# Hindi-Urdu: participial phrases with 'standing'



## amiramir

Hi,

Someone said the following today, and I realized I didn't know how to say it in Hindi-Urdu:

Do you want to take a picture of me standing in the snow?

Normally, I'd just use snow (barf) meiN khaDte (hue), but I couldn't figure out how to put the whole sentence together. 

Thank you as always.


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## Alfaaz

Possible translations:

_merii barf peh khaRe (hu'e) kii taswiir lenii/khaiNchnii hai?_
_mere barf meN khaRe kii taswiir khaiNchnii hai?_
_kyaa aap merii barf peh khaRe hu'e kii taswiir khaiNchnaa chaaht(e/ii) haiN?_


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## Dib

One point about "khaRte hue" - I am familiar with this usage thanks to a friend from Chandigarh, who uses "khaRnA" as a verb. But, I believe, far more widespread (and standard) usage is, as Alfaaz has used, "khaRe hue".


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Dib said:


> But, I believe, far more widespread (and standard) usage is, as Alfaaz has used, "khaRe hue".


I thought that the _khaRaa _participle had a legitimate, independent adjectival value ("standing, upright").
Example: in Aitebar (a somewhat famous song from the '90s) it would be clumsy to translate it as "having stood" in the sunlight, IMO.

دُھوپ میں کھڑا
جل رہا ہوں میں​Standing in the heat of the sun / I am burning​


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## Alfaaz

Dib said:
			
		

> ... "khaRnA" as a verb. But, I believe, far more widespread (and standard) usage is ... "khaRe hue".


 While Platts and other dictionaries don't seem to include it, Urdu Lughat interestingly does have an entry for *کَھڑْنا*. However, as mentioned in the literary examples from Dr. Abul Lais Siddiqui's جامع القواعد, it seems to be one of the verbs that has generally* become متروک - _obsolete _in modern language. * Exceptions are certainly present.



> بہت سے اسما اور افعال جو اب اردو میں متروک ہیں اسی قبیل کے ہیں ... کھ - کھڑنا، واقع ہونا
> 
> (۱۹۷۱، جامع القواعد، ڈاکٹر ابواللیث صدیقی، ۵۲)


_bahut se asmaa aur af3aal jo ab urduu meN matruuk haiN isii qabiil ke haiN... kh - khaRnaa, waaqi3 honaa_

_(1971, jaami3-ul-qawaa3id, Dr. Abul Lais Siddiqui, 52)_


> بہت سے اسما اور افعال جو اب اردو میں متروک ہیں اسی قبیل کے ہیں ... کھ - کھڑنا، رکنا، ٹھہرنا
> 
> (۱۹۷۱، جامع القواعد، ڈاکٹر ابواللیث صدیقی، ۵۲)


_bahut se asmaa aur af3aal jo ab urduu meN matruuk haiN isii qabiil ke haiN... kh - khaRnaa, ruknaa, Thaharnaa

(1971, jaami3-ul-qawaa3id, Dr. Abul Lais Siddiqui, 52)_


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Sorry to insist, but, why "_barf meN khaR*aa*_ _tasviir_ ..." is not an option?
Just "standing", no absolutive idea, nothing fancy.


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## marrish

^ No, not quite like this.


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## littlepond

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Sorry to insist, but, why "_barf meN khaR*aa*_ _tasviir_ ..." is not an option?



"tasviir" is feminine, so it would be, btw, "khaRii tasviir", if you are qualifying "picture" as "khaRii". Which in any case would be strange and would fall in the genre of "khaRii bolii". A blunt/straightforward picture?


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## amiramir

Thank you all. 



Alfaaz said:


> _merii barf peh khaRe (hu'e) kii taswiir lenii/khaiNchnii hai?_
> 
> _mere barf meN khaRe kii taswiir khaiNchnii hai?_
> 
> _kyaa aap merii barf peh khaRe hu'e kii taswiir khaiNchnaa chaaht(e/ii) haiN?_



Interestingly, I had never heard of the verb khaiNchnaa -- I have always said khiiNchnaa.


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## Frau Moore

and I don´t understand why it is "MERII barf peh KhaRe KII taswiir.................."

