यूनिवर्सिटी ऑफ़ मिशिगन
Discriminating the passive and the antitransitive.
When looking up an antitransitive (see notes) like धुल or कुट in a Hindi-Hindi dictionary, one often
finds a passive like धोया जा,
कूटा जा given as definition.
It is true that the one can sometimes be substituted for the other.
/ धोए जा
सकेंगे।
1. इतने से पानी
में ये सारे कपड़े नहीं
\ धुल
सकेंगे।
'This is not enough water to wash all these
clothes.'
However, there are distinct differences. These can be summed up by saying
that the subject of a passive is still felt to be the patient of an action
while the subject of an antitransitive seems more like an agent.
The clearest reflection of this is the possibility of
retaining को with the subjects
of passives (see notes on passives):
इस ख़त
को \
2.
पुलिस इन्स्पेक्टर के पास फ़ौरन
पहुँचा दिया जाए।
यह ख़त /
'Make sure this letter gets to the chief of police
right away.'
The retention of को is
impossible for the subjects of antitransitives:
3. यह ख़त पुलिस इन्स्पेक्टर
के पास फ़ौरन पहुँच जाए।
The subject of an antitransitive is felt to be more
responsible for the action than is the subject of a passive. The former
can appear with अपने आप ;
the latter cannot :
4. प्यालियाँ अपने आप
टूट जाती हैं, मेमसाहब।
'The cups break all by themselves, Ma'am.'
This can be uttered by the very party guilty of breaking the cups. By
contrast, the passive leaves the responsibility for the action with the
'real' performer (even though he is usually not mentioned). Thus, adverbs
like जान-बूझकर , which refer back to an implied
agent, may occur with a passive but not with an antitransitive:
5. मैं कहती हूँ कि
प्यालियाँ जान-बूझकर तोड़ी
जाती हैं।
'I say the cups are being broken on purpose.'
Similarly, those conjunctives which are used as a kind of adverb of manner
(see NNN) can be used only with passives:
6. हथौड़ी मारकर सारी
बोतलें फोड़ी गईं।
'All the bottles were broken with a hammer.'
To add हथौड़ी मारकर to the
antitransitive सारी बोतलें
फूट गईं would have the effect of endowing bottles
with arms and suicidal intentions.
However, अपना
usually refers back to an implied agent regardless of whether the verb is
a passive or an antitransitive :
/
बेचे नहीं जाते।
7. अपना पेट भरने के
लिये बच्चे
\
नहीं बिकते
'You don't sell your children just to fill your
stomach.'
Since the subject of an antitransitive is felt in some sense
to be the agent of its action, the modal verb पा 'manage to, be able to' may occur with
it:
8. दिसम्बर को धीमी धूप
से आदमी के हाथ सिंक नहीं पाते।
'The December sun is too weak to warm a man's
hands.'
With the passive the occurrence of पाना is impossible; only सकना may occur :
9. अंगीठी के पास बैठकर
पैर नहीं सेंके जा सकते
हैं।
'You can't warm your feet sitting near the hibachi.'
An Antitransitive may occur as a conjunctive; a passive may
not :
10. उसके दाँत ख़ूब मँजकर
चमकने लगे।
'Her teeth, having been well scoured, began to
shine.' (In India teeth are often scoured
with a black powder applied with the forefinger
rather than with a brush.)
Some speakers feel that there is a subtle difference in
meaning between the passive and the antitransitive of incapacity : The
first may express unwillingness while the second expresses physical
inability :
11a. दीदी को पौथे इतने पसन्द
हैं कि उससे उखाड़े नहीं जाते।
'Didi can't bear to pull up the plants. (She
likes them so much.)'
11b. दीदी इतनी कमज़ोर है कि उससे
पौथे नहीं उखड़ते।
'Didi can't pull up the plants. (She is so
weak.)'
This difference must, of course, disappear where the choice of using the
antitransitive does not exist :
12. मुझसे गाय का दूध पिया
नहीं जाता।
'I can't stand cows milk.' (Either I don't
like it or I get sick from it.)
Bear in mind that while only some transitive verbs have
corresponding antitransitives, all transitives and all intransitives (with
the exception of the antitransitive themselves) are potentially
passivizable. When a verb is passivized its grammar is changed but its
meaning is not. Thus लादा जा has
no meanings other than those of लाद. The
antitransitive लाद , however, shows
more autonomy. It can be used as an alternate to लादा जा in the meaning 'be loaded' but it also
can be used in contexts impossible for लादा
जा :
13. पेड़ पके हुए
आमों से लदे थे।
'The trees were laden with ripe mangos.'
Here लद cannot be directly derived
from लाद , since there is no
लादनेवाला . Other autonomous
meanings of लद include 'die' and
'go to jail'.
With a bit of effort one may imagine how a
derivative of 'load' developed these divergent secondary meanings.
What is important to realize is that in these autonomous meanings
erstwhile antitransitives lose the special properties that distinguish
them from ordinary intransitives: अपना
refers only to the subject, not to an implied agent:
14. अपना पेट भरने के
लिए ही असली देशभक्त दुश्मन के हाथों
में नहीं बिकते।
'True patriots do not sell out to the enemy simply to
fill their stomachs.' [Compare (7).]
And conjunctives of manner may occur:
15. तुम जान-बूझकर कट गये।
'You avoided (us) on purpose.' [Compare (5).]
Indeed secondary meanings may come close to
crowding out the original meaning of an antitransitive. Thus,
सिमट, the antitransitive of समेट 'collect', only rarely occurs as a
synonym of समेटा जा :
16. महरी से ये सारी
बालटियाँ एक ही बार में नहीं समेटी
जाएँगी ( ? सिमटेंगी ) ।
'The kitchen maid won't be able to collect all these
buckets in one trip.'
Usually सिमट means 'shrink (in
fear)':
17. अँधेरे में
चूहे की लाल आँखें देखकर वह
कुरसी में सिमट गया।
'Seeing the rat's red eyes in the dark, he shrank into
his chair.'
For more on the difference between passive and
antitransitive, see सहाय 1976.
(These notes are based in part on section 19B of Hindi
Strucures, pp. 177-183.)
Index of grammatical notes.
To index of मल्हार.
Keyed in by विवेक अगरवाल in May
2002. Posted (in part) 5 July 2002. Last part keyed in and posted 19
July 2002.