# Hindi: 'To have' and abstract nouns



## 06vijhk

Hello everyone,

I'm struggling to get clarity on how you would communicate from english to hindi the sense of 'having' an abstract noun. The textbook I've read says to use the 'mujhe' construction for abstract nouns. While that applies in some cases (i.e. *mujhe zukaam hai *_= I have a cold ),_ I don't think that's always the case. I've given some examples below, which I don't think apply.

Grateful for your corrections on the below, and any wisdom on how to communicate 'possessing' abstract concepts.

I have time. 
*Meraa paas samay hai *

I don't have work.
*Meraa paas kaam nahin hai*

I have an idea.
*Mere paas vichaar hai*

I have a question.
*Meraa ek savaal hai.*

I have an answer.
*Mere paas ek javaab hai. *


----------



## MonsieurGonzalito

You are referring to three different grammatical phenomena in your examples:

the construction with_ [mere paas] + [the thing] + [conjugated honaa]_, used to indicate possession:  _mere paas ghoRaa hai = I have a horse_
just saying_ [the thing] + [possessive] _used as an attributive or as an afterthought:  _yah ghoRaa meraa hai = this horse is mine_
the general dative construction_ [oblique "subject"] + [the thing] + [conjugated honaa]:_ _mujko zukaam hai = I have a cold_

Some of your examples look incorrect:


06vijhk said:


> Meraa paas samay hai





06vijhk said:


> I don't have work.
> *Meraa paas kaam nahin hai*


it is always "_mere paas_", as the "_mere_" is an (oblique) genitive required and agreeing with the adverb "paas" which is  working as a compound postposition, it doesn't agree with "you" or "the thing".



06vijhk said:


> I have a question.
> *Meraa ek savaal hai.*


If you are trying to use the dative construction, it should have been:
_mujhko ek savaal hai_

If you were identifying that question as yours (I don't know, for example, from a pool of possible questions contributed by different people) it should have been:
_vah savaal meraa hai
that question is mine_


All that aside, I think your general question is valid.
I am also curious as to why_ "I have a question" _translates as _"mujko ek savaal hai"_ rather than _"mere paas ek savaal hai"_.
Maybe because a question is perceived as "an inquietude" that you experience or affects you, rather than something that you "possess"?

I don't think it has to do with the thing being "an abstract noun" (a question is not something abstract, BTW).
But wait for someone who really speaks the language.


----------



## 06vijhk

> it is always "_mere paas_", as the "_mere_" is an (oblique) genitive required and agreeing with the adverb "paas" which is  working as a compound postposition, it doesn't agree with "you" or "the thing".



Yes, sorry - that was a typo




> If you are trying to use the dative construction, it should have been:
> _mujhko ek savaal hai _



I was not trying to use a dative construction. My Hindi textbook (Naresh Sharma's Hindi Tutor) says that the construction "mera ek savaal hai" is used to say "I have a question", and it says "mere paas javaab hai" is used to say "I have an answer".

This is why I'm slightly confused as to the rules regarding possession. I understand that the three constructions you mention can all be used to convey some sense of 'having'. However, I haven't found a resource (or a teacher!) to date that goes through the nuance of this.

The Usha Jain grammar book says to use the dative construction for the possession of anything abstract/non-tangible - but as these examples have shown, that is clearly not true in all cases. (Yes, if you're talking about having an illness, for example. However, not always the case if you're talking about time, or work, for instance.). 




> I don't think it has to do with the thing being "an abstract noun" (a question is not something abstract, BTW).



Fair. What I mean to say is nouns describing things you don't tangibly possess - that includes abstract nouns, but also things like 'questions'!


----------



## MonsieurGonzalito

Probably, having a question is idiomatically expressed as "an inquietude that you experience".

But l am exhausting my Hindi here. Let's see what the knowledgeable people have to say.


----------



## aevynn

There are in fact three constructions that can be used to express a kind of "possession" that might be expressed using the word "have" in English: using _ke paas_, using a genitive (_kaa_, _meraa_, etc), and using a dative (_ko_, _mujhe_, etc). 

