81: discarded lessons AND / OR random writings and summaries

Summary of k G labels in tiG.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1614

An apit that replaces anything but liT and soft liG is Git by sArvadhAtukamapit.

An apit that replaces liT is kit by asaMyogAlliTkit.

All flat liG affixes are Git by yAsuT.

All hard liG affixes are Git by either yAsuT or sArvadhAtukamapit.

The soft bent liG affixes are usually neither kit nor Git by any rule,

but uzca sometimes makes them kit.

sa-compound confusion.mmmmmmmmm ^ C- 1615

The compounds that start with saha- or sa-, made by rule tenasaheti, are extremely common. They never fail to make my students trip. So a few pieces of advice are in order --

(A) saputra- may always mean "and son", "and two sons", or "and sons", no matter the number of the sup affix that comes after it.

(B) saputra- always has the same gender, number and case of whatever word it links to.

Students always make the same mistake: when they hear devAsH saguravaH, they assume that saguravas must mean "with teachers", because guravas is a plural.

Yet, if there are many gods, we must always say saguravas no matter how many teachers go with them --

devAsH saguravaH "the devas and their teacher bRhaspati"

devAsurAsH saguravaH "the devas, the asuras and their two teachers bRhaspati and zuka"

devAsurAsH saguravaH "the devas and many teachers"

Similarly, when students hear viprasH saputraH, they asume that it must mean "the priest and his son". But in fact there may be any number of sons.

If you want to be specific and make clear that you mean many gods and with many teachers, you have to say --

devA$ guravaz ca "gods and teachers"

or --

devA$ guravaisH saha "gods with teachers, gods and teachers"

And if you want to make clear that there is only one teacher, say --

devA$ guruz ca "the gods and their teacher"

devA$ guruNA saha "gods with their teacher"

Now, some students ask: "why should I ever say devAsH saguravaH, when devA$ guruz ca and devA$ guravaz ca are clearer and not any longer?". The answer to that is, you don't HAVE to say saguravas. You MAY do that if you want. So don't use it if you don't wanttoo. But you will find that such sa- expressions are used often, particularly metri causa.

Doerless loT.mmmmmmmmm ^ C+ 1616

All verbs in Sanskrit can be used either personally (expressing the doer), like here --

pazyAmi zakunim "I see a bird"

dRzyate zakunir mayA "I see a bird"

or impersonally, without expressing the doer --

dRzyate zakuniH "someone sees a bird, a bird is being seen"

It is extremely common to use this dRzyate zakuniH expression to mean "I see a bird", "he sees a bird", "you see a bird", "someone sees a bird" when the context makes clear who is doing the seeing.

For instance, if I'm alone at home and you come from the beach, and I ask you dRSTaz candraH "has the moon been seen?", you will imagine that I am asking if YOU saw the moon. And then you'll answer dRSTaH "it has", or na dRSTaH "it hasn't", and you have no need to say mayA because I know that you are speaking about yourself.

This can be very perplexing until you get used to it.

It is even more perplexing when the loT tense is used impersonally. These are four commands that express the doer --

gaccha nadIm "go to the river! (addressing one person)"

gacchata nadIm "go to the river! (addressing many)"

gacchatu nadIm "let him go to the river!"

gacchAma nadIm "let's go to the river!"

and any of them may (and will often) be replaced with the impersonal command --

gamyatAnM nadI "let the river be gone to"

This "let the river be gone to" sounds awkward in English, but the original ganyatAm is very natural Sanskrit. So, translators are advised to avoid that exact grammatical translation. Instead, translate gamyatAm as "go!" or "let him go" or "let's go!", whatever it means.

What are sandhi rules.mmmmmmmmm ^ 1618

TURTLE TURTLE TURTLE

... integrate this below

pANini never uses sandhi as a term. Yet, the word is widely used by other grammarians to mean --

" the changes of the final letters of a word caused by the first letters of the next word, or by the next pause "

Examples of sandhi changes --

The word madhu (made from madhu- n + su) turns into madhv when it is in saMhitA before atra.

madhu + atra → madhvatra "honey is here"

The word vidyud (made from vidyut- f + su) turns into vidyut when it is in saMhitA before tatra.

vidyud + tatra → vidyuttatra "lightning is there"

That same word vidyud turns into vidyut when it is not in saMhitA.

tatra + vidyud + @pause → tatravidyut "lightning is there"

About sandhimmmmmmmmm ^ M- C+ 1619

Fun fact: experienced speakers constantly merge, drop, and alter sounds when talking at normal conversational speed to optimize for efficient mouth movement (from XKCD).

The word sandhi (correctly spelled: sandhi), in plain Sanskrit, means "joining". In Sanskrit grammar jargon, sandhi means the changes of sound that happen when joining Sanskrit words.

In English grammar jargon, sandhi means the changes of sound that happen when joining words in any language (see Wikipedia on Sandhi).

Example of sandhi in English.

If you say "iced ink" inside a sentence at normal talking speed, it is likely that you'll end up saying "I stink".

English grammarians say that the pronunciation "I stink" is incorrect and that we should always speak slowly and carefully to avoid it.

Most English speakers say "Istink" when talking at normal speed and they mistakenly think they said "Iced ink", without noticing they said it "incorrectly".

English custom says that only the spelling "iced ink" is allowed, no matter how it's actually said.

Example of sandhi in Sanskrit.

If we make the words azvas and dravati into a sentence, at normal speed, we'll say azvodravati "horse runs".

Sanskrit grammarians say that the pronunciation "azvas dravati" is incorrect and that we must always say azvodravati.

Unless we decide to make a pause in the middle, in which case we MUST say azvaH pause dravati.

Sanskrit custom says that we must always spell azvodravati, because that's what we actually say most of the time.

The only Sanskrit newspaper in the world, and the Sanskrit Wikipedia, will often misspell azvaH dravati, in the belief that its readers are not fluent speakers and would be thrown off by the traditional spelling.