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[Annie Montaut]

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*Grammar of Hindi*, Annie Montaut
ISBN 3 89586 904 X. LINCOM Studies in Indo-European Linguistics 02. 332
pp. EUR 72.


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abstract de Grammar of Hindi (Annie Montaut, INALCO/CNRS)



Hindi, the official language of India, is an Indo-Aryan language widely
spoken in North India between Punjab, Bengal and Maharashtra, with more
than 400 millions speakers in the world.

The grammar is aimed at giving a functional description of the language
in a typological perspective, using diachronic explanation and regional
variation as well as areal contact, whenever it provides a better
understanding of synchronic facts. Modern Standard Hindi is a verb final
language very weakly flexional inherited from Sanskrit, a typically
flexional language with relatively free word order.

The first section consists in a brief phonological outline, including a
description of the writing system and stress. The second section deals
with morphology, typical of head final languages (postpositions,
postponed auxiliaries) with strong agglutinative tendency (specially in
the verb phrase) although a few remnants of casual flexions and a two
gender opposition are still preserved. Parts of speech are clearly
distinct although verbo-nominal compounds raise a number of problems in
this respect. The development and grammaticalization of postposition or
postpositive locutions, verb series, causative and factitive
alternations, aspectual, aktionsart and modal auxiliaries are analysed,
as well as derivational morphology, both prefixing and suffixing
(although mainly productive in technical neology). Reduplication and
synonymous  pairs also form an important device in developing the lexicon.

The third section deals with syntax. The analysis of the simple sentence
(first part) shows the high sensitivity of  morpho-syntactic structures
to semantic roles (specific case marking for the main argument of
subjective predicates, of possessive predicates) and to aspect (ergative
marking for agents of accomplished processes). The latter appears to
form a paradigm with the other types of predications of localization,
exhibiting clear analogies with the formation of Indo-European perfect
in its early stages. Given the fact that such notions as subject and
object fail to adequately account for a large number of elementary
statements, the various types of clauses are better described within a
frame of case-marking (taking into account semantic and discursive
parameters) than of purely syntactical relations.

The complex sentence (second part) shows the prevalence of the typically
Indo-aryan system of correlation on subordination in the restricted
meaning, as well as of non finite verbal forms, a typically Dravidian
device.

The fourth section is devoted to general questions such as negation,
interrogation, anaphora and various devices for emphasis and
expressiveness, including word reordering and discursive particles.


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