I don't know that there's any great way to decide which of these gets used based on the noun that's being "possessed." Even if there is an underlying systematicness, it will be a rather long and pedantic set of rules with lots of exceptions and lots of gray areas. So, my first and foremost suggestion would be that you just try to mimic things you read/hear. If you haven't run into something, you can ask fluent speakers which they would use, but you should be prepared to receive inconsistent responses. 

Here are some heuristics and/or comments and/or examples to consider.

First up, some opinions on the examples from the OP: 

I have time.
_mere paas samay/vaqt hai_ sounds fine.
I'm having trouble thinking of situations where a genitive or dative might be used to express "possession" with _samay/vaqt_.

I don't have work. 
_mere paas kaam nahiiN hai_ sounds fine.
There are situations where a dative might be used. For example, _mujhe aaj bahut kaam hai_ for "I have a lot of work today."
There are also situations where a genitive might be used. For example, _uskaa koii kaam-dhandhaa nahiiN hai_ for something like "He's a layabout" (literally, "He has no work").

I have an idea. 
_mere paas vichaar hai_ is understandable.
The genitive construction, _meraa ek vichaar hai_, sounds a little better to me.
I'm having trouble thinking of situations where a dative might be used with _vichaar_.

I have a question. 
_mere paas ek savaal hai_ is understandable.
The genitive construction, _meraa ek savaal hai,_ sounds a little better to me.
I'm having trouble thinking of situations where a dative might be used with _savaal_. In particular, *_mujhko ek savaal hai_ doesn't sound right to me.

I have an answer. 
_mere paas javaab hai_ sounds good.
I'm having trouble thinking of situations where a genitive and dative might be used with _javaab_.

Genitive vs _ke paas_:

Sometimes the genitive construction is analyzed as inalienable possession, while the _ke paas_ construction as alienable possession. This is an okay heuristic. But it doesn't really seem to capture everything to me.
For example, I find _meraa ek savaal hai _acceptable, as I noted above, but are questions really inalienable? I have had lots of questions that I don't have any more, and I probably will have lots of questions in the future that I don't have now!

Genitive:

This genitive construction is used pretty consistently for family members, friends, etc. This is maybe the only "rule" worth keeping in mind. 
A number word is often used in the genitive construction. For example, maybe the most natural way to say "I have two sisters" is _merii do bahaneN hai_. That number might also be "ek." For example, unless context dictates otherwise, I would translate _merii ek bahan hai_ as "I have a sister" but _merii bahan hai_as "She is my sister."
But this is not a hard-and-fast rule. For example, if someone keeps talking for you and you want to express annoyance since you can talk for yourself, you could say _meraa bhii muNh hai, maiN khud bol saktaa huuN_ ("I have a mouth too, I can talk for myself.") There's no number word there.

I would probably lean towards the genitive for body parts (_mere do kaan hai_ for "I have two ears").
Dative: 

Besodes _zukaam_/_jukaam_, another noun that comes to mind that usually uses the dative construction is _haq_ ("right"), as in _mujhe X karne kaa haq hai_ ("I have the right to do X.")
There are some things that are expressed using a dative + _honaa_ in Hindi-Urdu that seem like the same kind of grammatical construction from the perspective of Hindi-Urdu's internal logic, even though the corresponding English translation would not use "have." 
For example, _mujhe usse mohabbat hai_ is "I love him," but a more literal translation might be "I have love for him."

What do colds, hates, and rights have in common? I don't know. 
Anyway, I have no idea how to bring order to this chaos...


----------



## aevynn

aevynn said:


> another noun that comes to mind that usually uses the dative construction is _haq_ ("right"), as in _mujhe X karne kaa haq hai_ ("I have the right to do X.")



I was doing some bedtime reading and, maybe since I had been thinking about these possessive constructions earlier today, I happened to notice the grammar of the following sentence in Rahi Masoom Raza's _Topii shuklaa_.

kyaa *un laRkoN kaa* naukriyoN par *adhik adhikaar* nahiiN *hai* jinke baap, maamuu, duur ke chachaa, duur ke maamuu (duur kaa baap hotaa nahiiN, yaa hotaa hai...?) garaz ki kisii bhii rishtedaar ne aazaadii kii laRaaii meN hissaa liyaa thaa?​
This is a perfectly natural usage of the genitive construction mentioned above ("those boys ... have a greater right ..."), and _adhik adhikaar_ here could just as well be replaced with _zyaadaa haq_.


