The Hindi passive 1

Abstract Hindi has a construction that is used to make a negative statement (explicitly or implicitly), to ask a question or to make a conditional statement about the ability of the underlying subject to perform an action; this construction resembles the Hindi passive construction in several respects and has been called “passive”; by researchers of Hindi. This paper presents evidence that this construction, in spite of its superficial resemblance with the true passive, should not be analysed as passive.