I mean I don´t understand why merii is combined with kii - I thought the "kii" is already included in the "merii" 

I would be grateful for an explanation


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## MonsieurGonzalito

littlepond said:


> "tasviir" is feminine, so it would be, btw, "khaRii tasviir", if you are qualifying "picture" as "khaRii". Which in any case would be strange and would fall in the genre of "khaRii bolii". A blunt/straightforward picture?


I was just adding "tasviir" for context in the original sentence. "khaRaa" would refer to the man speaking, standing.


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## Dib

Frau Moore said:


> and I don´t understand why it is "MERII barf peh KhaRe KII taswiir.................."
> 
> I mean I don´t understand why merii is combined with kii - I thought the "kii" is already included in the "merii"
> 
> I would be grateful for an explanation



Start with two independent phrases:
1) merii tasviir = my picture, i.e. me's picture (so to say)
2) barf meN khaRe (hue) kii tasviir = picture of (the person) standing in the snow / standing-in-the-snow's picture

Now we want to imply that the "me" in (1) and the "standing-in-the-snow" in (2) are one and the same person. The way Hindi handles it is just putting them one after the other - "in apposition" if you will:
"merii barf meN khaRe (hue) kii tasviir".
Does that make sense?

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*Confession:* While I readily understand this structure, I, as a not 100% proficient user of Hindi, would find it very difficult to come up with it myself. I'd most likely ommit the second "kii". No idea whether that is actually acceptable in Hindi/Urdu. Any ideas, kind folks? Is it acceptable/understandable without the "kii"? I realize, it will introduce an ambiguity about who is standing in the snow, though - me, or the person taking the picture. But as a Bengali speaker (Bengali distinguishes the two cases by a different grammatical device that does not seem to have an obvious parallel in Hindi-Urdu), I'd really struggle to come up with Alfaaz's clinically accurate version.


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## Dib

Alfaaz said:


> While Platts and other dictionaries don't seem to include it, Urdu Lughat interestingly does have an entry for *کَھڑْنا*. However, as mentioned in the literary examples from Dr. Abul Lais Siddiqui's جامع القواعد, it seems to be one of the verbs that has generally* become متروک - _obsolete _in modern language. * Exceptions are certainly present.
> _bahut se asmaa aur af3aal jo ab urduu meN matruuk haiN isii qabiil ke haiN... kh - khaRnaa, waaqi3 honaa_
> _(1971, jaami3-ul-qawaa3id, Dr. Abul Lais Siddiqui, 52)_



Thank you very much Alfaaz for digging up the reference. The people in Chandigarh are indeed living fossils. 



MonsieurGonzalito said:


> Sorry to insist, but, why "_barf meN khaR*aa*_ _tasviir_ ..." is not an option?
> Just "standing", no absolutive idea, nothing fancy.



As far as I can tell, the "rectus" form (or nominative case or whatever term your grammar reference uses) is used only for the subject of a sentence or the direct object (and then too, not always in either of the two cases). In all other cases, you need an oblique case. So, "khaRaa" - the rectus/nominative form - is not possible, as the person standing in the snow is neither the subject nor the direct object. It must be at least "khaRe", and as confessed above, I would have gone for that. But I am not confident whether native and proficient Hindi/Urdu speakers would find that acceptable.


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## Alfaaz

Dib said:
			
		

> Thank you very much Alfaaz for digging up the reference. The people in Chandigarh are indeed living fossils.


Thanks for the detailed grammatical analysis of all of the constructions! It is a somewhat confusing sentence to translate, which is why I was waiting to see what you and other forum members would suggest from the perspective of grammar. 

Regarding _khaRnaa_, I came across various examples while searching online. However, I'm not sure if it is being used with only the meaning of "standing" or other meanings mentioned in the dictionary entries.


			
				MonsieurGonzalito said:
			
		

> Sorry to insist, but, why "_barf meN khaR*aa*_ _tasviir_ ..." is not an option?
> Just "standing", no absolutive idea, nothing fancy.


 I had hoped one of the grammar experts would be able to provide a detailed explanation. Dib has fortunately given his opinion! (I was thinking that it might be due to the fact that it is _singular masculine oblique_, but I didn't want to give incorrect information/grammar terms and therefore did not reply earlier. I hope it didn't seem like I was ignoring your questions.)