----------



## MonsieurGonzalito

Reviewing how grammar books treat the issue, they usually divide the what is possessed into 3 categories:

-"inalienable" (whether tangible or intangible: limbs, family members, etc.)
-"alienable" (temporary, especially tangible possession)
-"intangible" (better than "abstract" IMO)

Inalienable goes with [possessive] +[thing] + [conjugated honaa]
Alienable goes with [ke/genitive] + [paas]
Intangible goes with the dative construction

Notice that a question can be perceived by the senses, hence, it is not abstract, but it is "intangible".

I like the examples  given in the book "Urdu, an essential Grammar", by Schmidth

_hamaaraa *ghar *nahiiN hai = We have no *home * => inalienable
haamaare paas bahut se *ghar *haiN = We have many *properties *=> alienable_


----------



## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> _hamaaraa *ghar *nahiiN hai = We have no *home * => inalienable_



But in affirmative that would usually be "hamaare paas (apnaa) ghar hai." Of course, "hamaaraa apnaa ghar hai" also works. Both sentences are natural in their respective contexts.

I don't see, anyway, how "ghar" is inalienable! In your sentence, most words would work, in fact, substituting "ghar" (shaihar, mohalla, iraadaa, kaaliin, bartan, ...).


----------



## littlepond

06vijhk said:


> I have an idea.
> *Mere paas vichaar hai*



That's a very strange Hindi sentence; do also note that "vichaar" means "thought," not "idea." One would say "mere paas ek yuktii hai"* - or "I have a few thoughts (in my mind)," which would be "mere paas kuchh vichaar haiN."

*If context demands speaker to be emphatic about it, "ek" could be omitted and exclamation mark could be inserted at the end.


----------



## littlepond

aevynn said:


> I have time.
> 
> _mere paas samay/vaqt hai_ sounds fine.
> I'm having trouble thinking of situations where a genitive or dative might be used to express "possession" with _samay/vaqt_.



Genitive: "meraa samay hai," "uskaa samay hai," etc., can be, and are, used to indicate it's someone's time (i.e., someone is in ascendancy, someone's good time is going on): of course, not to indicate that someone has time, is free.

Dative: A question like "tujhe samay hai?" or "tujh ko samay hai?" (the latter being more common somehow when it comes to "samay") - though less common than "tere paas samay hai?" - is very much there. A sentence like "mujhe samay hii samay hai" is almost as common as "mere paas samay hii samay hai," I would say.



aevynn said:


> I have an idea.
> _mere paas vichaar hai_ is understandable.
> The genitive construction, _meraa ek vichaar hai_, sounds a little better to me.
> I'm having trouble thinking of situations where a dative might be used with _vichaar_.



I am also having trouble thinking of dative here: probably, dative cannot work with inalienables, a thought or idea being quite inalienable.



aevynn said:


> I have a question.
> _mere paas ek savaal hai_ is understandable.
> The genitive construction, _meraa ek savaal hai,_ sounds a little better to me.
> I'm having trouble thinking of situations where a dative might be used with _savaal_. In particular, *_mujhko ek savaal hai_ doesn't sound right to me.
> 
> I have an answer.
> _mere paas javaab hai_ sounds good.
> I'm having trouble thinking of situations where a genitive and dative might be used with _javaab_.



Given that "savaal" and "javaab" come up also in the _zaihn_ of a person, they can be equated with _vichaar _or _yuktii_, and hence inalienable, thus dative being unable to be used.



aevynn said:


> I would probably lean towards the genitive for body parts (_mere do kaan hai_ for "I have two ears").



