Dear Rett--
I find this to be exemplary work, and thank you for taking on this new task of no small proportion and for sharing it with us. The presentation is clear and your comments on vocabulary, etc. are most welcome, to me at any rate. I will try to keep up!
Best wishes,
Rene
----- Original Message -----
From: rett
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 6:33 AM
Subject: [Pali] Exploring Traditional Pali Grammar
Dear List members,
Below is the first sutta (rule), together with its vutti
(explanation), in the Kaccaayana grammar of the Pali language. I've
tried to translate it and provide enough explanation so that anyone
with rudimentary Pali can understand it. As always I'm grateful if
anyone notices mistakes and points them out. I'll continue with a few
of the following rules and if it turns out to be of interest, I'll
return to it from time to time. There are 675 rules in total in Kc...
one down, 674 to go :-)
This is the start of the first chapter of Kc, which deals with the
sound system and sandhi rules of Pali. The edition I am using is
Senart's, from 1871. If you can't see this character properly: ñ ,
it is the palatalized nasal, like in tañ ca, (or J in HK system).
Text:
attho akkharasaññaato /1/
sabbavacanaana.m attho akkhareh' eva saññaayate / akkharavipattiya.m
hi atthassa dunnayataa hoti / tasmaa akkharakosalla.m bahuupakaara.m
suttantesu //
Translation:
1) Meaning is made intelligible through phonemes
The meaning of all statements is made intelligible only through the
phonemes. For when there is a mistake in the phonemes, the meaning is
hard to derive. Hence proficiency in phonemes is of great assistance
in the suttantas.
Notes:
I chose 'phonemes' here for akkharaa though it might have been
possible to translate as 'letters' or 'sounds' or even
'imperishables'. However since this rule applies equally well to
written as spoken statements I believe phoneme is a defensible
choice. A phoneme is a morphological irreducible, the smallest
sense-distinguishing unit. Unlike English, Pali uses a phonemic
script, so letters and sounds correspond on a one-to-one basis to
each other.
akkharavipatti: I'm not sure if this means arranging the letters in
the wrong order, or failing to write or enunciate them legibly or
intelligibly, or both.
atthassa dunnayataa hoti: literally "of the meaning (atthassa) there
is (hoti) difficult-to-derive-ness (dunnayataa) ." This usage of
genitive plus abstract suffix (-taa) is a common idiom which can be
translated: the meaning is hard to derive.
The final sentence of the vutti justifies the study of grammatical
details with their importance for understanding the 'attho' or
meaning not only of any statement, but also of the canonical texts
which record the teachings of the Buddha. Hence this work is
presented as more than just an exercise in linguistics.
Words:
akkhara: phoneme, letter (of the alphabet), sound (basic building
block of speech)
akkhareh' = akkharehi (instrumental plural)
attho: meaning, sense
kosalla: skill, ability, proficiency
dunnayataa: dur + naya + taa, difficult + derivation + -ness (taa is
a suffix forming an abstract noun).
bahuupakaara: bahu + upakaara, much + assistance
vacana: statement
vipatti: failure, mistake, wrongness
saññaayate: to be known, perceived. passive with medium ending < sa.mjaanaati
saññaata: known, perceived, recognized. pp < sa.mjaanaati
suttanta: sutra, canonical text
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[Homepage] http://www.tipitaka.net
[Send Message] pali@yahoogroups.com
Paaliga.na - a community for Pali students
Yahoo! Groups members can set their delivery options to daily digest or web only.
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pali/
b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Pali-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]