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Quantification in Hindi

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Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language: Volume II

Part of the book series: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy ((SLAP,volume 97))

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Abstract

After presenting some basic genetic, historical and typological information about Hindi, this chapter outlines the quantification patterns it expresses. It illustrates various semantic types of quantifiers, such as generalized existential, generalized universal, proportional, definite and partitive which are defined in the Quantifier Questionnaire in chapter “The Quantifier Questionnaire”. It partitions the expression of the semantic types into morpho-syntactic classes: Adverbial type quantifiers and Nominal (or Determiner) type quantifiers. For the various semantic and morpho-syntactic types of quantifiers it also distinguishes syntactically simple and syntactically complex quantifiers, as well as issues of distributivity and scope interaction, classifiers and measure expressions, and existential constructions. The chapter describes structural properties of determiners and quantified noun phrases in Hindi, both in terms of internal structure (morphological or syntactic) and distribution.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    My thanks to a reviewer whose comments have led to a number of improvements in the paper.

  2. 2.

    Abbreviations used in glosses: Most of the abbreviations used are transparent. The only somewhat non-standard usage is: Imp = imperfective (and not imperative). Glossing is simplified and abbreviated in many places, especially in the verbal system where the person features and gender features are sometimes not glossed when they have no clear morphological manifestation.

  3. 3.

    Case marking postpositions in Hindi are clitics attached to the last element of a nominal phrase. This last element can be a noun, as in the cases we have seen so far, or another clitic like element like the so called emphatic hii ‘only’ as in us aadmii-hii-se (that man only from) ‘only from that man’.

  4. 4.

    For more details on Hindi differential object marking, see (among others) Mahajan (1990a), Butt (1993), Mohanan (1994) and Bhatt and Anagnostopoulou (1996). In this paper, I will gloss the differential object marker –ko as simply DOM to distinguish it from the indirect object dative -ko. See also Aissen (2003) for a formal proposal about DOM. For a more recent account of why the dative adposition is a common DOM marker in Hindi type languages, see Kalin (2014).

  5. 5.

    Verma (1971) implements this by transcribing the cardinal as eek vs the indefinite as ek. In the text here, I gloss ek as ‘one’ since the reduced ek is clearly a variant of the numeral, though I agree with Verma’s intuition. See also, Dayal (2004) for a discussion of the interpretation of bare NPs in Hindi. Among other things, she notes that bare NPs (as in ek-less variants in (33)–(34)) may have a definite interpretation.

  6. 6.

    Bare singular subjects can also have a generic meaning (cf. Montaut 2004; Dayal 2004).

    (i)

    Kutta aam janvar hɛ(Montaut 2004: 55)

     

    dogcommon animal be.pres.sg

     

    ‘Dogs are common animals.’

  7. 7.

    For me, only those direct objects take narrow scope with respect to negation that do not have an ‘ek’ as in (i):

    (i)

    Kabiir akhbaarnahĩĩ paṛh-taa

     

    Kabirnewspaper negread-imp.masc.sg

     

    ‘Kabir does not read newspaper.’

  8. 8.

    Hindi D-quantifiers are adjectival in their agreement properties. They agree in gender, number and case with the noun even though many of these features do not show up in every Q form due to morpho-phonological reasons.

  9. 9.

    A reviewer points out that a wide scope reading for the existential is available in (55)–(57). I agree that such a reading is available in (57). However, it is hard to get that reading in (55) and (56).

  10. 10.

    While (63) and (66) are deviant compared to (62) and (65), they may improve in certain discourse contexts.

  11. 11.

    For a detailed discussion of (comparative) nature of zyaadaa, see Bhatt (2012) and Bhatia et al. (2013). In this paper, I gloss zyaadaa as ‘much’. zyaadaa and adhik appear to be in free variation.

  12. 12.

    A reviewer points out that har may favor an ‘every’ reading given that in (i) below a pair-list answer is somewhat marginal for it.

     

    Kis lekhak-ne har kitaab paṛh-ii

     

    which writer-erg every book read-perf.sg

     

    ‘Which writer read every book?’

  13. 13.

    Verma (1971: 81) appears to imply that the aggregate formation is general and is possible for all numerals though the maximal numeral he exemplifies is dasõõ which he glosses as ‘all the ten’ which is marginal with me with an aggregate meaning. Aggregates with numerals higher than ten are not possible in my dialect.

  14. 14.

    A reviewer points out that the –bhii form and the reduplicative form are not always interchangeable as shown by the translations in (i) and (ii) below:

    (i)

    jo-jo   vahãã khaṛ-aa        hɛ, …

     

    who-who  there  stand-perf.masc.sg be.pres.sg

     

    ‘Who all are standing there, …’

    (ii)

    jo-bhii   vahãã khaṛ-aa       hɛ, …

     

    who-BHII there  stand-perf.masc.sg be.pres.sg

     

    ‘Whoever is standing there, …’

    See Dayal (1996) and Lahiri (1998) for some relevant discussion of the particle bhii in Hindi.

  15. 15.

    A reviewer draws attention to an interesting clausal structure comaparative illustrated in (i) below:

    (i)

    Miiraa lambii hɛ.   Raadhaa ɔr  lambii hɛ.

     

    Mira tall  be.pres.sg. Radha more tall  be.pres.sg.

     

    ‘Mira is taller than Radha.’

    Another use of ɔr comparatives is illustrated in (ii).

    (ii)

    Miiraa  ɔr lambii ho ga-yiihɛ.

     

    Mira  more tall be go-perf.fem be.pres.sg.

     

    ‘Mira has grown taller.’

  16. 16.

    I gloss ke as ‘do.conj participle’ though I am not sure exactly what it is. kar and ke are in free variation in Delhi Hindi in the so called adverbial conjunctive participles. Thus, aa kar, aa ke and aa kar ke are are all possible meaning ‘having come’.

  17. 17.

    The ungrammaticality of (175) cannot be due to having multiple participle clauses since the following is grammatical:

    (i)

    yahãã aa    kar ke      do do kuliyõ-ne tiin tiin kar ke

     

    here come do do conj participle two two porters-erg three three do do conj participle

     

    ṭrank  uṭhaa-ye

     

    trunks lift-perf.pl

     

    ‘Having come here, two porters each lifted three trunks at a time.’

  18. 18.

    (186) improves if the quantifier is also followed by the ergative marker as (i). It would appear that these types of sentences involve some form of resumption rather than Q-float.

    (i)

    yahãã baccõ-ne

    har

    roz

    donõ-ne

    krikeṭ

    khelii

    thii

     

    here

    children-erg every day both-erg

    cricket

    play.perf.fem.sg be.sg.pst

    		   
     

    ‘Here both the children had played cricket everyday.’

    		      
  19. 19.

    This is the reading that Anand and Nevins (2006) report for simple subject QP in (209). However, for me both the nominative subject construction as well as the ergative construction behave similarly with respect to scope here as well.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Anoop Mahajan

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  1. Anoop Mahajan
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. LORIA (UMR 7503), CNRS, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Denis Paperno

  2. Dept. of Linguistics 3125 Campbell Hall, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Edward L. Keenan

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Mahajan, A. (2017). Quantification in Hindi. In: Paperno, D., Keenan, E. (eds) Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language: Volume II. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 97. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44330-0_7

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