# Hindi, Urdu: several progressive constructions with jaanaa



## MonsieurGonzalito

Friends,

  I have some trouble understanding the nunances provided by the different progressive verbal phrases that can be formed with _jaanaa _+ participle. The phrases below mean all more or less the same, what is the difference between them?

_yah pAuliTiishan baRaa jhuuThaa hai, vah miiDiyaa bas jhuuTh ..._


_bol rahtaa hai_
_boltaa jataa hai (aur boltaa jataa hai)_
_bole jaataa hai_
_bole jaa rahaa hai _
My understanding is that #1 (without _jaanaa_) is just the progressive present: "he is lying", What different aspects of "he keeps (on) lying" do #2, #3 and #4 provide?

Thanks in advance for any help


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## aevynn

Presumably a missing word: _wo(h) miiDiyaa *se* bas jhuuT(h)_... Also, presumably you meant _bol *rahaa* hai_ in #1.

I think there's a clear semantic difference between _bol rahaa hai_ and the others (just as there's a clear semantic difference in English between "he's lying" and "he keeps on lying") that you already seem to understand, so let me eliminate that from the list.

Now, if you'll permit me to add to your confusion before only partially subtracting from it ... I think these are all possible:

1. boltaa jaataa hai.​2. bolte jaataa hai.​3. bole jaataa hai.​4. boltaa jaa rahaa hai.​5. bolte jaa rahaa hai.​6. bole jaa rahaa hai.​​I feel a difference between 1-3 and 4-6, but it's sort of the "obvious" difference you might expect from the aspectual marking. In other words, I think 1-3 all describe a habit or a tendency that this politician has (ie, a tendency towards repeated/continuous lying), whereas 4-6 all describe what the politician is currently doing (ie, he's currently engaged in the act of repeated/continuous lying).

But that's the extent to which I'm able to distinguish these: I'm having trouble articulating any meaningful differences among 1-3 or among 4-6. Maybe someone else will have a suggestion...

[It's possible someone manages to identify a difference in semantics that I'm not seeing, but... A priori, I don't really think it's necessary that there has to be a difference in semantics just because different syntactic constructions available. In English too, we can express the thought "he just keeps on lying" in many other ways: "he just keeps lying" and "he just lies and lies and lies" and "he just continuously lies" and "his lies are never-ending" and so on.]


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## MonsieurGonzalito

aevynn said:


> Also, presumably you meant _bol *rahaa* hai_ in #1.


Wouldn't _bol *rahta *hai_, (and not "... _bol *rahaa *hai) _match approximately the sense of #4,#5,#6? I understand it as "... he is/keeps lying".


Also, it would seem, that conjugated _jaanaa _or _jaa _in patterns similar to some of the 6 above can sometimes adopt the value of a "going to" future as well?
For example, Naim in 183 (in which, admittedly, is a very confusing exposition), uses sentences with a structure similar to  type #3 from above (_bole jaataa hai, _i.e., [past participle] + [conjugaed_ jaanaa]_), in what seems to be a future sense:

_- aap kahte haiN, to ham *baiThe jaate haiN*  = _"alright. we *shall sit down* because you say so"
-_ lekin un_ke aane se, saaraa kaam *bigRaa jaataa tha* =  _"but if he were to come, everything *was going to be ruined*"

And in a recent thread, a sequence _"jaa rahii thii"_ (following not a participle, but an infinitive in this case), was also translated as a "going to future":

_vah susaaiD karne *jaa rahii thii*. = "she was going to commit suicide"_

Are these future-ish usages of _jaanaa _ totally distinct from the 6 examples above, of they are conceptually similar in a way that I cannot understand? In other words, for any of the 6 examples above, is there an even remotely possible interpretation that the politician was/is "going to lie"?


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## Qureshpor

aevynn said:


> Now, if you'll permit me to add to your confusion before only partially subtracting from it ... I think these are all possible:
> 
> 1. boltaa jaataa hai.2. bolte jaataa hai.3. bole jaataa hai.4. boltaa jaa rahaa hai.5. bolte jaa rahaa hai.6. bole jaa rahaa hai.


