A Door Into Urdu: Lesson 15

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Dialog Script

Vocabulary

Grammar

1.نے

2.Days of the week

3.Numbers

4.Gender and number of unknowns

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15.1

نے construction

In Urdu, all transitive verbs in the perfect form (simple past, present perfect, and past perfect) require a special construction: the postposition نے must come right after the subject and the subject changes into oblique. If the verb is intransitive, then there is no نے after the subject .

What are transitive and instransitive verbs? Transitive verbs are all verbs which normally have a direct object. Some transitive verbs you know are: کھانا to eat, کار چلانا to drive,خریدنا to buy, etc. Intransitive verbs, on the other hand never have a direct object. These include جانا to go, آنا to come, ہونا to be, etc.

Example of a transitive verb: لڑکے نے خریدا۔ = The boy bought.

لڑکے نے کار خریدی۔

The boys bought the car.

The verb "خریدنا" , "to buy" is trasitive since it has the direct object "کار" , "car." The postposition "نے" comes right after the subject and changes لڑکا into لڑکے۔ Note that نے blocks the agreement between the verb and the subject. The verb must now agree with the direct object, کار "car." (کار is feminine singular, so "خریدا" became "خریدی ").

Note: If the direct object isn't stated, then the verb stays in third person masculine singular. For Example:

لڑکِیوں نے کھایا لڑکِیوں نے سںترے کھائے

The girls ate. The girls ate oranges.

Let's review:

· Transitive verbs are verbs which have a direct object.

· The past perfect form of a transitive verb (used in the simple past, present perfect, and past perfect tenses) needs a نے right after the subject.

· نے is never used with any of the imperfect, habitual, progressive, future, or optative tenses.

· Intransitive verbs don't have direct objects and therefore do not need the نے construction.

· نے is a postposition and when it is used, it changes the subject into the oblique case with one important exception: میں stays the same before نے. All other nouns and pronouns change into oblique according to the normal oblique rules.

· نے joins with most pronouns to form a single word unit: e.g.
اُس نے، میں نے، ہم نے

· نے blocks the relation between the subject and the verb. When the نے construction is used, both the perfect form of the verb and the auxiliaries agree with the direct object instead.

The easiest way to figure out whether a verb is transitive or intransitive and requires the نے construction or not is to as the question "what" in relation to the verb's object.If the question "what" fits with the verb, then the verb is intransitive.If "what" doesn't make any sense after the verb then the verb is probably intransitive. Examples:

Intransitive Transitive

slept brought

went ate

I came what? I drank what???

cried gave

etc. bought

etc.

Formula: subject + نے + direct object + transitive verb (perfect form) ।

(oblique) blocks the new agreement

agreement

Another Example:

میری ساس نے جُوتے خریدے۔

My mother-in-law bought shoes.

Note: if the direct object is followed by the postposition کو (which it must be if the direct object is animate), then the agreement relationship between the object and the verb is also broken. Since the verb now has nothing to agree with, it remains "unagreed," i.e. in third person masculine singular form.

Compare the following sentences:

A. اُس نے چڑِیاں دیکھیں۔

B. اُس نے چڑِیوں کو دیکھا۔

He saw the birds

In sentence A there is no کو after the direct object and thus the verb agrees with the direct object. In sentence B there is a کو after the direct object and thus the verb stays third person masculine singular.

See Snell's Teach Yourself Hindi (2000)
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