Semo-Syntactic Classes of Hindi-Urdu Verbs in the Light of Split Intransitivity

Abstract

This paper is aimed at analyzing the grammaticalization of unaccusative/unergative opposition in Hindi. The main diagnostic construction which serves to explicate the opposition of unaccusative vs. unergative verbs is passive construction. It will be shown that unaccusative and unergative verbs do not form homogenous classes and may be divided into three groups on the basis of their syntactic and semantic properties. The first class includes initially unaccusative verbs with valency on involitional (animate or inanimate) subjects: girnā ‘fall’. The unaccusative verbs with valency on animate subjects may acquire volitional meaning in special contexts or through metaphorical shifts: marnā ‘die of covid – die for the Motherland’. The second class is made up of initially unergative verbs with agentive animate subjects: bhāgnā ‘run’. Many verbs of this class may also have valency on inanimate subjects. In such cases they acquire involitional meaning: uṭhnā ‘rise’ (about a man – clouds, smoke). The third class consists of verbs that have valency either on volitional (animate) subject or on involitional (animate or inanimate) subject: milnā ‘meet’ (meet with somebody deliberately vs. unexpectedly; be received about money, etc.). Passive transformation in all the three classes is possible only when the verb has volitional meaning. Causative construction can also be used in order to distinguish between unergative and unaccusative verbs: only non-accusative verbs can form causatives with valency on involitional causer. The paper also discusses compound verbs formed by combining the main and the light components. Our analysis of the compatibility of non-accusative and non-ergative verbs in compounds brings to the conclusion that the non-ergative or non-accusative semantics of verbal combinations is always determined by meaning of the main, but not of the light verb.