Paper short abstract:

The paper seeks to provide a comparative study of the conjugational patterns, i.e. the nominal and verbal paradigms used by Ketelaar and de Tours in their Grammars and examine the use of the negative particles.

Paper long abstract:

Though Joan Josua Ketelaar and François-Marie de Tours both reached India in the same decade of the 17th century and wrote their Hindī Grammars in less than six years gap, they have documented Hindī grammatical features differently. Their approach to documenting the Hindī language can be broadly considered as grounded in a culture-based language use. Ketelaar's Grammar has been broadly examined by scholars but de Tours' Grammar has hardly found any attention either in India or in the West. The paper intends to provide a comparative study of the conjugational patterns, i.e. nominal and verbal paradigms used by Ketelaar and de Tours and examine the use of the negative particles by them. Apart from that, the paper also seeks to discuss the purpose of Ketelaar's and de Tours' Grammars and their emphasis on the communicative competence of Hindustānī / Hindī. The question whether both of them are using the same lingua franca or bāzār Hindī in their documentation or not, will also be discussed.