The "paas" construction also works. "tere paas kaan haiN ki nahiiN!" is a quite-used sentence when a person is annoyed. If someone were to say "mujhe kaan haiN," it would give an impression as if the ears were not there and have now grown (thus again implying that dative is unable to be used if one takes ears as permanent, i.e., inalienable). However, "mujhe kaan meN dard hai" is perfectly fine. But, let's remove ears, then one usually says "mujhe dard hai" (just like the _jukaam _thing), and some people do say "mere dard hai" - but no one would say "mere paas dard hai" (though it'd work in poetry in certain contexts).


----------



## aevynn

Thanks, @littlepond jii, for all of of your additional examples and thoughts!



littlepond said:


> Given that "savaal" and "javaab" come up also in the _zaihn_ of a person, they can be equated with _vichaar _or _yuktii_, and hence inalienable, thus dative being unable to be used.



I think the inapplicability of the dative for inalienable things also should not be construed as a hard-and-fast rule. For example... The philosophy of human rights explicitly construes rights to be inalienable, and yet, Article 17 part (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: 

Hindi: *pratyek vyakti ko* akele aur duusroN ke saath milkar sammati rakhne kaa *adhikaar hai*.​Urdu: *har insaan ko* tanhaa yaa duusroN se mil kar jaa'idaad rakhne kaa *Haq hai*.​​The inapplicability of the dative for _zehnii_ things also shouldn't be construed as a hard-and-fast rule. For example, memories are also _zehnii_, and yet we say _mujhe yaad hai_. This is admittedly one of those situations that would not be translated into idiomatic English using the possessive "have" (it would rather be "I remember"), but from the point of view of Hindi-Urdu grammar, this construction feels to me to be no different structurally from _mujhe jukaam hai_ (ie, a non-idiomatic English translation might be "I have the memory"). 

Anyway, I'm sure there are lots of decent heuristics one can formulate, but I'd be surprised if anything really explained the situation very completely.  

---

Another thing I want to point out is that... Part of the reason for all of this weirdness comes from treating English as the "semantic base" that one is working from. But there's no reason for doing this, and English has lots of quirks of its own. For example, there's no good reason that Anglophones don't say "I have the memory" (except maybe in very particular circumstances), even though it's perfectly conceivable to me that we might have said that in place of "I remember." It's a grammatical sentence and the semantics would line up, but we don't say it, and that's just the way it is. 

Another example. In English, one "has" a cold. In Hindi-Urdu, one (dative + _honaa_)'s a cold. In Japanese, one "is pulling" a cold (風邪を引いている). There's no good _philosophical or linguistic_ reason that any one of these should be treated as the "semantic truth," and the others as "idiomatic deviations" from that "semantic truth."

There is a good _practical_ reason to treat English as a "semantic base" if you're an Anglophone learning language X, but even in that case, it's worth recognizing at an intellectual level that you're really dealing with quirks of both English and X, not just of X.


----------



## MonsieurGonzalito

aevynn said:


> I think the inapplicability of the dative for inalienable things also should not be construed as a hard-and-fast rule. For example... The philosophy of human rights explicitly construes rights to be inalienable, and yet, Article 17 part (1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads:
> 
> Hindi: *pratyek vyakti ko* akele aur duusroN ke saath milkar sammati rakhne kaa *adhikaar hai*.
> Urdu: *har insaan ko* tanhaa yaa duusroN se mil kar jaa'idaad rakhne kaa *Haq hai*.



I was thinking about this. Perhaps, despite the property-related language, these sentences are not really talking about "having" anything, but about human beings "being entitled" to something, about things being suitable or becoming for them.




aevynn said:


> sammati


Just out of curiosity: how does _sammati _(which seems to mean "agreement, consent, etc.") becomes _jaaydaad _("property" as in "land, real estate")?


----------



## aevynn

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Just out of curiosity: how does _sammati _(which seems to mean "agreement, consent, etc.") becomes _jaaydaad _("property" as in "land, real estate")?


Good question!  I double checked and the Hindi versions of UDHR do say _sammati_, but surely it was supposed to say _sampatti_. Confused translator? Scribe error?


----------



## MonsieurGonzalito

littlepond said:


> I don't see, anyway, how "ghar" is inalienable!


My understanding is that _ghar _means both "house" and "home", the latter understood not so much as the physical dwelling, but as place of family affection, refuge, origin, protection, etc.