From correct and chaste Urdu perspective, I have reservations for 2 and 5 unless of course you regard the "bolte" option as something of great beauty, that is sheer poetry, product of a fertile mind, exhibiting vast imagination and can quote a literary genius or two possessing such incredible talent!


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> _yah pAuliTiishan baRaa jhuuThaa hai, vah miiDiyaa bas jhuuTh ..._
> 
> 
> _bol rahtaa hai_
> _boltaa jataa hai (aur boltaa jataa hai)_
> _bole jaataa hai_
> _bole jaa rahaa hai _


 
By the way, I am assuming that you are talking about the politician doing the talking, right, not the media? In that case, it should be "miiDiyaa *se*."

1. Seems a grammatically wrong sentence; at least, I wouldn't find it with any meaning. Maybe you meant "bol rahaa hai"?
2. A very narrative quality to it (i.e., you are telling something that happened in the past as a narrative, so to make the narrative more dynamic, you insert yourself and the listener in that time frame, and use this form). But in your sentence, there is no narrative, so it doesn't work for me.
3. This can work very well in two situations: (i) habit, and (ii) again, narrative. This can work in your sentence, as the politician has such a habit.
4. Is the ongoing situation. So this, again, can work in your sentence, with you implying that the politician is doing so these days.


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> is there an even remotely possible interpretation that the politician was/is "going to lie"?



For "was going to lie," you would have to say something like "pauliTishian jhuuT(h) bolne jaa rahaa thaa, bolne vaalaa thaa."
For "is going to lie," "bolne jaa rahaa hai, bolne vaalaa hai, bolne ko hai, bolne kii kagaar par/pe hai."

The above are just some of the ways. There are many other ways to express the same, of course.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

littlepond said:


> 1. Seems a grammatically wrong sentence; at least, I wouldn't find it with any meaning. Maybe you meant "bol rahaa hai"?





aevynn said:


> Also, presumably you meant _bol *rahaa* hai_ in #1.


OK, now I found the grammar for this: _rahnaa _as an auxiliar in imperfective tenses does not work with verbal roots  One has to use  the participle of the main verb instead.


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## aevynn

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Wouldn't _bol *rahta *hai_, (and not "... _bol *rahaa *hai) _match approximately the sense of #4,#5,#6? I understand it as "... he is/keeps lying".


I don't think _*bol rahtaa hai_ is possible...? But the following are:
​7. boltaa rahtaa hai.​8. bolte rahtaa hai.​
To me, it feels like #7-8 are distinguished from #1-3 in that they view the actions more as discrete, repeated events. I don't think it's possible for #7-8 to be used when talking about "one big continuous lie," which is a possibility in #1-3. Moreover, while #1-3 do allow for the discrete repeated events interpretation, they still make the events feel "less discrete" and "more like a continuous whole" than do #7-8.



Qureshpor said:


> From correct and chaste Urdu perspective, I have reservations for 2 and 5...


Thanks for pointing this out. These forms are so common in the speech that I encounter that it would not even have occurred to me to think that they might be discouraged in writing. I presume, then, that #8 is also discouraged from the correct and chaste Urdu perspective...?



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Also, it would seem, that conjugated _jaanaa _or _jaa _in patterns similar to some of the 6 above can sometimes adopt the value of a "going to" future as well?
> For example, Naim in 183 (in which, admittedly, is a very confusing exposition), uses sentences with a structure similar to type #3 from above (_bole jaataa hai, _i.e., [past participle] + [conjugaed_ jaanaa]_), in what seems to be a future sense:
> 
> _- aap kahte haiN, to ham *baiThe jaate haiN* = _"alright. we *shall sit down* because you say so"
> -_ lekin un_ke aane se, saaraa kaam *bigRaa jaataa tha* = _"but if he were to come, everything *was going to be ruined*"
> 
> And in a recent thread, a sequence _"jaa rahii thii"_ (following not a participle, but an infinitive in this case), was also translated as a "going to future":
> 
> _vah susaaiD karne *jaa rahii thii*. = "she was going to commit suicide"_
> 
> Are these future-ish usages of jaanaa totally distinct from the 6 examples above, of they are conceptually similar in a way that I cannot understand?


