User:Shalineem/sandbox

Article Evaluation
 * Some light editing of the writing is needed.
 * It feels a bit inaccessible in places, in terms of the fact that it doesn't always present information in the most useful and succinct way.
 * It also doesn't talk about Linguistic aspects in linguistic terms--doesn't mention morphology of it, syntax, etc. Could use addition about maybe some interesting features of the language. There is a separate phonology of Hindustani article, but more could be added to the Hindi article, at the very least a sentence and a link to the more relevant article.
 * Doesn't mention type of language Hindi is.
 * Compared to a "good" article like the English one, it is not detailed. It doesn't read as easily. Needs to be much further organized into more manageable and well grouped chunks.
 * Also, weirdly, no one is talking about BIG changes that need to be made in the Talk page.
 * The article currently doesn't have a grammar section. It actually doesn't even talk much about the grammar of the Hindi language. So, I want to focus on adding a grammar section that particularly emphasizes what is unique about Hindi compared not just to any other languages but if there are big differences between Hindi and other Indian, Sanskrit based languages.

NOTES FOR ARTICLE

--Add sentence to introduction super briefly explaining history of Hindi. It is Indo-Germanic, part of New Indo-Aryan subgroup, descended from Sanskrit.

Influenced by Persian, Arabic, Turkish, English, Portuguese.

Overview
HIndi is an Indo-Germanic or Indo-European language. It is descended from Sanskrit and is considered part of the New Indo-Aryan subgroup. However, it was also influenced, especially in vocabulary, by various other languages including Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Portuguese, and English.

Cases
Hindi has three cases: the Vocative Case, Nominative Case, and Oblique Case.

The Vocative case is used when addressing someone, especially with terms of kinship like "brothers". It isn't used to address someone as 'Sir' or 'Madam.'

The Nominative case is the case a subject and predicate are usually in.

The Oblique case is in all sentences that have a postposition at the end. This post position can be explicit or just implied, but either way the sentence must be in the oblique case.

Noun
In Hindi, nouns have gender--they are either masculine or feminine. Both masculine and feminine nouns are divided further into two categories. For masculine nouns, there are nouns that end in -a and nouns that don't end in -a. Those that end in -a are considered marked, while those that don't are unmarked. Similarly, for feminine nouns there are those that end in -i and those that do not. All feminine nouns that don't end in the vowel -i are unmarked. These all have different declension (or inflectional morphology based on their gender, plurality, and case).

Adjective
Adjectives have to agree with the nouns they modify in gender, plurality, and case. However, many adjectives don't change or change very little regardless of plurality, gender, and case. Adjectives usually come before the noun.

Personal Pronouns
Hindi has three forms of the 2nd person pronoun. It has a formal, honorific pronoun आप ([aːp] āp). It has a 2nd person pl. pronoun तुम ([tʊm] tum), which is used between people of relatively equal standing (in background, age, etc) that have a more established relationship than strangers. Finally, there is the 2nd. person singular तू ([t̪uː] tū) is used with very intimate friends/family or with people judged to have a lesser standing than the speaker (parents to children, but ever children to parents, master to servant, etc). It is also used when praying to God. Hindi's 3rd person pronouns are gender neutral. There are actually two forms of the 3rd person singular pronoun, used based on the physical proximity of the person the pronoun refers to. There is वह ([ʋo] vah) and यह ([jeː] yeh), which is only used when someone is very physically close by. The 3rd person plural pronoun is वे ([ʋoː] ve) or ये ([jeː] ye). The 1st person pronouns of Hindi are: मैं (singular, [mɛ̃] maiṃ) and हम (plural,  [ɦəm] ham).

In addition to the pronouns above, there is also the reflexive pronoun अपना (apnā) that is used as a possessive pronoun when the subject and the possessive pronoun in a sentence refer to the same person. For example, a sentence like "He takes his book" would require the use of "apnī" to mean "his" rather than "uskī" so that the sentence would be वह अपनी किताब लेता  है  (vah apnī kitāb letā hai).

Syntax
The normal syntax of Hindi is Subject-Object-Verb. While this can be varied, Hindi is considered an SOV language. Thus, the subject is usually at the beginning of a sentence in Hindi, while the verb is usually the last word. In addition, adjectives come before the noun they describe, just like in English.

