The Imperfective Participle [in Hindi]

[Arlo Griffiths]

Please excuse a poor sa.msk.rta-vaalaa from meddling in Hindi affairs.

> In  Tulsi Ramayana, the imperfective participle  is often
>  the bare predicate in a clause (without any auxiliary verb.)
> ...
> Sometimes, these bare predicates must be understood to have past 
> reference
> based on the context, and sometimes they have present reference (in
> narration or description.)
> Is the precise distribution of this participle for Old or Middle
> Hindi/Awadhi known?
> Also is there such a use of this form in Prakrit where the bare
> imperfective participle may be used with both present and past
> interpretation?

You can have a look at Thomas Oberlies' Historische Grammatik des Hindi 
[Reinbek 1998], p. 28 n. 6 (the note appears on p. 33). Oberlies also 
observes that "Used as predicate (negated with mere na) it may describe 
"routines of action" (McGregor p. 187)". Oberlies refers for modern 
Hindi to Porizka 1950, McGregor p. 173-178 and Shapiro § 27.1 [p. 
216-218] and for the usage with reference to past routines to Bloch 
1965: 261 (this is the famous Indo-Aryan. From the Vedas ...), to 
Lienhard 1961: 104-120, Hacker 1963a: 203-204 and de Vreese 1965: 203. 
He goes on to quote examples from Apabhra.m;sa and early Middle 
Indo-Aryan.

If Oberlies' book is not available to you, I will gladly give the 
bibliographical details for the references off-list. If you are 
interested in doing grammatical research using Old/Middle Hindi 
electronic texts of Tulsiidaas and other Avadhii authors, I may refer 
you to

http://hin.osaka-gaidai.ac.jp/etext.html

Best wishes,

Arlo Griffiths