Dear Rett and friends,

thanks, it's a great read. I think you have brought up an important
point. So, I have flipped back to look at the other exercises in the
book. It seems like the author, Ven. Narada, has been using the form
of ... tassa=his own ... from Lesson 7.

I am kind of stuck here. This makes me wonder if it is the style of
Mahavamsa which dictates the choice of words used. Can it also be the
period in which Mahavamsa is written? While it was written over a
span of time, it is certainly written much later than the Tipitaka.

I hope other members can share their opinions and thoughts on this
interesting point.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, rett <rett@...> wrote:

I've been looking for examples in the literature to help resolve a
question which has come up earlier, namely whether the following sort
of sentence is correct: so tassa putta.m posi / he raised his (own)
son.

To me the use of tassa there makes it sound like the man indicated
by 'so' raised someone else's (tassa) son, not his own. If words
like 'his' and 'hers' are meant in the sense of 'his own' or 'her
own' it might be necessary to find another solution when translating
from English into Pali. This might be a hard and fast rule, or it
might only be a question of style. That's what I'd like to try and
find out.

Some alternatives would be saka (own) and attano (of himself). One
risk with these alternatives is that they may at times be meant to
_emphasize ownership_ i.e. mean 'his very own' 'her very own' rather
than just meaning 'his own' or 'her own'. Other alternatives involve
forming various compounds and participles.

I've found a number of relevant examples while skimming through the
Mahaava.msa, and no conclusive case where tassa or its equivalent has
the sense of 'his own'. (that is to say where tassa or tassaa refers
to the agent of the sentence) However I have not looked at every
tassa because there are hundreds of them in this text alone. And the
Mahaava.msa is just one text among many. So it's still worth keeping
an eye open for these forms.

If anyone finds this interesting, please post further examples from
your reading, especially if you find what might be counterexamples.
This could turn out to be wrong. Or if what I'm saying is unclear,
don't hesitate to ask me to clarify.