Genitive in Hindi

By Anil Thakur

Linguists and philosophers have attempted different theoretical models to formalize the structural properties and the various uses of the genitives. Consequently, a large number of works listing the different uses of genitives are attested in different languages of the world. The works done from diachronic perspectives are as interesting and open as those done from synchronic perspectives. However, in spite of the attention that the issue of genitives has received in the linguistics tradition, the issue remains open. I have attempted to examine Hindi genitives from the point of view of their treatment in ancient traditional grammars in Indian and Westerns grammatical traditions as well as the way they have been approached in the modern linguistics theories. I have briefly outlined the approaches that ancient grammarians took with regards to the forms and functions of the genitive constructions. In this context, I have cited both Indian and Western grammarians. In the modern linguistics approaches, I discuss works of traditional Hindi grammarians and modern generative linguists. I have specially taken the core assumptions of Chomskyan Case Theory within the principles and Parameters framework of linguistics to examine the internal structure and the syntactic operations within the genitive constructions in Hindi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Jan 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781482870305

Anil Thakur

Dr Anil Thakur obtained his PhD in Linguistics from University of Delhi specializing in generative grammar and comparative linguistics analysis. Presently he teaches at the Department of Linguistics of Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.

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Copyright © 2016 by Anil Thakur.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction

1. Outlines

1.1 Genitive: An overview

1.2 Genitive in Traditional Grammar

1.2.1 Genitive and the Kaarkaa Theory of Panini

1.2.2 Genitive and Traditional Hindi Grammar

1.3 Genitive in Generative Grammar

Chapter 2: Approaches to Hindi Genitive

2. An overview

2.1 Morpho-syntax of kaa, ke, kii

2.2 Genitive DP and PP

2.3 Nominals in Genitive Constructions

2.4 Agreement in Genitive Constructions

Chapter 3: Genitive and the Case Theory

3. The Case Theory: An Overview

3.1 Case Assignment

3.2 Genitive Case Assignment

3.3 To Sum Up

References

Acknowledgements

1. My teachers at the Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi: Professor Anjani Kumar Sinha, Professor Prem Singh, Professor Ramakant Agnihotri, Professor KV Subbarao, Professor RC Sharma, Professor Rabinder Gargesh and Professor Tista Bagchi for teaching me Linguistics, specially Professor Anjani Kumar Sinha for supervising my MPhil dissertation. I thank my student Ashok Kumar for retyping the whole matters.

2. University Grants Commission of India for Junior Research Fellowship.

3. My parents for their blessings and my wife Sanjukta and my daughter Abhijna for their desire to see this in book form.

Abbreviations

Preface

Genitives are one of the most interesting linguistic elements of all the natural languages. They have been studied since the beginning of linguistic analysis either in linguistics or in philosophy of language. In both these, scholars have approached genitives from different theoretical perspectives. Genitives throw linguistic challenges from both the points of view of structure and meaning. Across natural languages, genitives constructions exhibit a large divergence in their structural properties: position of occurrence, various other linguistic expressions that can occur within a genitive construction, position of these elements with respect to the head and the genitive noun, etc. From the meaning point of view, there is no case that has as many functional roles or uses as that of genitives. That is one of the reasons why from ancient traditional grammarians and philosophers of language to modern grammarians and linguists have attempted to list the various uses of the genitives in individual languages as well as in natural languages as a whole. Linguists and philosophers have attempted different theoretical models to formalize the structural properties and the various uses of the genitives. Consequently, a large number of works listing the different uses of genitives are attested in different languages of the world. The works done from diachronic perspectives are as interesting and open as those done from synchronic perspectives. However, in spite of the attention that the issue of genitives has received in the linguistics tradition, the issue remains open. I have attempted to examine Hindi genitives from the point of view of their treatment in ancient traditional grammars in Indian and Westerns grammatical traditions as well as the way they have been approached in the modern linguistics theories. I have briefly outlined the approaches that ancient grammarians took with regards to the forms and functions of the genitive constructions. In this context, I have cited both Indian and Western grammarians. In the modern linguistics approaches, I have discussed works of both traditional Hindi grammarians and modern generative grammarians and linguists. I have specially taken the core assumptions of Chomskyan Case Theory within the principles and Parameters framework of linguistics to examine the internal structure and the syntactic operations within the genitive constructions in Hindi. The book presents a revised version of my master of philosophy dissertation.

Chapter 1

Introduction

1. Outlines

Genitive is one of the most interesting and complex linguistic elements across languages. As a consequence, it has been one of the most discussed topics in the literature on linguistic analysis. However, it still remains to be complex in both syntactic and semantic terms to capture it in linguistic rules and formalizations. This book attempts to explore some of the linguistic aspects of genitives and determine the scope of genitive in grammar, particularly in Hindi grammar. The book focuses on three important aspects of genitive. First, it discuses some of the existing views and observations on the concept