			
				Frau Moore said:
			
		

> and I don´t understand why it is "MERII barf peh KhaRe KII taswiir.................."
> 
> I mean I don´t understand why merii is combined with kii - I thought the "kii" is already included in the "merii"
> 
> I would be grateful for an explanation


 As explained by Dib, _merii _indicates whose picture is to be taken. Without it (_barf meN khaRe kii taswiir khaiNchnii hai?_), it wouldn't be clear _who/what_ is standing in the snow.


			
				amiramir said:
			
		

> Interestingly, I had never heard of the verb khaiNchnaa -- I have always said khiiNchnaa.


 Relevant thread: Urdu: khiiNch or kheNch?

All three pronunciations (_khiiNchnaa, kheNchnaa, khaiNchnaa_) are attested in dictionaries and common in speech as well.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Dib said:


> is not possible, as the person standing in the snow is neither the subject nor the direct object


Thanks, @Dib . Also, that is the reason why "khaRaa" my "standing in the sunlight" example works: there is a male subject to agree with, in that sentence. But, as you point out correctly, the "snow example" is an imperative sentence, the subject is tacit (tu), and there is no clear object or subject for this khaRaa to agree with.

In these cases, it must be obvious for an Urdu speaker that modifying the object (tasviiir), requires a postpositional construction with "kii", which in turn forces oblique.
If this is true, then that answers @Frau Moore 's question, because "merii" and "_barf meN _khaRe kii_", _are both modifying "tasviir" at the same level, but they are syntactically unrelated to each other, i.e. "kii" is not possessive, it is there to indicate a necessary syntactic subordination only, there is no redundancy.

Thanks, @Alfaaz-ji, for the follow-up explanation.


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## Dib

MonsieurGonzalito said:


> ... "merii" and "_barf meN _khaRe kii_", _are both modifying "tasviir" at the same level, but they are syntactically unrelated to each other ...



Yes, I am also of the same opinion.


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## Frau Moore

But both the picture (MY picture) and standing in the snow (ME standing) refer to the same person - me - I think that´s why I would have expected

"merii barf meN khaRe hue tasviir" without a "kii.

Indeed I thought that the "kii" which makes the tasviir a picture of standing, was included in the merii therefore.

Like:      The picture of "me standing in the snow"

and not  "My" picture "of" standing in the snow...........sorry, no idea how to express better what I meant


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## Qureshpor

amiramir said:


> Hi,
> 
> Someone said the following today, and I realized I didn't know how to say it in Hindi-Urdu:
> 
> Do you want to take a picture of me standing in the snow?
> 
> Normally, I'd just use snow (barf) meiN khaDte (hue), but I couldn't figure out how to put the whole sentence together.
> 
> Thank you as always.


kyaa aap *mere* barf meN *khaRe *(hu'e) kii tasviir lenaa chaahte/chaahtii haiN?

kyaa aap *merii* barf meN khaRe (hu'e) kii *tasviir* lenaa chaahte/chaahtii haiN?

kyaa aap *merii* istaada-paa *tasviir* lenaa chaahte/chaahtii haiN?


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## MonsieurGonzalito

Frau Moore said:


> But both the picture (MY picture) and standing in the snow (ME standing) refer to the same person - me


No, there is no  "me". There is a photo "of mine", "standing", and both those phrases don't refer to "him", but to the photo. The "me" is sort of semantically implied in the whole idea, but it doesn't exist syntactically.


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## littlepond

Dib said:


> Is it acceptable/understandable without the "kii"?



It is not. There has to be "kii".


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## littlepond

amiramir said:


> Interestingly, I had never heard of the verb khaiNchnaa -- I have always said khiiNchnaa.



Both exist. To me, "kheNchnaa" or "khaiNchnaa" is a bit more colourful.


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## Frau Moore

Excuse me if I insist on understanding but that´s exactly what I am here for in this forum.

So far I didn´t need help in understanding the construction of any sentence in my teaching or grammar books. But with this sentence I still need help so I must ask again.

