Verblike is a noun that works like a verb.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1255

A verblike is a noun that can work as if it were the main verb of a sentence.

Most verblikes are made by adding kta, ktavatu, or one of the kRtya after a root.

Example 1.

The verblike nounbase kSiptavat- is made from kSip + ktavatu, and means "threw". It has the same meaning as the verbs akSipat cikSepa akSaipsIt, that are made by adding laG liT luG to the same root.

zilAGM kapiH kSiptavAn "monkey threw stone"

zilAGM kapir akSipat "monkey threw stone"

zilAGM kapir akSaipsIt "monkey threw stone"

zilAGM kapiz cikSepa "monkey threw stone"

This kSiptavat- means the doer, same as the three verbs. So in all four sentences, the object got second ending by karmaNidvitIyA, and the verblike or verb agrees with the doer.

Example 2.

The verblike nounbase kSipta- is made from kSip + kta, and means "was thrown", just like the verb akSipyata (made by adding laG to the same root).

zilA kapinA kSiptA "monkey threw stone"

zilA kapinA 'kSipyata "monkey threw stone"

This kSipta- means the object, same as akSipyata. So in both sentences, the doer got third ending by kartRkaraNayos tRtIyA , and the verblike or verb agrees with the object.

Example 3.

peya- is made from pA + yat, and means "can be drunk, is drinkable" --

udakaGM kapinA peyam "monkey can drink water"

Conterexamples.

The nounbase kartR-, made from kR + tRc, means "maker". But tRc enders are not verblike, and cannot work as if they were main verbs. Therefore, the object of their root does not get second --

kumbhasya kartrI sA "she's the maker of the pot"

The nounbases kurvat- and kurvANa- are made with sat affixes after kR. But they are not verblike, because they cannot replace karoti as the main verb of a sentence. Yet, the object of their root does take second anyway --

agniGM kurvANaGM kapim apazyam "I saw a monkey making fire"

agniGM kurvantaGM kapim apazyam "I saw a monkey making fire"

About proper names.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1256

A " proper name ", "name", or " tag " is a general expression used to name something in particular.

Examples.

The word rathas "chariot" is not a tag when it means a chariot, but it is a tag when it means Mr. Ratha.

The compound zazadantaH is a tag when used as the nickname of someone in particular "Mr. Hareteeth". But not in the sentence zazadanto 'yaJM jIvAzma "this fossil is a haretooth", where it has its general meaning.

The compound dviziras- "two-headed" is a tag when it means a certain mountain or a certain TV show ("Twin Peaks"), but it is not a tag in the sentence dvizirAH parvataH "the mountain has two peaks".

There are certain grammar rules that work only on tags. For instance, when compounding rAmasya "Rama's" and ayanAni "comings and goings", we get rAmAyanAni "the travels of rAma", which is not a tag. But when the compound is used as the name of a work, then it is a tag, and must be changed into rAmAyaNam "the story of the travels of rAma". Notice the N -- the change of n to N happens in a tag but not elsewhere (rule pUrvapadAtsaJjJAyAmagaH says so).

Referent is the thing that a word means.mmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1257

For instance, when I say, "look at that bird", the referent of the word "bird" is the specific bird I am pointing at.

patati zakuniH "bird flies"

Here the referent of the word "zakuniH" is a certain bird, and the referent of "patati" is that same bird.

The referent of a verb or verblike may be its doer or its object. Examples of doer --

zakunimM pazyati rAmaH "rAma sees bird"

Here the referent of the word "rAmas" is rAma, and the referent of the word "pazyati" is rAma too.

zakuninM dRSTavAn rAmaH "rAma saw bird"

Here the referent of dRSTavAn is rAma.

Examples of object --

dRzyate zakunir mayA "bird is being seen by me"

Here the referent of the word "zakuniH" is a certain bird, and the referent of "dRzyate" is that same bird. The referent of mayA is me.

dRSTazH zakunir mayA "bird was seen by me"

Here the referent of dRSTas is the bird, and the referent of zakunis is the bird too.

The Sanskrit term for referent is adhikaraNa, that can also mean location.

When two words have the same referent, grammarians say that they are samAnAdhikaraNa ( samereferent). For instance, in dRzyate zakunizH zuklaH, all three words are samereferent to each other.

See also about agreement .

About agreement.mmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1258

Words are in samAnAdhikaraNa when they have the same referent.

Examples --

In dRSTazH zakunir mayA "bird was seen by me", the words dRSTas and zakunis are in samAnAdhikaraNa.

