# Hindi, Urdu: inserting the main word inside relative clauses



## MonsieurGonzalito

Friends,

I am trying to understand when extactly is "legal" to break the continuity of a relative clause by inserting the main word (the word the clause qualifies) inside it. It seems to be the norm, but not always.
In the following examples, which I took from the internet, the  main word is in red, and the clause qualifying it is in green.

_1. jo kaam kartaa huuN vah bahut xatar_naak hai
2. jo saamaan bhaarat xariidnaa chaahe, ham ve saplaaii karne ke lie taiyaar haiN
3. yah vah 3aurat hai jisko maiN pyaar kartaa huuN
4. jin bachchoN ke pitaa un_ke saath khelte haiN  un_ke kam ravaiye kii samsyaaeN haiN_

Could I rearrange the words of those sentences as follows?:

_1. kaam jo kartaa huuN vah bahut xatar_naak hai
2. saamaan jo bhaarat xariidnaa chaahe, ham ve saplaaii karne ke lie taiyaar haiN
3.  (???)
4. bachchoN jin ke pitaa un_ke saath khelte haiN  un_ke kam ravaiye kii samsyaaeN haiN_

Are this rearrangements valid/idiomatic?
Why #3 in particular doesn't have the main word inside the clause? Can it be rearranged somehow?

Thanks in advance for any orientation


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## MonsieurGonzalito

I guess the difference between #3 and all the others, is that the main word has something "determining" it already

_yah *vah *3aurat hai jisko maiN pyaar kartaa huuN_

As HU doesn't have articles, probably the idiomatic thing is to have the relative pronoun double as "determiner" of the main word, when there isn't any other word available.

Let me apply my theory to any of he other sentences:

_2. *koii bhii* saamaan jo bhaarat xariidnaa chaahe, ham ve saplaaii karne ke lie taiyaar haiN_

Is this more acceptable?


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## aevynn

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> I am trying to understand when extactly is "legal" to break the continuity of a relative clause...


I have a minor quibble with your use of "break the continuity"  I can see why you say this, as it does seem like broken continuity from an English (and presumably also Spanish) perspective, but this is not really the correct way to view this from a native UH perspective. When the referent appears inside the relative clause, it is genuinely part of the relative clause itself. IMHO, the correct way to view the phenomenon you're noticing is rather that UH has a tendency to _encourage_ the continuity of _both_ the matrix and the relative clauses and to _discourage_ one from interrupting the other (as often happens in English). To explain what I'm getting at, consider this English sentence:
​(A) The time that we have spent together cannot be erased from my memory.​
The relative clause ("that we have spent together") is almost forced to interrupt the continuity of the matrix clause ("The time ... cannot be erased from my memory"). To convey this thought in HU, several word orders are possible, but two of the most common might be:
​(1) jo waqt ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai [wo(h)] kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa.​(2) wo(h) waqt kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa jo ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai.​
To make an analogy with English, (1) would be something like "The time that we have spent together, it can never be erased from my memory" and (2) would be something like "That time can never be erased from my memory, the one that we have spent together," respectively. These English sentences are maybe _possible_, but clearly (A) would be the most natural and frequent. But in UH, probably (1) and (2) are the most natural and frequent structures used for relativizing.

Also, in sentence (1), the _waqt_ is genuinely part of the relative clause. You should think of _jo_ acting adjectivally, and _jo waqt_ is the NP serving as the object of the verb _bitaayaa hai_ of the relative clause. Syntactically, the relative clause is completely in tact and not broken.

Note that, unlike English, it is _not_ adjacency that identifies what the relative clause is referring to. Very frequently, a specifier (eg, _wo(h)_, but others are possible as well) is inserted into the matrix clause to mark the referent of the relative clause, and it's that specifier that tells you what the relative clause is referring to. You noted something relevant here:


MonsieurGonzalito said:


> the main word has something "determining" it already


That being said, it is _possible_, in some situations, for there not to be a specifier in the matrix clause. In sentence (1), for example, I already noted that the wo(h) is optional. I'm not entirely sure what the "rules" are for when that specifier becomes optional. I guess in (1), probably what's going on is that the relative clause is already in the correct position (ie, in the position that would be occupied by  the referrent of the relative clause), so that specifier is droppable.