Altough I guess you can deprive a person of that too, by extreme hardship and cruel brainwashing or something like that, it would seem more intimate, abstract and inherent, hence the contrast suggested:

_apnaa ghar hai => _home
_hamaare pas ghar hai => _house

You don't think those two sentences tend to convey the respective meanings indicated?

And BTW, I just realized something:
Is there a difference in HU between saying  "X is mine" versus "I have X"?  (regardless of the quality of what's possessed)?
Both would seem to be  "apnaa/hamaare pas X hai"!
Is it just a matter of word order, or the difference simply doesn't exist in HU?


----------



## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> My understanding is that _ghar _means both "house" and "home"



I don't think there is any concept of "home" in Hindi: of course, a translator would translate Hindi into English using "house" here and "home" there, as appropriate. "ghar" can also mean "family" (e.g., "mere ghar kaa hii aadmii hai"), hence it can lend itself to the meaning of "home," "household."



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> _apnaa ghar hai => _home
> _hamaare pas ghar hai => _house
> 
> You don't think those two sentences tend to convey the respective meanings indicated?



I didn't understand what you mean to say. If you are saying that "apnaa" with "ghar" makes it home and not house, then you are wrong. For example, "arre, sunaa tumne? usne apnaa (khud kaa) ghar banvaa liyaa!"

Again, let's imagine X taking Y around and then X's house on the way, so X saying to Y:

"yeh dekh, yeh apnaa ghar hai, hai na maihal jaisaa?"

He could of course also have said "meraa ghar": that would increase the degree of arrogance in the sentence (or convert the sentence from mere boastful to highly arrogant).



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Is there a difference in HU between saying  "X is mine" versus "I have X"?  (regardless of the quality of what's possessed)?



X is mine: "X meraa hai"
I have X: "mere paas X hai"


----------



## MonsieurGonzalito

littlepond said:


> If you are saying that "apnaa" with "ghar" makes it home and not house, then you are wrong.


OK.



littlepond said:


> X is mine: "X meraa hai"
> I have X: "mere paas X hai"


For the same kind of object, wouldn't it be a matter of word order, rather than _meraa _versus _mere paas_?

_meraa bacchaa hai       _=> I have a boy
_bacchaa meraa/aapnaa hai   _=> the boy is mine (not someone else's)

Because, according to what has been discused here, (and what grammar books generally say), _"meraa X hai"_ an _"mere pas X hai"_ are mutually exclusive, don't often apply to the same kind of possessed object.


----------



## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> For the same kind of object, wouldn't it be a matter of word order, rather than _meraa _versus _mere paas_?


No, because ...


MonsieurGonzalito said:


> _meraa bacchaa hai       _=> I have a boy
> _bacchaa meraa/aapnaa hai   _=> the boy is mine (not someone else's)



"mera bachchaa hai" means "The child is mine" rather than "I have a child," which would be "mer*e* bachchaa hai" (or, less commonly used, "mujhe bachchaa hai").

Note that there is no word as "aapnaa." Note also that "bachchaa apnaa hai" means rather "the boy is ours" (not "the boy is mine"). In _bambaiiyaa _Hindi, this would be "chhokraa apun kaa hai" (heard a lot in Hindi films for a gangster talking about his gang member).


----------



## Sheikh_14

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> OK.
> 
> 
> For the same kind of object, wouldn't it be a matter of word order, rather than _meraa _versus _mere paas_?
> 
> _meraa bacchaa hai       _=> I have a boy
> _bacchaa meraa/aapnaa hai   _=> the boy is mine (not someone else's)
> 
> Because, according to what has been discused here, (and what grammar books generally say), _"meraa X hai"_ an _"mere pas X hai"_ are mutually exclusive, don't often apply to the same kind of possessed object.



Meraa bachcha hai would indeed mean the boy is mine rather than I have a boy. As far as yeh bachcha meraa hai is concerned you are correct that would mean the boy is mine. In fact a mother could dramatically state that "yeh bachcha meraa hai" or "yeh meraa bachcha hai" the former is a tad more melodramatic. Apnaa is ours in this case. Only in slang would someone say yeh ghar apnaa hai or yeh ghaRii apnaa hai for this house or watch is mine. The proper way to say it would be yeh ghar meraa hai, yeh ghaRii merii hai.


