Monday, December 7, 2015

31 Metarules: locative, ablative

Here’s two metarules (rules about rules) now; i.e. prescriptions on how certain conventional case forms are to be interpreted (this has already been talked about in the early posts; we will reinforce that here).

1.1.66 tasminniti nirdişţe pūrvasya
Parsing of words:
Tasminn (7/1) (in that) iti (0, so saying) nirdişţe (7/1, in the specification), pūrvasya (6/1, of the preceding)
Vŗtti (paraphrase):
Tasminn iti (saying ‘in that’) saptamyartha- (in the meaning of the saptamī, i.e. seventh or locative, case) nirdeşe (in the specification) pūrvasyaiva (pūrvasya eva) kāryam (operation of the preceding only) bhavati (is, transpires), nottarasya (na uttarasya, not of the following).

“An element which is referred to by a locative (saptamī) form is understood as a right context for an operation on that which preceded it” (Sharma, II.67).

Thus, we may interpret the technical word in the locative case (saptamī) as something like ‘in the case of’, ‘in the context that’. In short, the locative case denotes the ‘if’ part of a ‘if-then’ statement. An interesting feature of the sutra is that it uses the very technical device it is defining, by putting nirdişţe in the locative case: if we translate nirdeşa as ‘specification’, the term reads ‘in the specification in the seventh case’, which we can expand as ‘in the context of a specification in the seventh case’ or ‘in the presence of… etc.’. In simple terms, ‘if there is a (term) specified in the seventh (locative, saptamī) case, then…’.

The ‘…then’ part is given by the last word, pūrvasya, ‘of the previous’, which is in the genitive, sixth case.  We obviously have to supply some words to round out the meaning.  The vŗtti sensibly supplies the term kāryam, ‘operation, work’. That is, if there is a term specified in locative case, then the operation is that of the preceding (term), the term (technical or operative word) that comes before the term in the locative case. Sharma calls the locative word a “right context” for the operation specified previously in the given rule. That is, the ‘if’ portion is given on the right of the operative term, which means that this is a ‘do Y if X’ type of instruction (X being the required condition, the subsequent term in locative case, and Y the antecedent, operation term), rather than ‘if X then Y’.   This is just a convention of ordering the terms, as far as I can make out at this stage.

An example is the already familiar rule  6.1.77 iko yaņ aci, where the last word aci is in the locative case: ‘in (the case of occurrence of a) vowel’; i.e. ‘if there is a vowel aC’. This is the X, the if- condition, but here termed the “right context” not just because it comes at the end of the rule, but implying that the X has to be present to the right, i.e. after the element on which the operation Y is to be performed. And what is the action Y (kāryam) to be performed, the ‘do’ instruction? That is: iko yaņ which uses the genitive case of iK, ‘of the short vowels (iK)’. This genitive (possessive, sixth case) has to be interpreted according to 1.1.49 şaşţhī sthāne-yogā, ‘the possessive case (means, signifies) the replacement-relation’. Or, ‘(in place) of short vowels (iK) (put) semi-vowels (yaŅ), IF there is a vowel aC following (right context)’.

Here’s another case ending which has a specific grammatical interpretation:
1.1.67 tasmād ity uttarasya
Word parsing:
 tasmād (5/1) (‘from that’) iti (0) (‘so saying’) uttarasya (7/1) (‘of the following’)
Sharma (II:68) denotes this as a “left context” of the operation to be carried out as per the following term ‘uttarasya’. Vŗtti (paraphrase):
tasmād  (tasmāt ‘from that’) iti  (‘so saying’) pañcam-artha-nirdeśa (‘fifth case signifying specification’) uttarasya eva kāryam (‘operation only of the following’) na pūrvasya (‘not of the preceding’)

“An element referred to by an ablative form (not otherwise interpretable in a given context) is a left context for an operation on what follows it” (Sharma, II:68).
“An operation caused by the exhibition of a term in the ablative or fifth case, is to be understood to enjoin the substitution of something in the room of that which immediately follows the word denoted by the term” (Vasu, p.60; decidedly a prolix rendering totally at odds with the spirit of the old grammarians!).

 The “left context” implies that the operation prescribed is to be done on the element which follows the instruction: ‘if x then do Y’. I like to look at the ablative as emanating something that affects the target and effects the change: in 8.4.61, for instance, it states that after ud with following sthāna and stambha, substitution of the initial of the second (following) word is done with “a letter belonging to the class of the prior” (Vasu, p.60), i.e. stha- or sta- is replaced with sounds homologous to the –d of ud-, giving forms like utthāna. In this sutra, the ablative case is used for the originating condition: udah. Given ud on he left, stha- is replaced by a sound of the dental class, etc.

Here are two gratuitous comments from my side. One is, the nebulous nature of the distinction between the two types of clauses, ‘do Y in case of X obtaining’ using the locative case, and ‘from the influence of X do Y’ using the originator in the ablative. Both pretty much seem to imply ‘if X, Y follows’.   The distinction seems to be mainly that in the first formula, the X is to be verified to the right, after the element operated upon; in the second, the originator is already on the left of the element acted upon. One wonders whether there is not a simpler way of specifying these conditions.

The second comment is that the actual case suffix form (the sUP-antam) of ablative and genitive are often the same, if not also the locative. So in some cases it must be a close call, and the  choice is made probably on some prior external knowledge of the patterns in the language!

Before we leave these two metarules, let’s just take a glimpse of how the Mahābhāşya treats them (Shastri, III:218 to 231). The close parallelism between the two rules is shown by treating them together, quoting them together at the opening.

