Four Puzzles and Affixal N in Hindi

Abstract

Four puzzles in Hindi morphosyntax are “default agreement,” an “oblique stem,” suppletion in the nominative plural, and number-case synthesis. These phenomena are not unrelated. I analyze T’s ?-features as nominal category features: N (the so-called “gender ?-feature(s)”), Num, and D, or Person. The default value -aa of the categorial feature N (“Affixal N,” “N-stem”) is reflexively overt in Hindi. “Default agreement,” which surfaces in the absence of Agree, is this affixal N at T. Taking Case as a categorial feature, I argue that the nominative case feature is minimally [N-on-T]. N surfacing as -aa on T without Agree, an -aa-marked subject noun must check [N-on-T] by “reverse” Agree to get nominative case; N-aa becomes a “nominative stem” (N-ee is the ‘elsewhere’ stem). The Hindi Number suffixes are “portmanteaux,” not “syncretic.” NUM is a nasal feature spelt out on a structural Case feature: on [N-on-T] (spelt out aa) in the nominative, and elsewhere, on [V], the accusative case-feature common to all oblique cases (spelt out -oo). This explains the various plural suffix-shapes, and why plural agreement on V manifests as just a [nasal] feature (as NUM has no vowel -aa prior to nominative case assignment, the vowel in the NOM PL suffix -a?a? is absent in agreement). The form expected as the NOM.M.PL noun is *N-aa-a?a?. This form suffers spell-out failure, and suppletion occurs. This analysis of Hindi Number and Case explains the near-universal silence of nominative case as a ‘direct’ or self-licensing case that manifests only in “?-agreement” at T.