Payer, sum or bill, payee, goods, means · Hindi cloth · working claim, revisable
The payer of a perfective transitive clause takes ergative ने. R. S. McGregor, The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary, lists ने as the postposition used in ergative constructions in the standard language, and prints उसने किताब पढ़ी, glossed ‘he read the book’. पढ़ी is feminine, the gender of किताब. The same entry prints उसने सोचा. Yamuna Kachru, Hindi (London Oriental and African Language Library), describes this marking: the subject of a transitive verb in the perfective takes ने. Outside that perfective the subject is unmarked, and the verb agrees with the subject. No page number is cited for Kachru. A payer of चुकाना is not in McGregor’s verb entry. The infinitive citation has no subject.
चुकाना · cukānā · McGregor, transitive. Sense 1 · to finish, to complete. Sense 2 · to settle; to fix (as a price, a rate); to adjust (a law-suit, an account, a difference or dispute); to discharge (a debt); to make good (damage); to make or to pay (a charge, or compensation: to, को). Sense 3 · to assign, to allot; to exact (payment, requital). The debt, the account, and the charge are the object of the payment reading. John T. Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English (Digital Dictionaries of South Asia), calls चुकाना the causative of चुकना and glosses it ‘to discharge, to pay (a debt, tax, &c.)’. चुका देना is his intensive, equal to चुकाना. Hardev Bahri, Learners’ Hindi-English Dictionary (DSAL), prints ऋण चुकाना in the string ऋण उतारना / चुकाना / पटाना, ‘to pay off (settle) a debt’. ऋण is masculine in that entry. The debt is bare.
The sum or the bill, as direct object, is bare or को-marked. McGregor’s को, sense 1, is ‘specifier of a definite direct object’: दर्ज़ी को बुलाओ, ‘call the tailor’. Sense 2 is ‘marker of an indirect object’: उसको किताब दिजिए, ‘please give him a book’. The same postposition is the definite object and the recipient. Kachru’s agreement follows the marking. In the perfective, the ने-marked subject does not control agreement. An unmarked object does. McGregor’s उसने किताब पढ़ी is that pattern: the participle matches the unmarked feminine object. A को-marked object does not control agreement. The verb is then the default masculine singular. ऋण is masculine singular in Bahri, so bare ऋण and ऋण को both take चुकाया. The split is visible on a feminine object. Those clauses are constructed. The split is case and agreement. It does not add a participant.
The payee is को. McGregor names it on one slot of चुकाना sense 2: a charge, or compensation, ‘to, को’. The debt and the account in that same sense are named with no payee. Bahri’s ऋण चुकाना has no payee. A clause that stacks the payee with the debt is constructed. Platts’s चुकाना entry names no postposition.
What the money is paid for is के लिए. McGregor’s लिए, sense 3, is the postposition with के, ‘for, on account of’, and prints मैंने आपके लिए ही यह किया, ‘I did this just for you’. None of the four pay verbs prints के लिए. McGregor’s को, sense 5, is often interchangeable with के लिए in the sense ‘with regard to’, and the examples there are purpose (जाने को तैयार, हिंदी सिखने को). That को is not the goods. A goods phrase in के लिए beside a payment is constructed.
The means is से. McGregor’s से, sense 1, is ‘by means of: by; with’: क़लम से लिखना, ‘to write with a pen’. No pay verb prints that instrumental. नकद से beside a debt is constructed on sense 1. It is not the से of भरना sense 35, below.
भरना · bharnā · McGregor, intransitive and transitive. The payment senses sit inside the fill verb. Sense 10, intransitive · to be paid, remitted (a full amount: as fees, tax); to be refunded, or made good (a loss). The amount is the subject. There is no ergative payer. Sense 29, transitive · to pay (a full amount: as fees, tax); to refund or to make good (a loss); to deposit (a pledge). Sense 19 is ‘to fill (with, से)’. Sense 34 is ‘to pay (the penalty of); to suffer in full measure for’. Sense 35, especially with लेना, is ‘to exact a payment (from, से)’. Platts, transitive, ‘to liquidate, pay, repay, re-imburse’; intransitive, ‘to be paid in full (a debt)’. Bahri prints ऋण भरना, ‘to repay (pay off) a debt’. Fees and tax are the printed full amount. A bill, बिल, and a fine, जुर्माना, as objects of this sense are constructed. The entry prints no payee. An institution in को is constructed. Sense 35’s से is the person a payment is exacted from. It is not the instrumental of sense 1 of से, and it is not the dative payee.
अदा करना · McGregor’s noun अदा is feminine. Sense 2 of the noun is ‘due payment (as of a debt, a rent; or of a wage)’. अदा करना is ‘to discharge (as a debt); to pay out’, beside ‘to perform, to fulfil (an obligation)’. Platts’s Arabic अदा is ‘payment or discharge (of a debt, &c.)’, and अदा करना is ‘to discharge; liquidate, pay’. The grace senses, McGregor senses 3 and 4 and Platts’s Persian अदा, stay off the bill. The debt is the object of करना. No payee is printed. A perfective clause is constructed. Agreement follows the unmarked object, as on चुकाना.
देना · McGregor, sense 3 · ‘to make (a payment)’, beside ‘to give’. Sense 10, masculine noun · ‘giving, paying’. Sense 11 · ‘sthg. to be paid: a debt, liability’. Platts · ‘to pay (a debt, &c.)’; as a noun, ‘giving; paying; that which is to pay, debt, liability’. The geometry is the give frame. The thing given is the direct object. The recipient is McGregor’s को sense 2, the indirect object of उसको किताब दिजिए. Bahri’s collocation ऋण देना is ‘to lend money’. That filling stays off the bill. पैसे देना, the money as object and the payee as को, is constructed on the give frame and on ‘to make (a payment)’.
Where this frame diverges from English pay (the bill). English pay the bill makes the document the object and brings the sum back as with or in. English pay someone can make the person that object. चुकाना is the closest dictionary match for discharging the debt or paying the charge. The debt, the account, or the charge is the object. The payee is को when the gloss names one, and the debt gloss names none. The perfective payer is ergative ने. English has no ergative split. A definite object may take को, and the perfective verb then shows default masculine singular instead of agreeing with the object. English has one object form. भरना is the fill verb. Its payment sense takes the full amount, fees or tax, as object, and prints no person as payee. देना is the general transfer: the money is the object, and the person is the indirect object को, not the object of English pay someone.