Patanjali (as per the commentary by Shastri) deals with three aspects. The first is kim udāharaņam, what is the example(s). These are given as the rule iko yaņ aci for tasminn…, leading to the derivation of forms (like) dadhyatra and madhvatra (replacement of I, u by y, v before a vowel aC). For tasmād…, the examples are the derivation of dvīpam, antarīpam for rule 6.3.97 dvyantarupasargebhyo’pa īT, whereby in dvi+ap ‘two waters’, the final sound in the preceding dvi conditions the initial sound in the subsequent ap giving dvi+ip, dvīp (Sharma, II:68). There follows a discussion on the import and effect of the word iti (which I have rendered in my home-spun way as ‘so saying’), when treated as a technical term in the grammar. The commentator says that the word iti “changes the meaning of the word”: tasminn iti means the locative case (rather than ‘inside something’), tasmād iti means ‘the ablative’ (rather than ‘out of something’). Then follows an extended quibble about which is the general class, which is the specific case (example): we can know this “from the desire of the speaker”.

The second issue dealt with is the use of the word nirdişţe in the sutra. Here (as I understand the sentence) the operation takes place on the word (śabda) in locative (saptamī) case, and not on the meaning (artha) denoted by that word, which may the case in certain other rules: in 4.2.81 janapade lup, or  5.3.55 atiśāyane tambişţhnāu, the words in locative case “denote ar tha and not  śabda” (Shastri III:221).



The third issue taken up is kimartham punaridam ucyate ‘what for are these sūtras read?” (Shastri III:222). Since the locative or ablative case ending can apply equally to right-condition or left- condition  (pūrvatva and uttaratva), as I have also hinted above, statement of the two sutras “is for niyama, as in dadhyudakam and pacatyodanam” (I would interpret niyama as rule, constraint). The use of locative or ablative as the case may be will then serve to decide “whether, when both are mentioned in a sutra, the kārya happens to that which precedes or to that which follows”; in case of vipratişedha conflict, the later rule generally prevails (Shastri III:223). There follow a number of applications of these principles in elucidation of various rules.

Saturday, December 5, 2015

30 Definitions of final elements in words

The next couple of sutras assign names to certain elements in words.

1.1.64 aco’ ntyādi ti
Acah (6/1) (of the aC range of letters, i.e. vowels) antyādi (1/1) (ādi, beginning with, antya, the last) TI (1/1) (termed TI)
 Vŗtti, paraphrase:
Acām (of the aC, i.e. vowels) sannivişţānām (? Of the entered) yo (yah) antyo (antyah) (which is the final, last) aC tadādi (that beginning with) śabdarūpam (word form) Ți samjñam (element called Ți) bhavati (is).
“That part of an item which begins with its last vowel (aC) is termed  Ți” (Sharma).
“The final portion of a word, beginning with the last among the vowels in the word, is called Ți” (Vasu).

This is therefore a technical definition, rather than a concept: it is a shorthand way of referring to the last segment of any word that starting from the last vowel (aC). The term Ți is an artificial creation, but is indicative of the last vowel; the Ț is an indicator, while the i can be seen as standing in for all vowels aC (one supposes it could also have been called by some other code like Ța or Ģu, but perhaps the grammarians chose Ți as it mimics the common verb ending –ti). The term Ți is used in other rules which prescribe modifications in the last vowel-segment, e.g. change of –ti or –i in a transitive, active (parasmaipada) verb form to –te or –e in the intransitive or reflexive (ātmanepada form,  bhavati versus vartate (is, exists): 3.4.79 Țit ātmanepadānām Ţere.

Incidentally, it is to be noted that even a single-letter word can have a final vowel-segment; this is an application of
1.1.21 ādi-antyavad (-vat) ekasminn (‘in a single(eka)-element, the element may be like (vat) a head (ādi) or a final (antya’).

If the previous sutra gives a technical name to the last vowel-initial segment, the next sutra defines another segment, this time the letter or element just before the final letter:

1.1.65 alo’ntyāt pūrva upadhā
Alah (5/1) antyāt (5/1) pūrva (1/1) upadhā (1/1)

As can be seen from the word parsing above, the first two are in the fifth case (ablative, ‘from’). The first noun aL refers to all the letters in the alphabet, or rather, since it is in singular number, any letter; the second word antyāt (‘last’) is also in ythe ablative, and can be taken as a qualifier, giving the sense of ‘from the last letter’.
Vŗtti (paraphrase):
Dhātvādau varņa-samudāye (in the group of letters, sounds) antyād (antyāt, 5/1) (from the end) alah (5/1) (from the letter, sound, aL) pūrvo (pūrvah) (prior, before) yo (yah) varņah (which letter, sound) so (sah) (that) alopadhā- (aLa upadhā-) (letter, aL) upadhā- samjño (samjñah) (upadhā – term) bhavati (is, constitutes).

“The sound (aL) which precedes the final sound of an item is called upadhā ‘penultimate sound’“ (Sharma).
“The letter immediately preceding the last letter of a word is called the penultimate” (Vasu).


Once again, the term upadhā is a coined name, but a different type from the Ți of the previous sutra in that it is not a marker or labelled term; upadhā is a noun, and may possibly stand for some meaning. The particle upa- denotes a sub-class of its type, dhā may be linked to the verbal root which means ‘to bear, hold’, so that there is a sense of something sub-ordinate, hence pen-ultimate, in contrast to the previous sutra which talked of the ultimate or last, antya. The need to define the penultimate sound will be met with in various other rules (of substitution or elision), such as 7.2.116 ata  upadhāyāh, which directs the replacement of short by long a in pac+aka (Sharma, II:67).