----------



## littlepond

Sheikh_14 said:


> "yeh bachcha meraa hai" or "yeh meraa bachcha hai" the former is a tad more melodramatic.



The melodrama can be equal: it is there if there is emphasis on "meraa." Sans the emphasis, there is no melodrama. It would be a banal sentence. In addition, the two are not the same.

"yeh bachchaa meraa hai": this child is mine
"yeh meraa bachchaa hai": this is my child ("this child is mine" if emphasis is on "meraa" or if there's no "yeh")


----------



## MonsieurGonzalito

Sheikh_14 said:


> Apnaa is ours in this case.





littlepond said:


> "bachchaa apnaa hai" means rather "the boy is ours" (not "the boy is mine").


Why specifically "ours"?
Mine and whose else?
What if it is a man alone speaking at the moment?

Also, mi impression was that, whenever possible, it was normal/avisable to imply the relationship with _apnaa_, rather than using the proper personal possisive pronoun, so as not to result in an unduly emphatic/rude/arrogant "mine" , "ours", etc.
Why isn't it the case with "yeh bachchaa meraa hai"?


----------



## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Why specifically "ours"?
> Mine and whose else?


My community's, my family's, my area's, my city's, my country's, etc. It cannot be "mine." "apnaa" means "ours" when in the first person.



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> What if it is a man alone speaking at the moment?



Then also, he means "my community's," etc. Unless he is a big power holder, like a gangster. (In which case, he still means "my circle's," but it can be taken to mean as an arrogant "mine.")



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Also, mi impression was that, whenever possible, it was normal/avisable to imply the relationship with _apnaa_, rather than using the proper personal possisive pronoun, so as not to result in an unduly emphatic/rude/arrogant "mine" , "ours", etc.


In fact, "apnaa" would mean arrogance (see above).



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Why isn't it the case with "yeh bachchaa meraa hai"?


There is no arrogance or rudeness here. There's just either a real identification or an emphasis (that this child is mine). The emphasis comes from syntax rather than "meraa," just like the English sentence "This child is mine" carries an emphasis (except cases of real identification).


----------



## MonsieurGonzalito

Then, the relationship between _meraa _and _apnaa _is more complex than one would initially think.
In the beginning, I thouhgt that it was simply advisable to use _apnaa _whenever the context made it logically possible, otherwise _meraa _would constitute an undue emphasis, arrogance, weirdness, etc.

But now, it would seem that things are not so clear-cut, and that there are different aspects of "obviousness of the relation", and/or perhaps the animated/personal quality of what is owned by/related to the speaker. And that the alternation between _meraa _and _apnaa _is *also *very idiomatic.


Another thing that surprised me in this thread was this:


littlepond said:


> "mer*e* bachchaa hai"


What is that _mere_? Yet another pattern?
I thought the only 3 possible variants were:
_- mujhe/mujhko bachchaa hai
- mere paas bachchaa hai
- bachchaa meraa hai _


----------



## Alfaaz

MonsieurGonzalito said:
			
		

> Then, the relationship between _meraa _and _apnaa _is more complex than one would initially think.


Relevant thread (just in case it might be of interest to readers; includes links to other relevant threads as well): Urdu: "Poetic Licence" for apnaa


----------



## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> What is that _mere_? Yet another pattern?



"mere" can be a synonym of "mujh" at times and "mujhe" at other times (here, synonymous to "mujhe").

An example where it is synonymous with "mujh":
"usne mujh se kahaa" = "usne mere se kahaa"

There is also the (highly used) non-standard "usne mere ko kahaa," as is the (not much used) non-standard "mere ko bachchhaa hai."