In kRSNazH zakuniH "bird is black", the words kRSNas and zakunis are in samAnAdhikaraNa.

When two words are in samAnAdhikAraNa, they are in " agreement". This means that one of them copies from the other as many of gender, case, number and person as it can. This is a general rule of Sanskrit grammar --

"When a verb describes a noun, it copies the number and person of that noun. When a noun describes a noun, it copies the number and gender and case of that noun."

Examples --

In dRzyate zakunir mayA, the verb dRzyate is third person and singular because it agreess with zakunis, which is third person and singular.

And in zakuninM dRSTavAn rAmaH, the verblike dRSTavAn is masculine and singular and has first because it agrees with rAmas, and rAmas is masculine and singular and has first.

Difference between objectful and objectless verbs.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1259

In Sanskrit, English, Polish, Sahili and most other languages, if not all, there are two types of verbs --

Some always have an object. These are said to be objectful (or "transitive").

The others never have an object. These are objectless (or "intransitive").

The difference has little to do with the meaning of the verb, and more with the way it behaves inside sentences. A quick test for English verbs: sandwitch the verb between "can you" and "it?". If the resulting sentence sounds normal, the verb is objectful --

Can you see it?

Can you eat it?

Can you kill it?

But if what you get sounds off, the verb is objectless --

Can you sleep it?

Can you sit it?

Can you dine it?

The sentences would work with "on it", but just "it" is a no-go. Therefore "sleep", "sit" and "dine" are objectful. And the third is sort of odd, because eat and dine mean the same thing, as in both cases there's something that gets eaten, say a hamburger. But with one verb the hamburger is a grammatical object, and with the other it is not.

Objectful and objectless verbs.mmmmmmmmm ^ M+ C+ 1260

Summarizing --

(1) Some Sanskrit roots, such as dRz "see", always have an object (which is whatever or whoever gets seen) and are said to be objectful roots.

(2) The rest of the roots, like svap "sleep", never have any object (nothing ever gets slept, though maybe some things get slept ON) and are said to be objectless roots.

In school you were likely taught the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs, and most likely wondered how could this sort of knowledge be useful for anything. Surprise surprise, it becomes useful when you learn foreign languages, such as Sanskrit. So, if you forgot, please read now difference between objectful and objectless verbs . It's important. I swear.

Objectful roots like bhuj and dRz always have an object. Here the object is a bird --

zakunim abhuJji "I ate the bird"

zakunim apazyam "I saw the bird"

The bird above carries second ending because of rule object gets second .

But objects sometimes don't get second --

mayA zakunir abhujyata "I ate the bird"

And sometimes there is an object, but it does not appear in the sentence --

pazyAmi "I see (it)"

na pazyaty andhaH "blind man doesn't see (anything at all)"

Objectless roots never have any object. Two such are svap "sleep" and As "sit" --

asvapam "I slept"

kaTe biDAlAv AsAtAm "two cats sat on the mat"

An AkRtigaNa is a group of words that is not in pANini's version of the gaNapATha.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1261

Rule ajAdyataSTAp mentions "aja etc". This "aja etc", literally "goat and others", is a gaNa or "official class", meaning that you can find the whole list of goat-class nounbases in the gaNapATha.

But when rule svarAdi mentions "svar and others", that's a "pirate class" or AkRtigaNa. This means that the "svar and others" of the sUtra just means "some words, such as svar", because pANini did not take the trouble of including an official list in the gaNapATha.

Gender abbrevs.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1262

m means masculine

n means neuter

f means feminine

mn masculine or neuter

nf neuter or feminine

nounbases are masculine, feminine, or neuter.mmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1263

Every Sanskrit nounbase belongs to one of three groups called genders. The groups are --

m = masculine

n = neuter

f = feminine.

After most feminine nounbases, a feminine affix must be added. The neuters work basically like the masculine, the main difference is that the first and second affixes are replaced with luk zI zi.

Examples of masculine nounbases

vRkSa- m "tree"

siMha- m "lion, male lion"

adri- m "stone"

kapi- m "monkey" ( of either sex )

puruSa- m "man, person (of either sex); spirit, consciousness (these are sexless)"

Examples of neuter nounbases

phala- "result; piece of fruit"

asthi- "bone"

manas- "mind"

Examples of feminine nounbases

simha- @f "lioness"

makSika- @f "a fly" ( of either sex )

zila- @f "stone"

vidyut- @f "lightning"

mati- f "thought"

The feminine nounbases siMha-, makSika-, zila- are always used with a feminine affix added after them, so they appear listed in dictionaries as siMhI makSikA zilA. Of these --

siMha- got GI by rule jAtera

makSika- and zila- got Ap by rule ajAdyataSTAp

and the others got no feminine affix because no rule gives them any.