This brings me to this question:


MonsieurGonzalito said:


> I am trying to understand when extactly is "legal" to... [insert] the main word (the word the clause qualifies) inside [the relative clause].


I think the _tendency_ (by no means a _rule_) is that the the thing being described by the relative clause is introduced in whatever clause comes first, whether it's the relative clause itself or the matrix clause. In (1), it is introduced in the relative clause because the relative clause comes first. In (2), it is introduced in the matrix clause because that comes first.

Now it is also possible to interrupt the matrix clause with the relative clause, as is done in the English sentence (A):
​(3) wo(h) waqt, jo ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai, kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa.​
At least in the colloquial version of the language I'm exposed to, constructions like (1) or (2) would be far more common than (3) in speech.

This brings me to your sentences:


MonsieurGonzalito said:


> 1. _kaam _jo kartaa huuN vah bahut xatar_naak hai
> 2. _saamaan _jo bhaarat xariidnaa chaahe, ham ve saplaaii karne ke lie taiyaar haiN
> 4. _bachchoN _jin ke pitaa un_ke saath khelte haiN un_ke kam ravaiye kii samsyaaeN haiN


I find these understandable but awkward. There are at least two reasons for this awkwardness that are common to all of these. First is that they're using constructions of style (3), which already are less common than those of style (1) and (2). Second is that the matrix clause contains no specifier.

[Tangentially: are the originals really sentences you found somewhere? Several of them sound strange to me. For example, the dropped _maiN_ in the first sentence is rather unusual. Also, _saamaan_ is a mass noun, so it's usually (always?) singular and using _ve_ to refer to it is strange. And I don't know for sure what your sentence 4 is trying to say. "They have fewer behavioral problems"...? If so, something like _un_ke ravaiye meN kam samasyaa'eN hotii haiN_ seems like a much more natural formulation... Anyway, I'll ignore these issues.]

Even here:


MonsieurGonzalito said:


> 2. *koii bhii* _saamaan _jo bhaarat xariidnaa chaahe, ham ve saplaaii karne ke lie taiyaar haiN


Again, it's understandable, but its awkward. Much more natural is the (corrected) original (1') and "flipped" variant (2') below. If you really want to break the continuity of the matrix clause in English-like fashion, the clearest thing to do is probably (3') below, but (1') or (2') sound much more natural to me.
​(1') jo [bhii] saamaan bhaarat xariidnaa chaahtaa hai, ham [wo(h)] saplaa'ii karne ke li'e taiyaar haiN.​(2') ham wo(h) saamaan saplaa'ii karne ke li'e taiyaar haiN jo bhaarat xariidnaa chaahtaa hai.​(3') ham wo(h) saamaan, jo bhaarat xariidnaa chaahtaa hai, saplaa'ii karne ke li'e taiyaar haiN.​
Finally...


MonsieurGonzalito said:


> 3. (???)


The original sentence is already in the style of sentence (2). In style (1), you could say something like: jis 3aurat ko maiN pyaar kartaa huuN, ye(h) _wo(h)_ hai (probably would be spoken with some emphasis on _wo(h)_ -- cf. English "The woman I love [who I was telling you about before], this is her!").


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## MonsieurGonzalito

aevynn said:


> [Tangentially: are the originals really sentences you found somewhere? Several of them sound strange to me. For example, the dropped _maiN_ in the first sentence is rather unusual. Also, _saamaan_ is a mass noun, so it's usually (always?) singular and using _ve_ to refer to it is strange. And I don't know for sure what your sentence 4 is trying to say. "They have fewer behavioral problems"...? If so, something like _un_ke ravaiye meN kam samasyaa'eN hotii haiN_ seems like a much more natural formulation... Anyway, I'll ignore these issues.]


