# Urdu: is se muraad ghoRaa ho saktaa hai – verbal agreement



## marrish

This thread is meant as a continuation of the topic which was started by QP SaaHib with this post (a click at the icon on the right side after 'Originally posted by...' will take you to the thread:



Qureshpor said:


> *I have managed to find a reference from Qavaa3id-i-Urdu (Maulavii Abdul Haq 1914)
> 
> af3aal-i-naaqis meN jab mubtidaa [subject] aur xabar [predicate] donoN ism (noun) hoN to fi3l mubtidaa ke mutaabiq honaa chaahiye agarchih ba3z asaatizah ne is ke xilaaf bhii kiyaa hai lekin vuh qaabil-i-taqliid nahiiN.
> *
> [...]Here the "fi3l naaqis" is "honaa", subject is the masculine noun "Haasil-i-Ghazal kahnaa", the predicate is the feminine noun "naa-insaafii". Applying the rule above, the subject is masculine, therefore the auxiliary verb ought to be masculine, irrespective of the feminine noun in the predicate.
> 
> kisii ke ek shi3r ko *Haasil-i-Ghazal kahnaa *baaqii ash3aar ke saath *naa-insaafii ho gaa*.



In a thread about something different – that's the reason for this new one – this sample sentence has been given for grammatical analysis: 

.اِس سے مراد کوئی گھوڑا بھی تو ہو سکتا ہے

Question: is this sentence correct, in particular in the light of the above passage from Qavaa3id-e-Urdu (The rules of Urdu)?


----------



## Qureshpor

What one has to decide marrish SaaHib is if there is a "mubtidaa" (subject) and a "xabar" (predicate) in this sentence. Moreover, does "ho saknaa" fit the bill for a "fi3l-i-naaqis"? If we have answers to these questions, then there will no doubt be an answer to your question!


----------



## marrish

I think there is a subject and a predicate here. I don't know if _ho saknaa_ can be a _fi3l-e-naaqis_ but since you point to it, most probably it can't (sorry for this!).

To make things clearer, let's change the original sentence and remove ''_ho saknaa_''. Changing the tense to past will also bring clarity as to the gender of the verb.

اِس سے مراد کوئی گھوڑا تھا۔

How about this one?


----------



## Qureshpor

What would be the subject of this sentence? I am not sure if "muraad" can be assigned the subject status. Clearly the subject is "is" but what is "is"?


----------



## marrish

Qureshpor said:


> What would be the subject of this sentence? I am not sure if "muraad" can be assigned the subject status. Clearly the subject is "is" but what is "is"?


The subject cannot be "is" because it is not in the nominative. The subject can be only _muraad_. is se *muraad .... hai*. _muraad_ is the subject.


----------



## Qureshpor

is aadaamii (subject) ne us 3aurat (object) ko maaraa (verb). 

The following Persian sentence is the source of my Urdu sentence.

""asbe" dalaalat mii-kunad bar asb-i-vaaHid yaa mufrad laa-muHaalah ammaa, har asbe kih baashad"

""asbe" indicates a single or one horse certainly, *but it may be any one horse."

*Here "*it*" is my "is se muraad" and therefore "it" is the subject (asbe/ek ghoRaa, ko'ii ghoRaa)


----------



## marrish

_QP SaaHib, aadamii ke 3aurat ko maarne ke 3ilaawah aur ko'ii misaal nahiiN_ _pesh ho sakii _?

I can see your point very clearly, _*is *aadamii *ne*_ is not nominative but it is ergative, qualifying for forming a subject in a sentence.
_*is* [ghoR*e*] *se*_ is neither nominative nor ergative and can't be a subject. _yih ghoRaa_ would be fitting or _is [ghoRe] ne_.


----------



## Qureshpor

^ I don't see any problem with my invented sentence!

is aadaamii (subject) ne us 3aurat (object) ko...3ishq meN.. maaraa (verb).

insaan se kyaa muraad hai?/ What is meant by a human being?

insaan se muraad ek aisii maxluuq hai jis ne is zamiin par tabaahii machaa rakhii hai!

is se muraad...

I might be wrong but I do feel "insaan" /"is" is the subject of these sentences as "asbe"/"it" was in the other.


----------



## marrish

Alright, let's say my function of reading between the lines was temporarily switched off .
Getting back on the horse, _*is*_ [ghoRe] _*se*_ cannot be a subject of the sentence because it cannot be linked with any verb.