Double consonant.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1264

A double consonant is a consonant sound that lasts twice the usual time.

Examples. In this vedic verse you can hear the double consonants dd and cch. They last roughly twice the time of the single consonants a v S g t.

The double consonant sound in that audio is just a lengthened d, but it is spelled as two dd, and is considered to be a cluster of d + d.

The sound cch is considered to be a cluster of c and ch. The same rule applies to the spelling of the other nine letters that have fake h .

The difference between a double and a single consonant affects meaning --

vR + kta + su → vRtas "hidden, wrapped"

vRt + kta + su → vRttas "event, happening"

pANinIya, aSTAdhyAyI.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1265

The pANinIya is the work on grammar that this websites comments on. Read more about it at Wikipedia on A%E1%B9%A3%E1%B9%AD%C4%81dhy%C4%81y%C4%AB.

The full work contains --

The zivasUtra.

Eight books of rules, called the aSTAdhyAyI.

The gaNapATha, a list of word groups.

The dhAtupATha, a list of roots.

book, chapter.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1266

The aSTAdhyAyI has eight books of rules.

Each book is divided in four pAda (quarters, chapters).

Each chapter consists of between a couple dozen and a couple hundred rules, also called sUtras

The groups of five digits that you will find in this website show book, chapter, and rule number. For instance, 74066 stands for book 7, chapter 4, rule 66. adhyAya 7 pAda 4 sUtra 66.

You do not need to know the numbers for anything. Yet, they are useful when you have any doubt about how a rule is supposed to be chanted, because, knowing the number, you can easily find the rule in this video.

about the iS-aoristmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1267

The affix iS(ic) is the sic that got iT added --

sic ( after seT root) → iT + sic →kric iSic

As in --

car + luG mip → car + am''' →luGlaG acar + am → acar + sic + am → acar + iSic + am →atorlAntasya acAriSam "I walked"

Forms like acAriSam are flagged as " aor [5]" by inria. They are also said to belong to the "aorist type five", or more simply to be an iS-aorist.

This [5] means that the form got iSic, and that rule yamarama did not work making it into a siS-aorist.

Most seT roots take this iS-aorist (type five).

Most aniT roots take s-aorist (type four).

And of course most veT roots take both.

Subordinate is the part of a compound that has not the same referent the whole compound.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1268

Example 1.

In brahmalokaH "Brahmaworld", the whole compound "brahmaloka" means a world (loka-), but the whole compound does not mean brahman-. Therefore brahman is subordinate here, and loka is the "main" half of the compound.

Example 2.

In the kRSNazakuni of kRSNazakuni nagaram "city with many black birds in it", the whole compound kRSNazakuni means a city, but kRSNa does not mean a city, and zakuni does not mean a city. Therefore both of kRSNa and zakuni are subordinate, and the compound has no "main" half.

fake hmmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1269

The ten letters

jh bh gh Dh dh

kh ph ch Th th

are single sounds, not combinations of two sounds. A bha and a ba take the exact same time to say, even thought the bh is pronounced with more air pressure than the b.

All beginners get tricked into thinking that bh is made from b + h. It is not. It is a single letter, not a cluster. If you don't know this, you can't apply rule saMyogeguru correctly.

In Indian alphabets b is spelled with a certain letter and bh with a different letter. Because our Roman alphabet is poor, and does not have enough symbols for the 33 hal of Sanskrit, we have to represent the high pressure adding "h" after "b". This "h" is just a pressure indicator, and NOT a letter h. I call it a " fake h".

The longhorn rule-of-thumb.mmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1271

This is the longhorn rule-of-thumb --

" words like longhorn are usually adjectives meaning long-horned, and seldom mean a long horn "

The same principle works in English -- the word barefoot does not mean a bare foot, but a footwearless person, and blackbeard does not mean a beard, he was a pirate. Yet, for some reason, simple as this idea is, it takes time to sink in. Students of Sanskrit must be reminded again and again to not translate dIrghazRGgaH as a long horn". Correct Sanskrit for "a long horn" is dIrghaM zRGgam.

Also, students of Sanskrit must be reminded again and again to not make compounds when none is needed. If you want to say a black beard, zyAmaM zmazru is the good way -- you aren't allowed to make a compound.

zyAma-zmazrusH samudra-cauraH "Blackbeard the seathief"