Adding the invariant ending -O to the first part of a compound verb lends a note of insistence or even stubbornness to an expression:

 1.  g:l:a s:ÜK:a j:a rha hò Aaòr t:Ü s:_a p:an:i ep:l:aO dðt:i hò !
      'My throat is drying up and you insist on giving me rotten water to drink!'

      (from Premchand's YakÙr ka kÙAaú: context.)
Another example, from a story where a low caste woman is intent on staking a prior claim to a reward for becoming wetnurse to the baby boy of a landowner:

 2.  b:hÝj:i,  m:Üû_n: m:ðù c:Ü_ð l:Üúg:i khð dðt:i hÝú !
      'Bahuji, you'll give me heavy bangles at his Munj (tonsure ceremony). I will have them, I tell you.'

      (from Premchand's dÜD: ka dam:: context.)
      Adding -O  to the first part of a compound verb may also often give a sense of imminence or immediate future:
 3.  Aaj: hi K:ðt: ki kXaI AarmB: krð dðt:a hÝú, AeD:k Yhrn:ð s:ð Aaðl:ð-p:an:i ka s:ùkX es:r p:r Aa s:kt:a hò ...
      'I will start the harvest right from today. If I wait any longer I may have rain or hail to contend with.'

      (from Vrindavan Lal Verma's XÝXð kaúXð, p. 11)
 4.  y:h p:an:i kòs:ð ep:y:aðg:ð ?  n: j:an:ð kaòn: j:an:v:r m:ra hò.  kÙOú s:ð m:òù dÜs:ra p:an:i l:aO dðt:i hÝú.
      'How will you drink this water. Who knows what animal has died in it! I'll just go get more water from the well.'

      (from Premchand's YakÙr ka kÙAaú: context.)
-O is commonly used in the first person (especially with the verb  kh dð 'say') as a way of indicating that the speaker will not take 'no' for an answer:

 5.  n:ay:k t:iv:Òt:a kñ s:aT: b:aðl:a, ' hm: AB:i s:b: dðK:ð l:ðt:ð hòù. '
      (from Vrindavan Lal Verma's  XÞXð kaúXð, p. 18)
      'The officer said sharply, 'We'll see about all of that!'

A more detailed discussion of the compound verb in -O and the expression of insistence or imminence can be found in Hook 1974:261-7.

Other sections dealing with compound verbs:

          General functions.

          Vector  Ral: .
          Vector  b:òY .
          Vector  p:_ .
          Compound-compound verbs ( g:m:i ý m:arkð rK: dðt:i hò. )

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Drafted: July 1999.
Posted: 17 Aug 1999.
Updated: 19 Sept 1999, 18 Oct 1999, 18 Sep 2001, 11 Feb 2002, 7 July 2004.