यूनिवर्सिटी ऑफ़ मिशिगन
Blocking inferences with  लाख.
      While Hindi-Urdu has no shortage of words denoting high, even astronomically high numbers:
 1.   हज़ार   '1,000'                      खरब   '100,000,000,000'
       लाख   '100,000'                   नील   '10,000,000,000,000'
       करोड़   '10,000,000'             पद्मा   '1,000,000,000,000,000'
       अरब   '1,000,000,000'
 लाख is the one that has developed from a cardinal number into a colloquial expression meaning 'a lot, a great deal' (similar to a million in 'Thanks a million!'):
 2.  यह तुमने लाख रुपए की बात कह दी,  भाई।  बस सज्जन वही,  जो दूसरों की आबरू को
    अपनी आबरू समझे।
      'What you've said is worth a million, Brother.  A true gentleman considers the honor of others his own.'
      (from Chapter One of   गोदान. See context.)
 3.  एक परहेज़ लाख दवा
      'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.'
      ( from बाहरी )
 4.  देखने-सुनने में उससे लाख दरजे अच्छी।
      'You're a thousand times better than she is!'
      (from Chapter Twenty-nine of   गोदान. See context.)
      From this conventional sense of an indefinitely large number,  लाख has developed into an adverb of quantity:
 5.  मिलने वाले आते तो लाख मिन्नत करने पर मुश्किल से वह उन्हें  ' हैलो '  करने बाहर आती . . .
     'If visitors came, you'd have to beg her a thousand times and then just maybe she'd come out to say, "Hello."'
      (from   चिड़िया औरर चील  by  सुषम बेदी.  See context.)
      Like the English family of phrases no matter wh-, adverbial  लाख can be used (at least in colloquial speech) to block or override a line of argument or deny the validity of an implicit conclusion.  For instance,  होरी, the speaker in (6), has managed to acquire a cow and has been visited and congratulated on this by everyone in the village except his two brothers.  He is estranged from them and others warn him to be careful.  Still he is unwilling to draw the inference that his brothers are too jealous to share wholeheartedly in his joy and that it would be unwise of him to go invite them to celebrate his good fortune:
 6.  फिर अपने भाई लाख बुरे हों,  हैं तो अपने भाई ही।
      'Still no matter how bad my brothers are, they are still my brothers.'
      (from Chapter Four of   गोदान. See context.)
      The clause which  लाख inhabits is almost always in the subjunctive (7) and (8) or the conditional (9):
 7.  वह लाख ग़ुस्सैल हो;  पर इतना नीच काम नहीं कर सकता।
      'No matter how hot-headed he may be, he would still never play such a dirty game as that!'
      (from Chapter Eight of   गोदान. See context.)
 8.  अब वह लाख प्रायश्चित्त करे,  लाख गोबर खाय औरर गंगाजल पिये,  लाख दान-पुण्य औरर तीर्थ- व्रत करे,  उसका मरा हुआ धर्म जी नहीं सकता।
      'Now no matter how much penance he may do, no matter how much cow-dung and Ganges-water he may consume, no matter how many good deeds and fasts and pilgrimages he may undertake, his dharma is dead and cannot be brought back to life.
      (from Chapter Twenty-three of   गोदान. See context.)
 9.  तुमने रसीद ले ली होती तो मैं लाख उनकी हँसी उड़ाता, तुम्हारा बाल भी बाँका न कर सकते।
      'If you had gotten them to give you a receipt, then I could have made endless fun of them and they wouldn't have been able to touch a hair on your head.'
      (from Chapter Twenty-one of   गोदान. See context.)
(to be continued)
To index of grammatical notes.
To index of  मल्हार.
Drafted and posted 2 Jun 2001 and 12 Mar 2003.