It even took me a time to figure out what is disturbing me about this "kii". it´s not the "kii" itself but it´s combination with "hue". Maybe simply cause i have not seen such a combination of a praticple with kaa/kii/ke before.

But - unless "khaRaa" can be combined with huaa like a participle it is in fact an adjective, don´t? At least that´s what all my books said.

Let´s take another example with an adjective which doesn`t have any "participle like" look: "sundar hona". Wouldn´t we say "sundar hone kii tasviir" and not "sundar kii tasviir"?

And it is also "khaRaa (huaa) honaa". 
Then why we don´t say: "khaRaa (hua) hone kii tasviir"?


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## littlepond

^ "khaRaa" is a participle that also acts as an adjective, just like in English, whereas "sundar" is a true adjective. I don't understand why to confuse the two, and what could "sundar honaa" mean. "sundar honaa" _can_ exist, but does not make much sense otherwise. Let's use instead "tej" (bright), a true adjective and that also can give "tej honaa", where "honaa" is a verb meaning "to happen". Thus, "suuraj tej ho rahaa hai" = "the sun is getting brighter" (hotter). Yes, you would say "tej hone kii tasviir". I don't understand what it has to do with the "khaRe hue kii tasviir". If you mean that if "khaRe kii tasviir" is possible (eliding "hue"), then yes, that is very much possible.

Example, Geeta says to Mohan, "e Mohan, merii khaRe kii ek tasviir le na, yaar".

But remember that "hue" is elided here. "khaRe" here means "khaRe hue".


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## MonsieurGonzalito

From a common sense point of view, and not speaking the language, I tend to agree with @Frau Moore: _khaRe_ should be purely adjectival to make any sense (no elided _hue_).
I provided a dictionary entry and an example to prove that, at least lexicographically, _kharRaa_ is considered adjective-able enough to have its own entry, as an adjective.

Moreover, at least in my untrained opinion, interpreting _khaRaa_ / khaRee as a participle, a perfective participle at that, would introduce some strange sense of "perfection", or "absolute clause", like (and English is perhaps not the best vehicle to express this): Take a picture of me having stood on the snow!
As if, one should take a picture of him, now damp and sitting, but not standing or in the snow anymore.

My understanding (again, I am not very good at Urdu grammar, either) is that _huaa_ or its inflections are generally used to optionally reinforce the participial sense of a word, which, and I agree with @Frau Moore on this, seems contrary to our interpretation of _khaRaa_ as an adjective.

Given that proficient speakers here insist so much that _hue_ is very much there in this sentence, and elided only optionally, I wonder if Hindustani speakers simply perceive that the participle of _honaa_ is simply always acceptable and expected, next to a word of participial origin, even in cases like this where the adjectival interpretation seems to make more sense?


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## littlepond

^ "merii noodles khaate hue tasviir loge?" = "merii barf pe khaRe hue tasviir loge?"

"hue" cannot be optional here: as Hindi has a fluid syntax, it would be unclear otherwise who or what is eating whom, etc. Let's replace "tasviir" with "frame", a masculine word (and imagine that "frame" here means "photo"). If you were to say "merii barf pe khaRe frame loge?", it is unclear who is standing: me on the snow, or the frames (as plural of "frame" would be "frame" in Hindi) which are standing on my snow. That might sound nonsensical to you in this example, but in other sentences, it could really create confusion.

I don't see what's perfective (achieved). "khaRe hue" means "standing", not "having stood". "having stood" would be "khaRe ho chuke". It is strange that sometimes non-native speakers of a language try to browbeat the native speakers of a language.


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## marrish

A suggestion to make things simple:

_maiN barf meN khaRaa huuN میں برف میں کھڑا ہوں_
is a a sound, simple sentence. It tells us who is where and in which position. _khaRaa hu'aa huuN_ can also be said.
_merii taswiir le lo ge?_ or _khaiNcho ge?  میری تصویر کھین٘چو گے؟_
is again, a simple question. There is nothing confusing here, is there? "Would you take my picture" or "a picture of me" is the info we get.

