Role of expectation and working memory constraints in Hindi comprehension: An eyetracking corpus analysis

We used the Potsdam-Allahabad Hindi eye-tracking corpus to investigate the role of word-level and sentence-level factors during sentence comprehension in Hindi. Extending previous work that used this eye-tracking data, we investigate the role of surprisal and retrieval cost metrics during sentence processing. While controlling for word-level predictors (word complexity, syllable length, unigram and bigram frequencies) as well as sentence-level predictors such as integration and storage costs, we find a significant effect of surprisal on first-pass reading times (higher surprisal value leads to increase in FPRT). Effect of retrieval cost was only found for a higher degree of parser parallelism. Interestingly, while surprisal has a significant effect on FPRT, storage cost (another prediction-based metric) does not. A significant effect of storage cost shows up only in total fixation time (TFT), thus indicating that these two measures perhaps capture different aspects of prediction. The study replicates previous findings that both prediction-based and memory-based metrics are required to account for processing patterns during sentence comprehension. The results also show that parser model assumptions are critical in order to draw generalizations about the utility of a metric (e.g. surprisal) across various phenomena in a language

Movement and Intervention Effects:Evidence from Hindi/Urdu

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the nature of intervention effects seen in various constructions like Wh-scope marking, raising and passivization. In particular, this dissertation argues in favor of a movement account for all these cases and supports the idea that (syntactic) movement is inevitable and sufficient enough to provide a unified account of various structural relations (Hornstein, 2009). It further argues that movement always happens in narrow syntax, even when it isn't visible. For some of these invisible cases, this dissertation suggests head movement as an alternative to LF movement and Agree. The second aim of this dissertation is to explain intervention effects in terms of relativized minimality (Rizzi 1990, 2004). In this consideration, this dissertation sides with Boeckx & Lasnik (2006) view that not all minimality violations are derivational: some are repairable, indicating that they must be treated as representational constraints, while others are not, indicating that they are derivational. In this study, the dissertation not only reviews cross-linguistic facts from languages like English, German, Chinese, Japanese, and Icelandic but also provides novel empirical data from Hindi/Urdu. This way, the dissertation focuses on cross-linguistic as well as language specific investigation of intervention effects. The third aspect of this dissertation therefore is to relate cross-linguistic variations in intervention effects to the difference in the nature of the phase heads among languages. For instance, the cross-linguistic difference in the properties of various constructions (such as Wh-scope marking and double object construction) is reducible to the availability of an escape hatch with the relevant phase head (C or v). In this exploration, this dissertation also makes two language specific claims about Hindi/Urdu; (a) the basic word order in this language is SVO, and (b) this language involves Wh-movement in overt syntax. The first claim contributes to the long standing debate about the basic word in Hindi/Urdu, a language which shows a dichotomy in its word order by exhibiting both SOV and SVO word order. The second claim adds to the covert vs. overt Wh-movement debate for Wh in-situ languages like Hindi/Urdu. The dissertation attributes both these aspects to the phasehood of little v in Hindi/Urdu

Negation in modern Hindi-Urdu: the development of nahII

There are three negative particles used for sentential negation in Hindi-Urdu - mat, na, and nahII. The particles mat and na are generally of restricted distribution in the modern language, and their origins are relatively straightforward. The status of the modern general negative particle nahII is more problematic. There are two common explanations for modern Hindi-Urdu nahII: 1) nahII results from the Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) general negative particle na combining with a substantive/existential verb form; 2) nahII results from na combining with the OIA emphatic particle hi. In a recent account Elena Bashir offers support for both explanations. Based on evidence from a modern Hindi corpus and a reexamination of Bashir's work, I conclude that modern Hindi-Urdu nahII likely has its origin only in the existential, thus providing another example in support of William Croft's negation cycle

Sirens of Modernity

By the 1960s, Hindi-language films from Bombay were in high demand, not only for domestic and diasporic audiences, but for sizable non-diasporic audiences across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean world. Confounding critics who saw the films as noisy and nonsensical, Bombay films attracted worldwide viewers precisely for their elements of romance, music, and spectacle. In this richly documented history of 1960s Hindi cinema, Samhita Sunya historicizes the emergence of world cinema as a category of cinematic diplomacy that formed in the crucible of the Cold War. Interwoven with this history is an account of the prolific transnational circuits of popular Hindi films. By following archival leads and threads of argumentation within commercial Hindi films that seem to be odd cases—flops, remakes, low-budget comedies, and prestige productions—this book offers a novel map for excavating the historical and ethical stakes of world cinema and world-making via Bombay. “Samhita Sunya’s rich and provocative book offers a needed corrective to contemporary debates on transnational cinema, translation and co-production, and cinephilia by approaching them from a new geographic and historical vantage point. A terrific contribution to a growing body of film studies scholarship that is redefining the field as we know it.” Masha Salazkina, author of In Excess: Sergei Eisenstein’s Mexico “This elegantly written book remaps the atlas of world cinema. Its refreshingly non-Eurocentric perspective, innovative methods for tracing the intersection of material and affective histories of circulation, and transregional scope make it a valuable addition to film studies, South Asian studies, and inquiries into the global 1960s.” Manishita Dass, author of Outside the Lettered City: Cinema, Modernity, and the Public Sphere in Late Colonial Indi

Urdu Resultive Constructions (A Comparative Analysis of Syntacto-Semantic and Pragmatic Properties of the Compound Verbs in Hindi-Urdu)‎

Among Urdu’s many verb+verb constructions, this thesis focuses on those constructions, which combine the stem of a main content verb with another inflected verb which is used in a semantically bleached sense. Prior work on these constructions has been focused on their structural make-up and syntactic behavior in various environments. While there is consensus among scholars (Butt 1995, Hook 1977, Carnikova 1989, Porizka 2000 et al.) that these stem+verb constructions encode aspectual information, to date no clear theory has been put forward to explain the nature of their aspectual contribution. In short, we do not have a clear idea why these constructions are used instead of simple verbs. This work is an attempt to understand the precise function of these constructions. I propose that simple verbs (henceforth SV) in Urdu deal only with the action of the verb whereas (regardless of the semantic information contributed by the second inflected verb,1) the stem+verb constructions essentially deal with the action of the verb as well as the state of affairs resulting from this action. The event represented by these constructions is essentially a telic event as defined by Comrie (1976), whose resultant state is highlighted from the use of these constructions. The attention of the listener is then shifted to the result of this telic event, whose salience in the discourse is responsible for various interpretations of the event; hence my term ‘resultive construction’ (henceforth RC). When these constructions are made using the four special verbs (rah ‘stay’, sak ‘can’, paa ‘manage’ and cuk ‘finish’), the product is not resultive. Each of these verbs behaves differently and is somewhere between a resultive and an auxiliary verb construction. This work can be extended to other verb-verb construction in Urdu and other related and non-related languages as well. The analysis of the precise function of the RCs can also help in developing a model for them in various functional grammars. The proposed properties of RCs can be utilized in the semantic analysis of the Urdu quantifiers. This work should aid in identification and explanation of constructions in other languages, particularly those that are non-negatable under normal contexts. [1] All second inflected verbs with the exception of four special verbs rah ‘stay’, sak ‘can’, paa ‘manage’ and cuk ‘finish’. These four special verbs are either auxiliaries or modals as identified in prior literature