74: lectures

overview of flat and bentmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1476

According to the grammar rules, there are flatty roots like car, that take flat kartari endings only --

carati "moves"

and bendy roots like plu, that take only bent --

plavate "jumps"

and flattybendy roots like yudh, that may take both with no change of meaning --

yudhyati "fights"

yudhyate "fights"

and there are a lot of grammar rules that explain which roots are flatty, which are bendy, and which are flattybendy.

Please be warned that lots of authors in the last three thousand years have either never heard of those rules, or unapologetically ignored them. So, don't panic when you find a plavati or a carate written somewhere. This happens quite a lot in the epics, often metri causa --

tiSThate hi suhRd yatra na bandhus tatra tiSThati "where there's a friend (in need) there's (often) no friend (nearby)"

Here the tiSThate, with bent ta, sux, and has the exact same meaning as the tiSThati, with flat tip. But don't fix it, because doing so will screw up the verse rythm.

rules that should be studied firstmmmmmmmmm ^ 1477

TURTLE TURTLE TURTLE

...

If you buy any book that promises to teach you Esperanto, Ancient Greek, or Tagalog, chances are that's a tutorial: you are expected to learn the first lesson first, then you do the exercises, and then you'll know enough to go ahead to the second lesson. And so on.

The paNini grammar cannot be read like that, because it is in absolute disorder. Chapter one will mention things that won't be explained until chapter 32. Oh, and there are no exercises.

Why?

Because it has never been a book for people that want to learn Sanskrit. It is not a tutorial, but a bunch of notes for teachers. Or a collection of lesson names. No one has ever learnt anything from reading a rule and then trying to figure out alone what it means. The basic assumption of the grammar maker is not that you will read the book from lesson one to lesson 32. Rather, the grammar maker assumes that your teacher will tell you about a rule when it is necessary for you to know about it, and then will explain its meaning.

So going into pAnini grammar without a teacher is a bit like going into a coal mine without a lamp. You WILL get lost.

Asume you know enough about Sanskrit to be able to explore a bit of the coal mine sometimes. What rules should be looked at first?

The sandhi rules are used all the time. You should first do some tutorial about sandhi, then after you are used to the most common instances, looking at the way pANini stated the rules might be interesting. Or not.

Next come the rules about adding sup affixes and feminine affixes to nounbases. These too are used all the time.

And then the rules about making verbs, such as kartarizap.

Intro to these groups --

wordfinal sandhi rules

choose-tiG rules

change-tiG rules ( tiG completion)

choose-sup rules

change-sup rules ( sup completion)

choose- tiG rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ C- 1478

Rule lasya says that every tense affix, after we add it after a root, must be replaced with one of the eighteen tiG affixes. How do we know which affix to choose? There are many rules teaching which one.

The most important rule is laHkarmaNi. This says, among other things, that we may choose an affix that has the same number and person as the doer of the root. For instance, if we want to say that the hens cross, or crossed, or will cross the road, then the doer of the root tRR "cross" will be the hens, and those are third person and plural. So, whatever tense we add aftertRR, we will have to replace it with a tiG that is third person and plural.

(We know that we must use a plural affix because rule bahuSubahu teaches so, and we need a third person affix because rule zeSeprathamaH says so.)

Now, rule tiGastrINi teaches that six of the tiG affixes are third person, namely tiptasjhi and tAtAJjha.

Then, rule tAnyeka tells us that the third affix of each group of three is plural. So only the affixes jhi and jha are third person and plural.

Of those two, jhi is flat and jha is bent. We will use jhi unless some rule says that we must or may use the bent.

So the verb we need will be made by replacing any tense with jhi. For instance, to mean present time, we add laT to the root, then replace laT with jhi --

tRR + laT →lasya tRR + jhi → tRR + zap + jhi →hardsoft tar + a + jhi →jhontaH tara + anti''' →atoguNe taranti "they cross"

To express past time, we may use laG or other tenses. when we add laG and replace it with jhi we get --

tRR + laG →lasya tRR + jhi → tRR + zap + jhi →hardsoft tar + a + jhi →luGlaG atara + jhi → atara + anti''' →itazca atara + ant''' →atoguNe atarant →saMyogAnta ataran "they crossed"

wordfinal sandhi rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1482

TURTLE TURTLE TURTLE

... very lame, needs total rewrite

The wordfinal sandhi rules are the rules that affect the last letter of a word when it is before pause, or in saMhitA before another word.

Let me show some examples of the effects of these rules.

(A) when a word ends in i or I, and the next starts with any other vowel, the i or I turns into y.

admi + odanam → admyodanam "I'm eating boiled rice"

(B) when a word ends in i or I, and the next starts with i or I, both letters are replaced with one I.

dadhi + icchati → dadhIcchati "wants curds"

atra + punar + @pause → atrapunaH "here again"

punar + atra + @pause → punaratra "here again"

There are one or two hundred such rules. Please DO NOT PANIC. You do not have to study them or memorize them before you get used to do what they say. And you don't have to do that afterwards either.

QRAQRAQRA

TURTLE TURTLE TURTLE

...

QRA QRA QRA

Different kinds of nothing.mmmmmmmmm ^ M+ C+ 1483

The pANini rules never say "delete" or "erase". Instead of "delete a", they say "replace a with nothing". An example is rule atolopaH. The first word atas means "replace short a", the second word lopas means "with nothing".

There are different kinds of nothing --

(1) Replacing something with lopa deletes one letter. When rule saMyogAnta commands "replace piturs with lopa", piturs turns into pitur.

(2) luk is a more destructive sort of nothing. When SaDbhyoluk teaches "replace zas with luk", that turns the whole zas into nothingness. So paJca- + zas turns into paJca "five".

Not only that. If adding an affix made changes to its stem, replacing that affix with luk will roll back those changes.

(3) replacing an affix with lup has the same effects that luk has, and it also rolls back the changes that the original affix made to the gender and number of its stem.

(4) zlu is a sort of nothing that, when added after a root, makes the root reduplicate (see zlau).

chunk 74: lectures

overview of flat and bentmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1476

rules that should be studied firstmmmmmmmmm ^ 1477

choose- tiG rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ C- 1478

change- tiG rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1479

choose- sup rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1480

change- sup rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1481

wordfinal sandhi rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1482

Different kinds of nothing.mmmmmmmmm ^ M+ C+ 1483

chunk 74: lectures