----------



## Qureshpor

^ Let us hope someone else is able to throw some light on this matter. It is obvious from your posts that you are writing with complete certainty. You could be right (and there again..you could be wrong!)


----------



## Qureshpor

I would like to make a correction to the word "mubtidaa" (subject). The correct spelling is "mubtadaa". 

I don't see why the subject of the sentence has to be in the nominative case. Please see below, section 5.3

http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/home/pargram_urdu/main/files/japan01.pdf

اِس سے مراد کوئی گھوڑا بھی تو ہو سکتا ہے

is se muraad ko'ii ghoRaa bhii to ho saktaa hai

As "is" (pronoun) is replacing another noun "asbe" (ko'ii ghoRaa) let us replace it with the word x. And as "ghoRaa" is a masculine noun, we can safely assign a masculine gender for x. I believe "ho saknaa" does pass the test for an auxilliary verb.

*x* se muraad *ko'ii ghoRaa* bhii to ho saktaa hai

Since x is masculine, there is no need to change "ho saktaa hai" to "ho saktii hai"

Conclusion:

 The sentence اِس سے مراد کوئی گھوڑا بھی تو ہو سکتا ہے 

is correct.


----------



## marrish

Lest I not be misunderstood, I'm not claiming that the sentence is incorrect. For me it is all right. The purpose of my question is the evaluation of this sentence in the light of Maulavii Abdul Haq's grammar rule. Certainly for me it is a good exercise since I was not familiar with such a rule.

Regarding the subject of the sentence: I have read the attached paper (not easy to get through!) only to discover afterwards that you indicated which section is of relevance! Should I have had noticed it before my eyes would not have been strained.

Of course I can be wrong and you right, as usual, still my understanding is that the paper says the functional  subject can be nominative, ergative, dative or instrumental (ablative), but exclusively in well defined types of specific constructions, where the forms the subject represents are linked with a verb. In the case of -se, there is one possibility: _is se bolaa nah gayaa_. (S/he was not in state to speak out).

*is [ghoRe] se* muraad ko'ii bhii ghoRaa thaa does not fit to this type of specific construction.

I also would like someone else to come in between and throw some more light on it.

This sentence could be read as follows:

is se (ablative - not a subject)
*muraad (??? this is perhaps interesting - is this a feminine noun or is it an adjective?*)
ko'ii bhii ghoRaa (noun in nominative, clearly a subject)
thaa (verb m. sg. - auxiliary verb - _fi3l-e-naaqiS_)

_is ghoRe se muraad th*aa*
ko'ii bhii ghoR*aa* th*aa

To cut the long story short, it seems to me that both muraad and ko'ii ghoRaa are subjects of this sentence, served by one auxiliary verb.*_


----------



## Qureshpor

^ The verb is "ho saknaa". If both "muraad" (noun and not adjective) and "ghoRaa" are subjects, where is the "xabar" (predicate"? One needs to have a "xabar" for the rule to apply.


----------



## marrish

I asked for forgiveness in post #3 (ho saknaa may not be ''fi3l-e-naaqis") but maybe it is, I don't know. I've entered a very dangerous territory - Urdu grammar in Urdu - but by analogy, 'can' is an auxiliary verb in English (sorry, I'm not sure!).

That's why I proposed to simplify the sentence to is se _muraad ko'ii ghoRaa _thaa.

I was perhaps wrong in the preceding post to have said that _ghoRaa_ was a subject. I'm totally lost!!! _ghoRaa thaa_ should be the predicate. Let's leave it for the moment, Qureshpor SaaHib. It was in a spur of a moment that I mapped this rule to this very sentence but perhaps it was not the best choice. Let's wait for a third party and wait we can!


----------



## Qureshpor

marrish SaaHib, it is good to have such discussions. I think the problem for both of us is that we are mixing (muddling?) grammatical notations which we are trying to apply to three languages.

In the following sentences the subject is underlined.

The House is clean (clean is the predicate)

Zaid sat down

In Arabic grammatical notation (and Maulavi Abdul Haq SaaHib was using this notation), "The House" is the mubtadaa  and Zaid is the faa3il. 

You are right. We need to give this a rest!


----------



## marrish

Thanks. We need to give it a rest but only the two of us, others are more than welcome!


----------