Naim's usages in #183 haven't really been very common for me, so I'm not really sure how to analyze them. Personally, I would likely have said both of the sentences you quoted as just _baiTh jaate haiN_ and _bigaR jaataa thaa, _ie, using verb stems instead of perfective participles. (A little more on these versions below.)

Moreover, at this point, I think the discussion starts veering away from the question that was posed in the OP, but maybe I'll say a few words anyway to try to help orient you. To me, the constructions you started this thread with are mentally completely different from the following three constructions (and, moreover, these three are completely different from each other).
​A. karne jaanaa ("to go to do", oblique infinitive + jaanaa)​B. kar jaanaa (roughly, "to do completely", stem + jaanaa)​C. kiyaa jaanaa ("to be done", agreeing perf partiicple + jaanaa)​
Abstractly, these three constructions carry none of the sense of repetition or continuity or "keeps on..." that #1-8 do. _jaanaa_ can be used as an auxiliary in a lot of completely disparate ways!

In the 'susaa'iD' sentence, it is construction A that's being used. Construction A means something like "to go to do," often literally as in "to go somewhere to do something," but it can also be metaphorically in the sense of "to be about to do something" as it is in Qureshpor jii's post that you linked to, or as in some of @littlepond jii's options in post 6 above.

In the versions of Naim's sentences that I would have used (ie, with _baiTh jaate haiN_ and _bigaR jaataa thaa_), it would be construction B that appears. In this situation, _jaanaa_ carries its typical sense as a light verb (roughly, "completely," but as usual it's hard to generalize this nuance) and there's no "future" sense conveyed by this light verb per se. Rather, it's that _-taa_ morphology is sometimes used to convey an "immediate future" (or maybe, a "prospective aspect"). For example, one might respond to someone's request that you do something for them with something like, _abhii kar detaa huuN_ ("I'll do it for you right away").



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> for any of the 6 examples above, is there an even remotely possible interpretation that the politician was/is "going to lie"?


I guess based on what Naim says, a future reading should be possible for sentence #3, at least... But again, Naim's usages in #183 already feel uncommon to me, so given the setup you laid out in the OP (ie, the _baRaa jhuuT(h)aa hai_), this "future" reading of #3 feels extremely unlikely to me.


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## Qureshpor

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> OK, now I found the grammar for this: _rahnaa _as an auxiliar in imperfective tenses does not work with verbal roots  One has to use  the participle of the main verb instead.


What grammar have you found? I didn’t quite follow what you are saying.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Qureshpor said:


> What grammar have you found? I didn’t quite follow what you are saying.


Oh, simply that, until this thread, I wasn't aware that _rehnaa _could not be freely combined with verbs in root form. And that, based on the repeated warnings here, I looked harder and found directives in my grammar books, stating that:
- continuous tenses are formed with the verbal root plus the past of _rehnaa. 
And, conversely:_
- impertect participle + _rehnaa _cannot occur wiht continuous tenses of _rehnaa_.


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## Qureshpor

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Oh, simply that, until this thread, I wasn't aware that _rehnaa _could not be freely combined with verbs in root form. And that, based on the repeated warnings here, I looked harder and found directives in my grammar books, stating that:
> - continuous tenses are formed with the verbal root plus the past of _rehnaa._


vuh bol(ne) [meN] rahaa hai = “He is remained in speaking” = He is speaking.


MonsieurGonzalito said:


> _And, conversely:_
> - impertect participle + _rehnaa _cannot occur wiht continuous tenses of _rehnaa_.


Yes, it can occur.

vuh boltaa rahaa hai. = He has been speaking.


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## Qureshpor

aevynn said:


> Thanks for pointing this out. These forms are so common in the speech that I encounter that it would not even have occurred to me to think that they might be discouraged in writing. I presume, then, that #8 is also discouraged from the correct and chaste Urdu perspective...?


