Previous research place English and Japanese at the opposite ends of the DO-language and BECOME-language continuum. The former prefers to express events by giving prominence to human agents by using transitive constructions; the latter prefers to suppress human agents and express the event as if it spontaneously occurred by using intransitive constructions. However, no study so far has attempted to establish the position of Hindi within this continuum.

The present study shows that not only does Hindi exhibit the characteristics of a typical BECOME-language, but that it is more restrictive in the use of transitive constructions when compared to Japanese.