Vibhakti

(See Post # 20). The case endings of nouns are given various technical terms: for instance, the case ending for nominative plural is termed jas or Jas: the actual ending is –as, realised as –ah. The J- in Jas is a mere marker, an iT. Here are the seven case endings in three numbers and the corresponding technical terms for them.

	Case	singular	dual	plural
1st. Prathamā	Nominative (name by itself, subject)	sU	au	Jas
2nd. Dvitīyā	accusative (as an object)	am	auŢ	Śas
3rd. Tŗtīyā	Instrumental (by)	Ţā	bhyām	bhis
4th. Caturthī	dative (to)	Ŋe	bhyām	bhyas
5th. Pañcamī	ablative (from)	Ŋasi	bhyām	bhyas
6th. Şaşţhī	Genitive or possessive (of)	Ŋas	os	ām
7th. Saptamī	locative (in)	Ŋi	os	suP
sambodhana	vocative (hi!)

The ordinal names Prathamā etc. in Sanskrit stand for 1^st, etc. as indicated in the first column, and the name of the relationship in English is given in the second column, and the respective case endings in the subsequent columns for singular number, dual, and plural respectively. Some of the case endings have an in-built iT or marker, e.g. the J- in Jas, and so on, whereas others like au, am do not. This is a riddle to be answered when we come to the way rules are formulated to provide for all the existing variations in the respective endings. We can probably surmise, however, that what the absence of iT markers suggests is, that some cases are inherently less variable, and therefore do not need to be expressed or invoked in an abstract manner of naming, while those provided with an iT marker are probably inherently more variable. The correctness of this suggestion will be proved or disproved as we come to the specific case endings and their related rules.

Here’s another convention regarding these case endings: by combining the initial letter (sound) of an earlier case ending with the last letter of a subsequent case ending, we can make short hand notations for a range of case endings (just like we had pratyāhāra for letters, e.g. iK, aiC, etc., in fact these are pratyāhāra for case endings): sUP covers all the 21 vibhakti, taking the first sound in sU and the last sound in suP. Similarly, the first five endings are termed sUŢ, taking the initial sound in sU and the last sound in auŢ. These five forms – nominative (all three numbers) and accusative singular and dual – often have one type of base, and the other forms have a different base, for the same noun. This is an empirical observation, obviously, and not a rule contrived by the grammarian. The upshot is, however, that a special name is given to this group of the first five case forms, and this term is sarvanāmasthāna, as expressed in this sutra:

1.1.43 sud̨anapumsakasya (sarvanāmasthānam #42)