Re: Relational Grammar, no 1

Dear Nina

Thanks a lot for the keen interest you have shown in RG. I have some
comments for your new post.

>Nina: Looking up IAD:
><Identical Adjective relation1 (IAD)
> Here a noun in adjectival use is related to a noun it modifies. The adjective must follow the case of the substantive but may differ in gender and number.
>mahataa purisena =...with (a/ the) great man
>mahataa ---> purisena (IAD)
>Nandaa naama saro = (the) lake Nandaa by name---
>Nandaa ---> saro (IAD)>
>
>Bhante: *** The content of the translated version of a Pali sentence must correspond to, and be justified by, the set of relationships therein. ***
>
>
>Nina: So here nandaa (naama) is used as an adjective.
>

IAD won't do for this sentence, Nina. Compare:

Nandaa ---> saro (IAD) saro ---> ? Trs: The lake
Nandaa by name . . . (?)
Saro ---> Nandaa (NIO) Trs: The
lake is Nandaa by name.

As shown above, if you use IAD, "saro" would be hanging in the air,
i.e., nothing to depend upon. And you can see from the translation that
it has become only a fragment, not a complete sentence.

On the other hand, when you use NIO, "Nandaa" behaves like a main verb,
i.e., it stands on its own without requiring any other word to be
related to. Actually, it is my own fault, for I have failed to
explicitly mention it in the topic of NIO in my RG.

> As you explained, Pali does not have an adjective like in English. This is very revealing. Still, I have a problem. One may wonder: what should be stressed. Can I see
>this when looking at the word order? At the relationship?
>

I am not sure what you mean by the term "stress". Perhaps you mean the
stress in the pronunciation of a Pali sentence. My answer would be that
probably no one can know it from the word order nor from relationships.
As far as I know, not only Pali but Classical Sanskrit also has no
explicit rules concerning the stresses in pronunciation. My teacher said
that only Vedic Sanskrit has such rules --- a compound may have
different senses for different syllables stressed.

> Is there a difference in saro Nandaa naama and Nandaa naama saro? Stress is very important.
>

No. If the inherent relations in a given sentence are the same, the
content would also be the same irrespective of the actual word order.
Word order is only a stylistic matter.

> Are the rules about the relations very strict? This is only one short sentence but I find the question very interesting. (will be continued)
>With respect,
>Nina.
>

I would rather say they are very important, not only for getting a
literal translation, but also for proper interpreting, of a given Pali
sentence.

with metta

Ven. Pandita


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