that he has had limited exposure to Punjabi, and he agreed with these assessments. I grew up calling the language I heard spoken around me "Hindi" and Punjabi is an ancestral language for me (spoken mostly by non-immediate relatives), and the same sentences sound okay to me. Nasir Nazeer Firaq Dehlvi (1865-1933) is a "writer of Urdu known and loved for his portrayal of Delhi's culture, society and history in an elegantly idiomatic Urdu prose" (according to Rauf Parekh writing for Dawn), and his writing includes the following sentence:
    اس کی سپہ سالاری کے لئے فدوی خود عرض کرنی چاہتا تھا کہ کسے نامزد کیا جائے۔​
    us_kii sipah-saalaarii ke li'e fidvii x(w)ud 3arz karnii chaahtaa thaa ki(h) kise naam-zad kiyaa jaa'e.​
    FWIW, I did also spend linguistically formative years in Delhi, so the "optionality of the agreement in (3) and (4)" that I proposed in #5 might be a feature of Delhi's lect.

    A despotic restaurant owner to his dishwasher:

    mujhe bartan Saaf chaahi'e, is_lie, terii qismat meN bartan dhone likhe haiN!

    Is that dhone still not a gerundive, and do most speakers think that what is written in that poor man's destiny is "washing", not (dirty) dishes?
    I share in the puzzlement @littlepond jii expressed here -- I don't understand what this question means.

    (If I am forgiven the digression, I would like to ask the wider question of whether of not something like the "gerundive" exists in general in HU, aside for the thread at hand).
    I also don't really understand what this question means. Are you asking how one would translate something like "I want these dishes to be washed"? If so, I would propose complementizing and using an intransitive:
    میں چاہتا ہوں کہ یہ برتن دھل جائیں۔​
    maiN chaahtaa huuN ki(h) ye(h) bartan dhul jaa'eN.​
     
    I grew up calling the language I heard spoken around me "Hindi" and Punjabi is an ancestral language for me (spoken mostly by non-immediate relatives), and the same sentences sound okay to me. Nasir Nazeer Firaq Dehlvi (1865-1933) is a "writer of Urdu known and loved for his portrayal of Delhi's culture, society and history in an elegantly idiomatic Urdu prose" (according to Rauf Parekh writing for Dawn), and his writing includes the following sentence:
    اس کی سپہ سالاری کے لئے فدوی خود عرض کرنی چاہتا تھا کہ کسے نامزد کیا جائے۔us_kii sipah-saalaarii ke li'e fidvii x(w)ud 3arz karnii chaahtaa thaa ki(h) kise naam-zad kiyaa jaa'e.FWIW, I did also spend linguistically formative years in Delhi, so the "optionality of the agreement in (3) and (4)" that I proposed in #5 might be a feature of Delhi's (dia)lect.
    As the title of the thread is "Urdu", I would prefer not to discuss Hindi. You've mentioned Punjabi and I presume you are possibly implying that your acceptance of the kind of sentences proposed by you in your #5 may be influenced by Punjabi. If my assumption is correct, I would like to add that if those sentences were in Punjabi, they still don't sound right, to my ears at least.

    As for your quote from Nasir Nazeer Firaq Dehlavi, I had a feeling you would be busy trying to dig up this construjction. :) You may well be right. All I can do is to offer my honest perception of the construction and as I have said, it doesn't sound right and I wouldn't feel comfortable using it. That in itself doesn't mean anything because I have never used the word "مُدَّعَا" im my speech or writings, for whatever reason! :)

    Finally, if I am being totally honest, I am rather tired of seeing the same questions being asked when this topic has already been whipped to death, on several previous occasions.
     
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    You've mentioned Punjabi and I presume you are possibly implying that your acceptance of the kind of sentences proposed by you in your #5 may be influenced by Punjabi. If my assumption is correct, I would like to add that if those sentences were in Punjabi, they still don't sound right, to my ears at least.
    This is exactly what I was trying to say here:
    I am skeptical that Punjabi should be "blamed." @Qureshpor jii speaks both Punjabi and Urdu and passed the following acceptability judgments in #8:
    My point was precisely that this seems to be uncorrelated with Punjabi background.

