ने marks the ergative case, which is only used for the subject of a perfective-aspect transitive verb.
Hindi is characterized as a split-ergative language. For verbs in the perfective aspect, it has ergative-absolutive alignment; transitive verbs agree with the object while intransitive verbs with the subject. In other aspects (habitual/imperfective, progressive, and non-aspectual), it displays nominative-accusative alignment.
To further confuse matters, the only one of these cases that is actually consistently marked is the ergative, with ने. (को marks the accusative only optionally).
The prototypical supersense for this is naturally the Agent marker. The construals for these however will vary depending on the verb; I looked to Shalev et al. 2019 as a guide, since ne is at its essence just a subject marker. Of course, for an abstract or otherwise inanimate subject it would be Causer.
This is for inanimate agents.
Verbs involving bodily emission (छींकना "sneeze", खाँसना, "cough", चिल्लाना "yell") only optionally take the ergative marker for their subjects. When it is used, it generally indicates intentionality. Other examples show, however, that intentionality isn't solely indicated by the ergative, rather it depends on the lexical-semantics of the verb. Currently these are marked as Agent.
Some other clearly transitive verbs arbitrarily do not take the ergative.
लाना "to bring" never does (it was most likely shortened from the light verb construction ले आना "to take-come", with आना being intransitive).
बोलना "to say" also never does. Note, however, that कहना "to say" (but used in slightly different contexts) does take the ergative.
Finally, some verbs seemingly have no agency attached to the subject, but still take the ergative.
'I took a beating from him/I was beaten up by him.' 003
This particular case maybe can be construed as Recipient↝Agent? But the semantics of "take a beating" arguably point to Theme, which is irreconcilable with its opposite, Agent.
| description | ergative postposition |
|---|---|
| lang | Hindi |
| transliteration | ne |
| other_forms | None |
| morphtype | standalone postposition |
| transitivity | always transitive |
| obj_cases | |
| is_pp_idiom | False |