Venerable Bhante Pandita,
Thank you very much for your corrections and remarks.
I shall all the time repeat parts of the Relational Grammar for the sake of
my fellow Pali listers, so that they are not put off by the abreviations.
This is a kind of reviewing useful for everybody, because the subject is
difficult.
I shall indicate what I find hard to understand.
(I shall now go in to the first part of my attempt of examples, I have to
delay the second part because of other urgent work)
op 17-02-2005 16:29 schreef Ven. Pandita op ashinpan@...:>

>> Nina: Looking up IAD:
>> <Identical Adjective relation1 (IAD)
>> Here a noun in adjectival use is related to a noun it modifies. ...
>> Nandaa naama saro = (the) lake Nandaa by name---
>> Nandaa ---> saro (IAD)>>
>> 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.

Nina: I find the above explanation hard to understand.

N: repeating NIO:
<Nominal Identity Relation
Here, both relata of the same content must be in nominative case1 but
may differ in gender and number. No particular tense or mood is expressed
here.
It can further be classified into two sub-relations, namely, Nominal
Identity
(Ordinary) and Nominal Identity (Denominative) relations.
A.1. Nominal Identity (Ordinary) Relation2 [NIO]
so aacariyo = He (is/was) (a/the) teacher.>

Nina: Question : can we say in short for NIO: this is that?


Bhante: 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.

N: It is still difficult for me to understand that "Nandaa" behaves like a
main verb, is it a verb?
Also the hanging in the air is difficult, can one not add the word: is?
Bhante quotes N. >> 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?

Bhante: I am not sure what you mean by the term "stress". Perhaps you mean
the

> stress in the pronunciation of a Pali sentence.

N: I mean emphasis as to meaning, not pronunciation.
....

>> 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?
>>

Bhante: 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.

N: I kept to the Nandaa naama saro example, but I shall go later to my
example of Visuddhimagga Tiika. I need to know more for the proper
interpreting.
Respectfully,
Nina.