    Finally, if I am being totally honest, I am rather tired of seeing the same questions being asked when this topic has already been whipped to death, on several previous occasions.
    :thumbsup:
     
    From what I understood of the previous discussion, the circle of ideas that one is attempting to convey with the use of the word "gerundive" is that the syntactic structure of the sentence "mujhe kitaabeN paRhnii chaahi'e(N)" is more like that of "mujhe kamraa Saaf chaahi'e" (I want the room clean) or "mujhe chaa'e garam chaahi'e" (I want my tea hot), than it is like "mujhe gaaRii chaahi'e" (I want a car), in the sense that:

    - The word "paRhnii" is functioning as an adjective, just like "Saaf" and "garam" are in their respective sentences, and
    - The substring "kitaabeN paRhnii" is not a constituent, just as "kamraa Saaf" and "chaa'e garam" are not constituents in their respective sentences (whereas "gaaRii" is a constituent of its sentence).
    I perceive this sentence to mean "I ought to read books" or "I ought to partake in the activity of book-reading" and not "I want the books read" where "read" is in the past tense.
     
    I perceive this sentence to mean "I ought to read books" or "I ought to partake in the activity of book-reading" and not "I want the books read" where "read" is in the past tense.
    No, it is a perfective (passive) participle, but I get your point.

    Would you say...

    میں کراچی جانے چاہتا ہوں؟

    میں خط لکھنے چاہتا ہوں؟
    (Please don't take what "I would say" as an indication of anything, because I don't have the least fluency and I don't have any sense of the language. I am jus trying to figure out its mechanisms, intellectually, to the best of my ability).

    On the first sentence, "Karachi" is not exactly an objetc in the included structure, but a different complement of jaanaa which, idiomatically, does not require postposition. So I would use jaanaa, as if there were a ko.
    (it also happens to be a city name, which seems to be a contentious subject, I never know if one should think about a generic masculine "shɛhr" or go by the final -ii, but that is a different subject)

    On the second sentence, I (for what it's worth) would perhaps usa likhnee if they were many letters.



    I share in the puzzlement @littlepond jii expressed here -- I don't understand what this question means.
    I was asking if the mental image of the victim was at the moment primarily him washing, or a pile of dishes. Since then, it has been aboundantly answered by everybody that "washing" is the image.

    hence my general question ...
    (If I am forgiven the digression, I would like to ask the wider question of whether of not something like the "gerundive" exists in general in HU, aside for the thread at hand).
    ---------------
    I also don't really understand what this question means. Are you asking how one would translate something like "I want these dishes to be washed"
    I was simply asking, for context, if any "gerundive" grammatical construct to convey "to be washed", "to be made", "to be killed", to be [whatever]" (i.e., adjectival future compulsion) exists in HU, independently of this infinitive discussion.
     
    I also don't really understand what this question means. Are you asking how one would translate something like "I want these dishes to be washed"? If so, I would propose complementizing and using an intransitive:
    میں چاہتا ہوں کہ یہ برتن دھل جائیں۔​
    maiN chaahtaa huuN ki(h) ye(h) bartan dhul jaa'eN.​

    Actually, in Hindi, more idiomatic would be to say "maiN in bartanoN ko dhulvaanaa chaahtaa hooN," thus with a causative. While "maiN chaahtaa hooN ki ye bartan dhul jaaeN" is correct, it would only work in certain situations, for example, if this is one of your three wishes to Aladdin's lamp's djinn (jinn).
     
    I was asking if the mental image of the victim was at the moment primarily him washing, or a pile of dishes. Since then, it has been aboundantly answered by everybody that "washing" is the image.