Yes, I patched all of them together myself, based on different online examples, so it is no wonder they don't sound idiomatic.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I recognize that the "tendency to introduce the main word early" has more explanatory power than the absence of presence of a specifier word.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

aevynn said:


> I'm not entirely sure what the "rules" are for when that specifier becomes optional. I guess in (1), probably what's going on is that the relative clause is already in the correct position (ie, in the position that would be occupied by the referrent of the relative clause), so that specifier is droppable.


According to this paper (which says some really interesting things, despite using the Chomskian gobbledigook), relative-correlative constructions are quite set and unmovable, and only the pair:  [relative first ("jo")] - [(correlative after (vo)] are *true *relative-correlative constructions. For those, the specifier is mandatory.

The other constructions ([2] and [3] in your examples), are just relative clauses whose noun happens to have a _vo _(as they might have a variery of other words such as  "ek", "sab", nothing, etc.).


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## aevynn

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> aevynn said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not entirely sure what the "rules" are for when that specifier becomes optional. I guess in (1), probably what's going on is that the relative clause is already in the correct position (ie, in the position that would be occupied by the referrent of the relative clause), so that specifier is droppable.
> 
> 
> 
> According to this paper (which says some really interesting things, despite using the Chomskian gobbledigook), relative-correlative constructions are quite set and unmovable, and only the pair: [relative first ("jo")] - [(correlative after (vo)] are *true *relative-correlative constructions. For those, the specifier is mandatory.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing! I agree that Beshears's thesis, and the references it cites (especially Dayal's "Locality in WH Quantification..."), do seem to suggest that the constructions used in sentences (1)--(3) of post #3 above are relative constructions of different types. It's fun seeing some of the data they present in support of this.

I'm unsure about what to make of Beshears and Dayal's "Demonstrative Requirement," though. This doesn't seem to me to fit the data:

Sentence (1) in post #3 is acceptable to me without the _wo(h)_. If any of our native speaker forum friends would like to corroborate or disagree with this assertion, I'd love to hear those opinions!

If a sentence I made up is insufficient evidence... Here are some (easily found!) examples from literary "giants" where the *relative clause appears to the left of the matrix clause*, and there's *no explicit demonstrative in the matrix clause*. From a short story of Saadat Hasan Manto's:
​jo haqiiqat hai, tumhaarii aaNkhoN se ojhal bhii nahiiN.​That which is reality is not even invisible to your eyes.​
From a short story of Ismat Chughtai's:
​aaxir ko wo(h) ek din us_kaa apnaa ho jaa'e_gaa. jo kuchh kamaa'e_gaa us_kii hathelii par rakh de_gaa.​One day, he will be hers. Whatever he earns, he'll place on her hands.​
From the very first section of Devakinandan Khatri's Chandrakanta:
​jo munaasib samjho karo, mujh_ko to Sirf apnii taaqat par bharosaa hai...​Do what you think is appropriate. I'm only confident about my strength, ...​​I guess it's possible that Beshears and Dayal might finagle their way out of these counterexamples. For example, there's some discussion of something similar on p. 147 of Beshears (though there she restricts her attention to temporal correlatives). One of the possibilities she proposes is that "the correlative was base-generated at the correlate but the correlate then underwent pro-drop and is simply unpronounced." Okay, but to me, this begs the same question I started off with (and that you've highlighted in red above, but now rephrased): "When can the correlate undergo pro-drop?" It cannot always undergo pro-drop, but apparently sometimes it can, so when can it? The second possibility she proposes is that the "clause is actually entering the syntax directly as a free relative [and] is not actually a correlative construction." I'm having trouble imagining what data might support differing analyses for sentence (1) with versus without _wo(h)_, or for _jo munaasib samjho karo_ versus _jo munaasib samjho wo(h) karo_, but maybe there's something... In any case, it's also worth pointing out that, even if there's a convincing argument to be made in this direction, occurrence at the left periphery of the main clause cannot be taken as definitive feature of correlatives.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

These people are fighting the good fight, trying to come out with any positive assertion at all, regarding correlative clauses! Just because of that, they in principle have my respect. Although, as you righteously say, that is no excuse for slipping unjustified conclusions through.



aevynn said:


> occurrence at the left periphery of the main clause cannot be taken as definitive feature of correlatives.