To begin with I'd just leave out the piece of me "standing" because it's not essential. I can also sit down on the snow at the moment when the photo is going to be taken. I'd just say 

میری برف میں ایک تصویر لے لو گے؟ _merii barf meN taswiir le lo ge?_
A way to put all the data we want into sentences can be this:

ایک تصویر کھین٘چنا پسند کرو گے کہ جس میں میں برف میں کھڑا ہوں ؟  _ek taswiir khaiNchnaa pasand karo ge kih jis meN maiN barf meN khaRaa huuN? _or even better:
میں برف میں کھڑا ہو جاؤں تو تم ذرا میری ایک تصویر کھین٘چو _maiN barf meN khaRaa ho jaa'uuN (to) tum zaraa merii ek taswiir khaiNcho._
What is your opinion or do you have other suggestions or corrections?


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## Dib

littlepond said:


> It is not. There has to be "kii".



Thanks for your reply. But then, why do you say a little later:



littlepond said:


> ^ "merii noodles khaate hue tasviir loge?" = "merii barf pe khaRe hue tasviir loge?"



Shouldn't they be "merii noodles khaate hue *kii *tasviir loge?" and "merii barf pe khaRe hue *kii *tasviir loge?"? Or do you mean the person who is taking the picture is the one eating noodles or standing in the snow?


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## Dib

Frau Moore said:


> It even took me a time to figure out what is disturbing me about this "kii". it´s not the "kii" itself but it´s combination with "hue". Maybe simply cause i have not seen such a combination of a praticple with kaa/kii/ke before.



This combination is indeed uncommon. So, I can understand your uneasiness. To arrive at the structure from a different point of departure, let's start with *"Take a picture of the boy standing in the snow" = "barf meN khaRe hue laRke kii phoTo le lo"*. There is no surprise here. laRke is masculine oblique singular and "khaRe hue" agrees with it - indicating only the important levels of syntactic hierarchies by bracketing: *{[([(barf meN khaRe hue) laRke] kii) phoTo] le lo}* where {} indicates a verb phrase, [] noun phrase and () adjective phase. The coloring simply helps you to match up the brackets.

Now what we are trying to do to get to our "Take a picture of me standing in the snow" is to replace the "laRkaa" with "maiN" in an appropriate case. The problem is "maiN+kii" yields "merii", which (judging by the behaviour of Hindi grammar) cannot be treated as an oblique form of "maiN", *unless "barf meN khaRe hue merii photo le lo" is also acceptable. [Hindi/Urdu speakers, please judge if this sentence is well-formed/acceptable.]* The problem seems to be that the red layer of bracketing is no more available as soon as "laRke kii" is replaced by the undivisible "merii", and the adjective phrase (barf meN khaRe hue) fails to find a noun head to qualify.

Assuming that this last sentence is ill-formed, or at least awkward, we need a different structure. The way, Hindi/Urdu seems to solve the problem, is like this:
*{[(merii) ([barf meN khaRe hue] kii) phoTo] le lo}*
Syntactically, now phoTo is qualified by two adjectives/adjective phrases at the same syntactic hierarchy (as MonsieurGonzalito also pointed out), and the context is relied upon to clarify that [barf meN khaRe hue] is implicitly coreferent with the person implied in merii. But there is no explicit syntactic device to clarify this relation (But word order may have something to do here, since the two adjective phrases cannot be swapped.). Note that "barf meN khaRe hue" has been converted from an adjective phrase to a noun phrase, but that is not surprising since in Hindi/Urdu basically all adjectives can be used as nouns as well.



> But - unless "khaRaa" can be combined with huaa like a participle it is in fact an adjective, don´t? At least that´s what all my books said.
> 
> Let´s take another example with an adjective which doesn`t have any "participle like" look: "sundar hona". Wouldn´t we say "sundar hone kii tasviir" and not "sundar kii tasviir"?
> 
> And it is also "khaRaa (huaa) honaa".
> Then why we don´t say: "khaRaa (hua) hone kii tasviir"?



As littlepond mentioned, "khaRaa huaa" - and "soyaa huaa", "leTa huaa", "thakaa huaa", "baiThaa huaa", etc. - are the dominant forms to indicate the corresponding state. Because the independent verb "khaRnaa" has gone out of use for most speakers of Hindi/Urdu, the dictionaries may hesitate to list "khaRaa" as a participle, but etymologically it is one, and rest assured it retains its participial force in many usages, including when indicating that someone is in the state of standing.


