Nominal Argument Structure and the Stage-/Individual-Level Contrast in Hindi/Urdu

This paper focuses on a very specific aspect of a construction in Hindi-Urdu involving the verb ho 'be'. The construction was previously described as displaying a pattern of differential case marking (DCM) in the literature, expressing specific semantic effects. These effects were previously compared to the contrast known as the stage-/individual-level contrast. The paper will show, however, that this view does not take into account various syntactic and semantic facts about this construction, and argues for a more differentiated view: what has been regarded as a single construction to be differentiated only by the case marking, should rather be treated as two separate constructions with differences in the nominal argument structure, case marking and semantics.