76: noun building machine

noun building machinemmmmmmmmm ^ 1491

According to pANini, every noun is built by the following process --

(2) if it is a feminine nounbase, add to it a feminine affix if necessary.

(3) Then, add one of the twenty-one sup affixes (see rule svaujas). There are many rules that explain which one must it be.

(4) Then, a lot of rules might come in and automatically make changes to the nounbase and to the affix.

Examples

(A) a noun kapis may be made by joining the masculine nounbase kapi- and the ending su.

(B) another word kapis may be made by joining the feminine nounbase kapi- and the ending su.

(C) when we join kapi- m + TA we first get kapi + A, and then rule AGonA replaces the A with nA, making kapinA "with monkey".

(D) when we join kapi- f + TA we first get kapiA, and then rule ikoyaNaci replaces the i with y, making kapyA "with female monkey".

(E) when we join haya- m + TA we first get haya + A, then rule TAGasi turns haya + A into haya + ina, then rule AdguNa turns haya + ina into hayena "with horse".

(F) siMha- f + jas first turns into siMha + I + jas by jAtera, then into siMh + I + jas by yasyetica, then into siMhyas "lionesses" by ikoyaNaci.

(G) siMha- m + jas turns into siMhA + s "lions" by prathamayo.

At this point it might look like a student's goal should be first memorizing all nounbases, then memorizing all rules, and then when the teacher asks "what do we get when we join haya + Gas" the student will be able to answer "we get hayasya, because of rule TAGasi, and then no other rules can work".

But that would be a completely stupid way of studying. What students must learn first is how to do these two operations --

(1) parsing: given a word like hayas, find out that it is made of nounbase haya plus ending su

(2) building: given nounbase haya and ending su, find out that they add up to hayas.

This can be done either by using the rules, or by cheating with inria. For beginners, cheating is far easier and better. The rules are useful sometimes and other times are not.

how to use inria reader for parsing nouns

*how to use inria reader for building nouns

examples of noun assemblingmmmmmmmmm ^ 1492

According to pANini grammar theory, every noun was assembled from smaller pieces according to a process described by the rules. The pieces are three --

(1) We always have a nounbase, like azva- or kukkuTa-,

(2) if the nounbase is feminine, we sometimes have GI or Ap added after the nounbase,

(3) and we always have a sup affix, like su or jas or am, at the end.

After we put the three pieces together, there are a bunch of rules that can change the pieces, such as yasyetica, halGyA, ikoyaNaci, prathamayo and hundreds of others. Some examples --

azva- @m + su → azvas "horse"

kukkuTa- @m + su → kukkuTas "rooster"

kukkuTa- @f + su →jAtera kukkuTa + GI + s →yasyetica kukkuT + I + s →halGyA kukkuTI "hen"

kukkuTa- @f + jas →jAtera kukkuTa + GI + as →yasyetica kukkuT + I + as →ikoyaNaci kukkuTyas "hens"

vadhU- @f + jas →ikoyaNaci vadhvas "young ladies"

vadhU- @f + zas →prathamayo vadhUs "young ladies"

guru- @m + zas →prathamayo gurUs "young ladies" →tasmAcchaso gurUn "teachers"

It is humanly impossible to memorize all rules first and afterwards use them to assemble pieces. Fortunately no one is going to ask you to do that. The way to learn how this works is focusing on one rule at a time, and cheating with inria as much as possible.

noun disassembly

noun assembly

noun disassemblymmmmmmmmm ^ C- 1493

To disassemble a noun with inria, we put it into inria reader , look for a red rectangle, and mouseover it. For instance, if we type azvas there, and hover on the red azvaH, we get a popup with --

azva m nom sg

The "azva m" means that azva is a masculine nounbase, and the nom sg thing stands for the affix su. So when we join azva and s we get the word azvas. ( inria always spells the final s of a word with the letter H, which is sort of confusing, but not much, because all final H in inria stand for s.)

Now if you type azvAsu you get --

azva f loc pl

Here azva is the feminine nounbase azva- meaning a mare, and loc pl means the affix sup'. So inria is telling us that feminine azva- plus sup adds up to azvAsu "about mares". Thanks to inria we now know that feminine azva turns into azvA before sup', but inria does not tell us which rules caused the change.

Now let's try azvAs. Here we get --

azva ( m nom pl / f nom pl )

nom pl stands for the affix jas. Now this line means that

azva- m plus jas adds up to azvAs

and also

azva- f plus jas adds up to azvAs

inria can't know which of the two assemblings is the right one, because it is not even trying to do that -- it only looks at the letters azvAs and tries to find all possibilities.

Now let's try rAmeNa. Here we get --

rAma m i sg

i sg stands for the affix TA, so this means that when we join the nounbase rAma with TA we get rAmeNa. Of course a newbie will expect that, when we join rAma and TA we should get something like ramaA or rAmA. The fact that inria says rAmeNa means that there must be some rules that change aA into eNa, but inria won't tell us which rules are those (eventually you will find out that they are rules TAGasi and Natvam).

Now a harder example. Try typing rAmena into inria.

In this case, inria tells us nothing useful. That means that there is no way to pull out rAmena from the nounbases, affixes and rules that inria knows. If inria were not a dumb machine, but a Sanskrit teacher, it would say "most likely you meant rAmeNa", but this is not what is supposed to do. It just finds the nounbase, gender and sup if it can.

noun assemblymmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1494

To put together a nounbase and a sup we use the inria declension gadget.

Example. Suppose we want to add the affix TA after the masculine nounbase rAma-. Go to the gadget, type rAma into it, select HK, and choose "masculine" from the gender menu, and click "send". This will show you a table with all sup affixes added after rAma. The one that we want, TA, is the instrumental singular, so we look at the FOURTH line of the table, named "instrumental", in the first column, labeled "singular". There we find rAmeNa. Inria has applied correctly all rules that can be applied, but it won't tell us which rules are those.

For feminines, the gadget is a bit more complicated. Let's try to use the gadget to find out how to say "with a rooster" and "with a hen", again using the instrumental singular affix TA.

Type kukkuTa into the gadget, choose HK, set "masculine", hit "send". In the table, fourth line singular column, we see kukkuTena. Which means "with rooster".

Now for the hen, we have to type kukkuTI, with long I at the end, then we select feminine, then HK, then send. In the table, same line same column as earlier, we see kukkuTyA "with hen".

For "with a mare", we must type azvA ending in A, then select feminine. We'll get azvayA then.

We cannot just type kukkuTa or azva, the bare nounbase, and select feminine. That will not work, because the gadget does not even try to guess if the correct feminine affix is Ap or GI or no affix. So before we come to this gadget, we have to know that the nounbase kukkuTa gets I in the feminine, but azva gets A in the feminine, and vidyut gets nothing. This is sort of inconvenient, but not a big deal, because any dictionary will show the correct feminine form.

Now if you go to inria reader and paste there the words rAmeNa kukkuTena kukkuTyA azvayA, it will show that all are i sg (all have TA) and will tell us the correct genders and nounbases.

chunk 76: noun building machine

noun building machinemmmmmmmmm ^ 1491

examples of noun assemblingmmmmmmmmm ^ 1492

noun disassemblymmmmmmmmm ^ C- 1493

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chunk 76: noun building machine