Both..."bolte rahtaa hai"/ "bolte rahaa hai" are not part of chaste Urdu writing and speech. It's not a matter of a version being discouraged. It is what is correct and what is not.


aevynn said:


> In the 'susaa'iD' sentence, it is construction A that's being used. Construction A means something like "to go to do," often literally as in "to go somewhere to do something," but it can also be metaphorically in the sense of "to be about to do something" as it is in Qureshpor jii's post that you linked to


I don't personally say, "maiN xatt likhne jaa rahaa huuN." because to me this implies I am actually going some place in order to write a letter. I prefer the correct chaste Urdu versions.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> - continuous tenses are formed with the verbal root plus the past of _rehnaa._





Qureshpor said:


> vuh bol(ne) [meN] rahaa hai = He has remained in speaking. = He is speaking.


This doesn't disagree with what I said.  "He is speaking" (a continuous tense) it is formed with_ rahaa hai_ (a past tense of _rehnaa_)





MonsieurGonzalito said:


> - impertect participle + _rehnaa _cannot occur wiht continuous tenses of _rehnaa_.





Qureshpor said:


> Yes, it can occur.
> 
> vuh boltaa rahaa hai. = He has been speaking.


This also doesn't disagree. "_rahaa hai_" is not a continuous tense* of rehnaa.*





Qureshpor said:


> I don't personally say, "maiN xatt likhne jaa rahaa huuN." because to me this implies I am actually going some place in order to write a letter. I prefer the correct chaste Urdu versions.


But ... I don't understand. You yourself suggested:


Qureshpor said:


> We need “susaaiD” karne jaa rahii thii.


Clearly the girl is not "physically going" anywhere. Maybe you just did it in order to "fix" an already faulty sentence of mine?
Are you saying that any usage of _jaa _with the implication of "near future" rather than "physically going" is non-standard/suboptimal?


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## Qureshpor

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> This doesn't disagree with what I said. "He is speaking" (a continuous tense) it is formed with_ rahaa hai_ (a past tense of _rehnaa_)


I edited my answer but unfortunately you responded too soon. If one says, "He is committed to speaking in public", this is not a past sentence per se. Similarly, "vuh bol rahaa hai" is equivalent to "He is ( in a state of being remained/remaining in) speaking.



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> But ... I don't understand. You yourself suggested:We need “susaaiD” karne jaa rahii thii.


Yes I did and this was based on the context of a Hindi serial and Hindi speech.


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## littlepond

Qureshpor said:


> Both..."bolte rahtaa hai"/ "bolte rahaa hai" are not part of chaste Urdu writing and speech. It's not a matter of a version being discouraged. It is what is correct and what is not.
> 
> I don't personally say, "maiN xatt likhne jaa rahaa huuN." because to me this implies I am actually going some place in order to write a letter. I prefer the correct chaste Urdu versions.



Is there really some Urdu authority which says that such usage is not "chaste," whatever that may mean?



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Are you saying that any usage of _jaa _with the implication of "near future" rather than "physically going" is non-standard/suboptimal?



Thankfully, in languages like English, Hindi or French, one is free to be "suboptimal." "maiN seb khaane jaa rahaa hooN," "I am going to eat an apple," "je vais manger une pomme de terre": nothing suboptimal about them. It should not be as well, for "jaanaa" means not just to go, but also to depart. "depart" has a broader sense than merely going to some physical place: there's a time sense, too, to the word.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Maybe "substandard", "suboptimal" are too strong words. But speakers do intuitively perceive that some grammaticalizations belong to a lower register than others.
In Spanish I can say that someone "me tiene trabajando" = "he has me working" (to indicate that such work situation occurs somewhat not according to my wishes), and it is clear to me that, although it is a valid expression, it does have a tinge of informality to it.

If that is the case for how some HU speakers perceive _jaanaa _used in a near future capacity (I have no idea), that is valuable information, regardless of how one labels that phenomenon.


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> If that is the case for how some HU speakers perceive _jaanaa _used in a near future capacity (I have no idea), that is valuable information, regardless of how one labels that phenomenon.



It may be the case for some "chaste" Urdu speakers, but there's nothing "lower register" about it for most Hindi or Urdu speakers. Of course, it could be useful to know all that is not chaste in the lexicon of a chaste speaker.


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