"गायें बिल्लियाँ नहीं होती हैं।"

Translation: Cows are not cats.

[pumaconcolor]

What if I just said "गायें बिल्लियाँ नहीं (हैं)", and if it's acceptable what's the difference in meaning?

[RanzoG]

"hona" is for generally applicable statements of fact.

[hptroll]

I think you mean “hota”, though. “होता” is pronounced “hota”, not “hona”. And in this instance, with a feminine subject, it’s “होती”, pronounced “hoti”.

[RanzoG]

No, I meant "hona" (होना), like I said.

[hptroll]

Oh, the infinitive form, right? Sorry: I didn’t recognize it.

[pumaconcolor]

Thanks, just after posting I realized that this question had been already answered elsewhere in the lesson!

[Student-IS107235]

A literal translation of "hona" is literally "to me".

[vinay92]

I think you have a typo there.
'Hona' is the verb 'to be'

[Dayakara]

I get how "Cows eat grass." and "Cows don't eat carrion." are generally true statements about cows. However "Cows are not cats." seems different to me since it is not information about cows. it is sort of nonsense, while the other two statements could be informative, say, to a child. If बिल्लियाँ could be understood as "felines", I could understand this sentence as "a general truth." Perhaps a child would not know the word "feline", but I think it would be more natural to say "A cow is not in the cat family." But that seems too obvious state. Hindi speakers, to your mind is this a good example of the use/meaning of होता है?

[deactivated user]

Of course not,but there are many other instances where such sentences are like - मैं एक मछली हूँ, मैं सब्जी नहीं हूँ,इत्यादि|
So i think we should expect these kind of sentence from duo.

[MamaLloyd]

I'm glad. I wouldn't want one on my lap, and I'm pretty sure they don't purr. Also a bit large for a house pet.

[Athalawulfaz]

The use of 'hona' here is for 'gnomic' truths or statements about general principles.

In Old English (Anglo-Saxon) you also had two verbs - 'wesan' = 'to be, to exist', and 'bēon' = 'to be', but as gnomic statements. The latter became our general infinitive 'to be'. So "Cattas ne bēoð hundas' means 'cats shall not be dogs,' or 'cyning bið anwealda' means 'a king shall be sovereign'.

Hindi seems to do something similar by using 'hoti' in addition to 'hãi'.

[AndrNordin1]

Should not होती be nasalized: होतीं?

[maz1269]

Good question. I thought the same thing. And it would make all the female plural endings for simple present verbs in the "Plurals" lesson tooltip wrong. Could someone confirm? I noticed this in other lessons — a habit of missing bindus and anusvars.

[vinay92]

The main verb is nasalised only when we drop the (nasalised) auxiliary verb. So, the sentence is either गायें बिल्लियाँ नहीं होती हैं। or गायें बिल्लियाँ नहीं होतीं ।

[maz1269]

I see. So are the Wiktionary tables (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/होना#Hindi) incorrect? Or is there an optionality aspect here, in the sense that you can still nasalize even with aux. verb present if you want?

[vinay92]

I'm not sure if it is technically incorrect to use the nasalised form with an auxiliary verb also present but I can tell you it is almost never done in practice.

[BNR7]

Why is it होती not होते

[RanzoG]

Cows are feminine.

[Rudra_Sarkar]

Why 'The cows are not the cats ' wouldn't be correct ? Sorry if you find my question foolish but I really don't get it.

[vinay92]

Hindi does not have a definite article that's equivalent to 'the'. If you really want to specify definiteness, you can use यह/वह (this/that) but otherwise, definiteness is inferred from context. So, for most sentences, you can translate into English with or without the 'the'.

But because this sentence has a 'होती', this is a general statement about all cows and not a particular set of cows. Therefore, using 'the' isn't appropriate.

[krish364376]

The cows are not cats. What is the difference?

[AmandaCase11]

Can anyone tell me why hoti sounds like huti in the faster pronunciation?