If I understood correctly what they say, then the green part in

_jis_ko sunaanaa chaahuuN, vo to suntaa nahiiN!   _

is the relative part of a "legitimate" relative-correlative tandem, whereas the  green part in:

wo(h) waqt kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa jo ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai.

has a different type of "binding" to the preceding part of the sentence, and it is merely some sort of "free" or "semi-free" relative proposition ("postnominal construction" in their lingo)

They do mention some hard tests regarding when some relative clause is "legit correlative counterpart" versus a mere "postnominal construction". Specifically, they say that "postnominal constructions":

do not have to necessarily agree with the demonstrative 
cannot be internally headed
they cannot be mult-headed

In this regard, I need the help of the native speakers, because I don't know what sounds natural or sensible.

*1 - does not have to necessary agree with the demonstrative*
TRUE (I believe)
I believe _"jo ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai"_ doesn't _necessarily _have to refer to  _"wo(h) waqt"_, although it is the most logical reference. The narrator could have stepped into a more generalizing, enumerating mood, and be speaking about "(all that) we spend together".

*2- cannot be internally headed*
TRUE (I believe)
I am assuming that:
_vo  kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa [jo *waqt *ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai]._
would be unacceptable.

*3- cannot be multi-headed*
TRUE (I believe)
I am assuming that:
_vo kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa [jo *waqt *ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai] [jis_kaa *intazaar *ham kar rahe haiN]_
would be unacceptable.

If for native speakers the answer is a clear "not true" to any of these 3 questions, then they are charlatans.
If it is all true, then they are onto something worth pursuing (despite the lingo 😋 ).


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## aevynn

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> These people are fighting the good fight, trying to come out with any positive assertion at all, regarding correlative clauses! Just because of that, they in principle have my respect.





MonsieurGonzalito said:


> they are onto something worth pursuing


I agree, and I'm not at all saying they're "charlatans"! There are some very nice insights there and I agree with many of their observations regarding how correlatives and postnominal relatives differ. They most certainly have my respect as well. My point was only that, unless I'm misunderstanding something, there seems to be data suggesting that they've overstated the case regarding this "demonstrative requirement" for correlatives (or maybe that there's still work to be done regarding when this "required" demonstrative can be dropped from a correlative, or maybe that there are even _prenominal_ relatives that ought to be thrown into the mix).



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> *2- cannot be internally headed*
> TRUE (I believe)
> I am assuming that:
> _vo kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa [jo *waqt *ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai]._
> would be unacceptable.
> 
> *3- cannot be multi-headed*
> TRUE (I believe)
> I am assuming that:
> _vo kabhii merii yaadoN se miT nahiiN saktaa [jo *waqt *ham_ne saath bitaayaa hai] [jis_kaa *intazaar *ham kar rahe haiN]_
> would be unacceptable.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

You are right, their analysis of when eliding the correlative is allowed, is vague and descriptive, rather than heuristic.
I stop reading when they go too crazy with the notation. But even before that, some things they say are easily falsifiable.

Specifically, they say that, when the correlative is elided (all of this restricted to pronominal correlatives):

it can be because it has been replaced by one of the "universals": _ har ek, sab,_ etc. 
the relative part is a "non case-marked subject or object" (lingoese for "_jo_").
This doesn't seem correct.
I would say the sentence:

_[jise duniyaa meN dekho] xushaamad kaa hai banda(h)_

... is a relative-correlative sentence. The relative part is in oblique (formative), the correlative is omitted, and it as no "universal" in its place.