    I don't think one would imagine someone to be washing ... nothing? Unless one is playing dumb charades. How is it possible to break the mental image of someone washing dishes into washing and dishes?
     
    I don't think one would imagine someone to be washing ... nothing? Unless one is playing dumb charades. How is it possible to break the mental image of someone washing dishes into washing and dishes?
    Not break up, but prioritizing your focus: "washing dishes" [and not other kind of utensil] (focus on the activity, the object is additional information) versus "dishes to be washed" [and not dried] (focus on the objects, the activity to be performed on them being additional information).
     
    Not break up, but prioritizing your focus: "washing dishes" [and not other kind of utensil] (focus on the activity, the object is additional information) versus "dishes to be washed" [and not dried] (focus on the objects, the activity to be performed on them being additional information).

    You can always put emphasis by your voice/tone on a word to express that oh you are washing dishes instead of breaking them! or that you are washing dishes instead of people (as in giving them a good lick: kisi ko dhonaa), but how any breaking up of focus can happen in washing something is beyond my imagination. And this stands for any language I know, because your question is mentally incomprehensible for me.
     
    On the first sentence, "Karachi" is not exactly an objetc in the included structure, but a different complement of jaanaa which, idiomatically, does not require postposition. So I would use jaanaa, as if there were a ko.
    I would say that in میں کراچی جانا چاہتا ہوں maiN Karachi jaanaa chaahtaa huuN, the highlighted part can be thought of as an object in the same way one has میں روٹی چاہتا ہوں maiN roTii chaahtaa huuN.

    On the second sentence, I (for what it's worth) would perhaps usa likhnee if they were many letters.
    I presume you meant to write لکھنے likhne.

    I would still consider میں خط لکھنے چاہتا ہوں maiN xat likhne chaahtaa huuN, not quite right whether one was writing one letter or more than one letter.
     
    I was simply asking, for context, if any "gerundive" grammatical construct to convey "to be washed", "to be made", "to be killed", to be [whatever]" (i.e., adjectival future compulsion) exists in HU, independently of this infinitive discussion.
    The question remains unclear to me and it would probably be helpful for me (and likely others) if you were to formulate some sentences that you wanted translated. If in the meantime I permit myself to make yet another guess at what you might be looking for, I'd point out that vaalaa, with its wonderfully multi-valent and context-dependent semantics, can sometimes also fit what I understand you to be describing. For example:

    maiN_ne dhone vaale kapRe us thaile meN ikaTThe ki'e haiN.​
    I've collected the clothes that need to be washed in that bag.​
     
    The question remains unclear to me and it would probably be helpful for me (and likely others) if you were to formulate some sentences that you wanted translated. If in the meantime I permit myself to make yet another guess at what you might be looking for, I'd point out that vaalaa, with its wonderfully multi-valent and context-dependent semantics, can sometimes also fit what I understand you to be describing. For example:

    maiN_ne dhone vaale kapRe us thaile meN ikaTThe ki'e haiN.​
    I've collected the clothes that need to be washed in that bag.​
    @aeyynn Jii, the use of "vaalaa" for this very purpose came up in another thread. Your usage is confirmed by Faylasoof SaaHib although one or two people were initially against it! :)

    Hindi/Urdu and Punjabi: yih gaaRii dhone waalii ho gai hai
     
    I was simply asking, for context, if any "gerundive" grammatical construct to convey "to be washed", "to be made", "to be killed", to be [whatever]" (i.e., adjectival future compulsion) exists in HU, independently of this infinitive discussion.
    یہ کار کل تک دھل جانی چاہیئے۔

    yih kaar kal tak dhul jaanii chaahiye

    This car is to be washed by tomorrow

    گھر میں زہر کھانے جوگا نہیں اور یہ حلوا مانگ رہا ہے۔

    ghar meN zahr khaane jogaa nahiiN aur yih Halvaa maaNg rahaa hai.

    There isn't even poison in the house fit to be eaten and he is asking for Halvaa!
     
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