----------



## Sheikh_14

There's a film by the name Andaaz apnaa apnaa which means everyone's own style I.e. your style, my style. Apnaa apnaa means to each their own. "Apnaa Apnaa saamaan laanaa" bring your own stuff. BYO could be defined in Urdu as Apnaa Apnaa Saamaan or jocularly as Sharaab Apnaa Apnaa or Mashruub Apnaa Apnaa. As Janaab Alfaaz has pointed out in both literature and slang apnaa is fine. However, yeh bachcha apnaa hai would to most ears be understood as the child is ours. Only if they knew that you were saying it in either a jocular or poetic fashion would they grasp that you are referring to the child as your own. That isn't to say it is wrong. It isn't, it's uncommon and quirky.

Just as an FYI apnaa is the antonym of paraayaa I.e. ghair. Meraa= mine. Apnaa= yours or ours. Paraayaa= an outsider I.e. ghair. 

Only when combined with mere does apnaa becomes yours entirely. I.e. tum (to/tau) mere apne ho. Then it's solely yours. But tum apne ho would mean you are one of us.


----------



## MonsieurGonzalito

I understand.
_apnaa _in direct case would be mostly associated with the idiomatic _apne_, "our people" said in a familiar, tribal, groupal, kinship, maffia way.

In Spanish we would say: _El chico es "de los nuestros"._


----------



## Sheikh_14

Yes as when you say in Spanish "Si, se puede" it is difficult to discern whether you mean "Yes, one can, you can or we can." The you in that context can be literal or metaphorical.


----------



## littlepond

Sheikh_14 said:


> BYO could be defined in Urdu as Apnaa Apnaa Saamaan or jocularly as Sharaab Apnaa Apnaa



But the thread is about Hindi, not Urdu! And if you mean "sharaab" to refer to wine, then that's feminine.



Sheikh_14 said:


> Meraa= mine. Apnaa= yours or ours.


It is better to stop misleading those who don't know the language well. "apnaa" does not mean "yours"! It simply means "(someone's) own": my own, your own, his own, our own, their own, etc.



Sheikh_14 said:


> Only when combined with mere does apnaa becomes yours entirely. I.e. tum mere apne ho. Then it's solely yours. But tum apne ho would mean you are one of us.



Another wrong understanding. "tum mere apne ho" is the same as "tum apne ho" - "mere" or "hamaare" (or, given the right context, "uske," "unke," _X_-ke) in the latter is simply elided! And this "apne" is simply a noun (substantive): it can be combined with any other word within the bounds of logic, not just "mere"! And there is no exclusivity, no "solely"! It simply means you are close to me/us.


----------



## Sheikh_14

All I can say about your comments above is either you have a random habit of being the contrarian for the sake of being one or you do not read text properly. The gentleman has understood the point and is not in the least misled. I'll leave the matter to the reader's discretion.


----------



## aevynn

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> _meraa bacchaa hai _=> I have a boy


@MonsieurGonzalito jii, did you perhaps have sentences like _meraa ek beTaa hai_,_ merii ek bahan hai_, _mere do bhaa'ii haiN_, _vaGairah_, in mind when writing this...? If so, you might note that the number word is sort of crucial in these sentences for getting the "I have..." interpretation. As was pointed out by @littlepond jii above, _meraa bachchaa hai_ would usually mean "He is my child" or something similar and is quite unlikely to mean "I have a child." On the other hand, _meraa ek bachchaa hai_ would most likely mean "I have a child."



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> For the same kind of object, wouldn't it be a matter of word order...


The syntactic structures of

(H1) meraa ek bachchaa hai
(H2) ek bachchaa meraa hai

are different. Semantically, (H1) means "I have a child," while (H2) is a slightly strange (but grammatical) sentence meaning "one child is mine" (just as this English translation is slightly strange but grammatical; but I suppose it might come up if, for example, there are many children playing at a park and I want to say that one of the many kids playing in the park is mine). Syntactically, in (H2), the verb phrase is _meraa hai_ (is mine, es mio, ...), and its subject is _ek bachchaa_. I suspect syntacticians studying UH might argue about the structure of (H1). A naïve analysis is that the verb phrase is just _hai_ and its subject is _meraa ek bachchaa_. This analysis would generate all of the correct adjective/verb agreements, but I also see some potential problems with it (eg, related to pro-form substitution). In any case, no matter how one corrects for this, (H1) is not just a "scrambled" version of (H2). The tree will look different.


----------