So, unless some native speaker tells me that a _"vo"_ or a  _"har ek" _is absolutely necessary to understand the sentence above, I would say that their analysis of correlative elision is lacking.

(To be totally fair, they don't say that the circumnstances above are the only ones when elision can happen, but it is kind of implied)


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## MonsieurGonzalito

aevynn said:


> jo munaasib samjho karo, mujh_ko to Sirf apnii taaqat par bharosaa hai...
> Do what you think is appropriate. I'm only confident about my strength, ...


Having read only an automatic translation of this, I believe this is not a true correlative, because it lacks the sententious, generalizing tone that relative-correlative sentences are supposed to convey. Virendra is just being dismissive: "Yeah, do what you want", and that "what you want" would be a mere relative. 
However, had Virendra been a guru or a motivational speaker providing general life advice or something: "What you deem appropriate, do it", then perhaps a _vo _would have been more suitable, providing a necessary "pause" to jump from general to particular: 
_jo munaasib samjho, vo karo_

Perhaps this is the fundamental defect of all those formal approaches that try to infer automatic rules as to "when to put the determiner" based on the surrounding words alone, rather than having "the general idea of what the speaker wanted to say" as the starting point.


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## littlepond

aevynn said:


> Sentence (1) in post #3 is acceptable to me without the _wo(h)_. If any of our native speaker forum friends would like to corroborate or disagree with this assertion, I'd love to hear those opinions!



Sentence (1) in Post 3 is not just acceptable to me without the _voh _but even preferable! _voh _there makes the sentence too heavy or quibbling, quarreling like. Of course, _voh *can* _be there, but usually wouldn't.



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Having read only an automatic translation of this, I believe this is not a true correlative, because it lacks the sententious, generalizing tone that relative-correlative sentences are supposed to convey. Virendra is just being dismissive: "Yeah, do what you want", and that "what you want" would be a mere relative.
> However, had Virendra been a guru or a motivational speaker providing general life advice or something: "What you deem appropriate, do it", then perhaps a _vo _would have been more suitable, providing a necessary "pause" to jump from general to particular:
> _jo munaasib samjho, vo karo_



I don't see any difference happening, whether Virendra is giving general life advice or not.* _voh_ would still be optional, and often not used (including by life gurus). (When they will use something, then also, "vaisaa" would be preferable over "voh.")

* In fact, as again, here, adding a _voh_ makes the sentence a bit more "pointed" (sharp, heavy, quibbling, quarreling), it would be slightly more frequent in an informal situation, where one is dismissive of the other, rather than life guru situation. Just the very opposite of your hunch.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Does it make any difference, @littlepond jii, if those _vo's _are said pointedly (stressing the word) versus in an almost enclitical way, like in English or Spanish?


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Does it make any difference, @littlepond jii, if those _vo's _are said pointedly (stressing the word) versus in an almost enclitical way, like in English or Spanish?



A "voh" as the complement to "jo" will always make the sentence more "pointed" than if one were to omit the "voh," regardless of the degree of emphasis put on "voh."


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## MonsieurGonzalito

littlepond said:


> * In fact, as again, here, adding a _voh_ makes the sentence a bit more "pointed" (sharp, heavy, quibbling, quarreling), it would be slightly more frequent in an informal situation, where one is dismissive of the other, rather than life guru situation. Just the very opposite of your hunch.


I was thinking about this. 
Just to be clear: are you saying that, in HU, it  is the _absence _of a correlative (rather than its presence)  what might sometimes connote formality or a higher level of speech?


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> are you saying that, in HU, it  is the _absence _of a correlative (rather than its presence)  what might sometimes connote formality or a higher level of speech?



No such generalisations can be made either way; on top of that, formality itself may mean something very different both in definition and degree in the Indian culture than in many Western cultures. But in a life guru like situation (which I do not classify as a "formal" situation in most cases), one would expect absence of the correlative to be more frequent.


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