Dear Alex and Nina

Alex wrote:

> I appreciated your upload of the PDF: Primary Derivatives. Perhaps you
> could comment on this document.

And Nina wrote:

> If you have time to give us any additional examples for derivational
> suffixes, I would be grateful. I am reading it and I find it very
> difficult since I am not well trained in grammar.

I would really like to give comments on my document but the problem is
that I don't know how to. I have learnt Pali myself, and taught others,
in a way very different from yours. When we studied Pali, it was grammar
first. We had to learn declensions and conjugations by heart, and
memorize the rules as regards different categories of grammar. There
were no graded exercises. When we had learnt the fundamental rules of
Pali grammar, we were introduced to Dhammapada or Jataka stories ---
easy yet still standard Pali. We had to analyse these materials using RG
and the teacher would explain them using the grammatical rules we had
learnt --- in fact, he expected us to have the whole Pali grammar at our
fingertips.

Given such a background, it is rather difficult for me to anticipate the
difficulties you are likely to encounter. What I can say for now is that
there are two prerequisites to learn Primary Derivatives of Pali.

1. All Primary Derivatives can be declined like ordinary nouns. It means
you must have already digested declensions of Pali nouns before studying
Primary Derivatives. The typical test to check whether you have really
mastered Pali nouns is to take an unseen noun and to try to find out its
possible stems and cases without using a dictionary. For instance:

Let's take the noun "aasiyaa" as the unknown. When we check it using the
declensions we have studied, its possible stems and cases are:

aasiya (mas.) nom.plu, voc.sing & plu., Abl.sing
aasiya (neu.) nom.plu, voc.sing & plu, Abl. sing
aasiyaa (fem.) nom. sing & plu, voc.plu, acc.plu
aasi (fem.) (ins.abl.dat.gen.loc). sing
aasii (fem.) (ins.abl.dat.gen.loc). sing

2. Primary Derivatives are derived from (roots / verbal stems +
suffixes). Verbal stems used here are not different from those used for
conjugated forms.It also means that you must have understood the
conjugated verbs before studying Primary Derivatives.

And Alex wrote:

> In regard to the PDF (and to the entire group regarding pali in
> general), are grammatical rules to be taken as generalizations or
> consistent rules? For example, one can find the declensions of nara
> and other words ending in -a in any basic grammar book. Can one assume
> that these rules apply to ALL (or just most) masculine nouns ending in -a?

Here Pali is not different from other languages. For a beginner, Pali
grammar is simply a set of do's and don'ts. After the beginner stage,
and after much experience in reading Pali, you would come to discover
exceptions to the general rules. Some such deviations may be stated by
classic grammars, while some may be your own discoveries. If all
circumstances are ripe enough, and also if you have talent, you may be
even able to define a new framework of describing Pali language. This
was the same with Paa.nini, the famous Sanskrit grammarian. He had
precisely described the Sanskrit language in a new light, and
unintentionally produced a new language, namely, Classical Sanskrit.

with metta

Ven. Pandita