Constructions with the word का kā
As seen from the personal pronouns, Hindi uses the postposition का kā to indicate possession. Constructions with का kā follow the opposite word order of English. का functions like the " 's" in English, even though it translates to something like "of." To say 'the book of my brother' one says मेरे भाई की किताब--mere bhai (brother) kī kitab (friend). Due to the fact that का functions like a postposition because constructions that use it are in the oblique case. However, it agrees with the noun that is "being possessed" rather than the possessor, as seen in the above example--kī agrees with the feminine kitab rather than brother.

Questions
Both the interrogative adjectives ( कितना? kitnā 'how many?', कैसा? kaisā 'how?', and कौन-सा? kaun-sā 'what/which?'), which agree in gender/number with the noun they refer to, and the interrogative pronouns (कौन kaun 'who?', क्या kyā 'what?', कहाँ kaham 'where?', कब kab 'when?', क्यों kyoṃ 'why?', किधर kidhar 'in which direction?') go before the conjugated verb in a sentence to make it a question. However,क्या kyā is placed at the beginning of the sentence when it is a yes-or-no question.

Constructions indicating possession
In Hindi there are three different ways to indicate possession, depending on what is being possessed. Each form uses a different postposition and the verb 'to be'. This is because there is no verb in Hindi that directly means 'to have'. For material possessions, the postposition के पास is used. For 'inherent' possessions such as body parts or houses, का (kā) is used. Finally, for 'possessions' that are feelings (more abstract), the postposition is को ko. All of these postpositions go after the possessor in a sentence/phrase.

Verbs
Hindi has three tenses--present, past, and future. However, it uses other constructions to express complete actions, habitual actions, and continuous actions. To express incomplete or habitual actions, the imperfective present or imperfective past is used. To form the imperfective present, one combines the present participle of the verb with the present tense form of होना (honā, 'to be'). Similarly, to form the imperfective past one combines the present participle of a verb with the past tense form of होना. The present participle of a verb agrees in gender with the subject. So, to form the present participle either -ता (tā) for masculine subjects or -ती (tī) for feminine subjects is added to the stem. The perfective tense is used to indicate completed actions either in the 'simple past,' 'present perfect,' or 'past perfect' tenses. The simple past uses the past participle, the present perfect is made with the past participle and the present tense of होना, while the past perfect is made with the past participle and the past tense form of होना. Again, verbs must agree with gender of the subject, so the masculine past participle is formed by adding -ā to the stem while the feminine past participle is made by adding -ī to the stem.

The continuous tense (I am talking or I was talking) is formed with the verb stem, the past participle of the verb रहना rahnā and either the present or past participle of होना (honā) depending on what tense the sentence should be in--present continuous or past continuous.

Hindi also has the 'irrealis' which is used for purely hypothetical situations that are not possible in real life. There are the imperfect, past, and continuous irrealis tenses, and they use the present participle, past participle, and continuous respectively, combined with the present participle of होना. The conditional tense is formed very similarly, and also has an imperfect, past, and continuous form. The only difference is that the subjunctive of होना is used instead of the present participle.

There is an 'absolutive' tense in Hindi that is used when describing successive events. It can occasionally be used to imply that two events happened at the same time, but it is usually meant to imply one happened after another, in a sequence. To form this tense, either the stem is left as is, or the suffix -कर(-kar) or -के(-ke) is added to it.

Constructions with ने (ne)
Sometimes, the postposition ने follows the subject of a sentence. When this occurs, the main verb agrees with the direct object and not the subject. However, if the direct object takes the postposition को (ko), the verb is conjugated as a masculine singular form regardless of the gender of the direct object. This special postposition ने is used if the main verb in a sentence is transitive and in a perfect tense. There are some exceptions to these rules--there are some transitive verbs that do not take ने and even some intransitive verbs that do.

Most personal pronouns just add ने to the nominative case, but the 3rd person pronouns have slightly different forms when used with ने. वह becomes उस ने. यह becomes इस ने. वे becomes उन्हों ने. Finally, ये becomes इन्हों ने.

When होना is used twice in a sentence
To indicate that a statement is a definite truth or that the speaker believes firmly what they are saying and wish to sound especially convincing, the verb होना can be sued twice at the end of a sentence. The first time it is used it is in the present participle and then it is in any conjugated form.

Peer Review
Hi Shalineem,

I will be peer reviewing your article.

I like how you add in many Hindi words for examples of grammar uses and word structures. It is impressive that how you had a huge amount of grammar information and I think these information would help flourish your article. I also saw many of your edits in the main article and it is going pretty well.

The only thing that you could probably improve is that maybe some overall information could be added such as the development of the grammar and how are grammar different in dialects.

Good luck!

Best,

Huixing