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## MonsieurGonzalito

littlepond said:


> I don't see what's perfective (achieved). "khaRe hue" means "standing", not "having stood". "having stood" would be "khaRe ho chuke". It is strange that sometimes non-native speakers of a language try to browbeat the native speakers of a language.


@littlepond, I am sorry, I assure you that no browbeating was intended.

I found this beautiful page explaining the stative usage of perfect participles:

_perfect participles are often followed by a form of the perfect participle of होना (हुआ, हुए, हुई). The perfect participle of होना agrees with the main participle in gender, number, and case. The inclusion of a form of the perfect participle of होना may strengthen the aspect of the participle. It can also explicitly differentiate the participle from a finite verb. For instance, consider the following sentence:

लड़का बैठा था

This sentence is ambiguous. It could express a past state (“the boy was sitting”), or a past action (“the boy had sat”). The inclusion of a form of the perfect participle of होना disambiguates the sentence:

लड़का बैठा हुआ था – “The boy was sitting”

The inclusion of हुआ explicitly expresses a state.

Although present participles in English often imply a continuous action (such as “running”, “eating”, etc.), then can also imply states (such as “sitting”, “sleeping”, “standing”). This can create confusion for English speakers when learning Hindi, since in Hindi imperfective and perfect participles are always distinct.

Hindi perfect participles are naturally often used with stative intransitive verbs, such as बैठना (“to be seated”), पकना (“to be cooked”), etc., because such verbs express states.

खड़ा हुआ आदमी – “The man who is standing” – Note that technically, खड़ा is an adjective, not a participle, though it behaves like a participle._​


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## littlepond

Dib said:


> Shouldn't they be "merii noodles khaate hue *kii *tasviir loge?" and "merii barf pe khaRe hue *kii *tasviir loge?"? Or do you mean the person who is taking the picture is the one eating noodles or standing in the snow?



"kii" should be there to avoid ambiguity. For otherwise, it could mean would you take a picture of me while you are eating noodles, etc. It's my bad: I just put sentences colloquially, as when the context is clear, the speaker may omit "kii".


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## Qureshpor

Do you want to take a picture of me = kyaa aap merii tasviir lenaa chaahte/chaahtii haiN

(while I am) standing in the snow = jab kih maiN barf meN khaRaa (hu'aa) huuN (equivalent to houuN) = barf meN khaRe hu'e

Combing the two.....where the emphasis is on the "tasviir" in the first sentence and on the "state" or "positioning" in the second sentence, the latter acting as an adverb. In order to convert the adverb to an adjective to qualify "tasviir" one needs to add the feminine "kii".

kyaa aap merii [barf meN khaRe hu'e] kii tasviir lenaa chaahte/chaahtii haiN?

Further to above, if one considers "khaRaa hu'aa honaa" as a masculine noun (as all Urdu infinitives are), one can attach the possessive pronoun "meraa" to it to give "meraa khaRaa hu'aa honaa" (my standing upright). When followed by a postposition, in the oblique case this will become, "mere khaRe hu'e hone ..." .

kyaa aap mere [barf meN khaRe hu'e (hone)] kii tasviir lenaa chaahte/chaahtii haiN?


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## Qureshpor

Dib said:


> Now what we are trying to do to get to our "Take a picture of me standing in the snow" is to replace the "laRkaa" with "maiN" in an appropriate case. The problem is "maiN+kii" yields "merii", which (judging by the behaviour of Hindi grammar) cannot be treated as an oblique form of "maiN", *unless "barf meN khaRe hue merii photo le lo" is also acceptable. [Hindi/Urdu speakers, please judge if this sentence is well-formed/acceptable.]* The problem seems to be that the red layer of bracketing is no more available as soon as "laRke kii" is replaced by the undivisible "merii", and the adjective phrase (barf meN khaRe hue) fails to find a noun head to qualify....



"barf meN khaRe hu'e merii tasviir le lo" would be ambiguous and could imply:

a) Take a picture of me while you are standing in the snow.

b) Take a picture of me while I am standing in the snow.


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