Dear Nina, Alan, Rett, Stephen and friends,

according to Warder's, the Pali grammarians did not include
adjectives are part of speech. Rather, adjectives are treated as
nouns that can be declined in any gender. In other words, in Pali,
adjectives are simply nouns without a fixed gender.

While we are on adjectives, I like to draw a parallel on how
adjectives can be derived from nouns. I shall illustrate with just
one example:

[English]
virtue (noun) + ous --> virtuous (adjective)

[Pali]
siila (noun) + vant --> siilavant (adjective)


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Nina van Gorkom wrote:

I have been thinking of the notion of adjective: Ven. Pandita said
that there is in Pali strictly speaking no adjective but nouns that
can be used in that way. When discussing his relational grammar he
pointed out that we should rather think in Pali and not compare too
much with the English grammar. I would like his opinion about
tappurisa and bahubihi, but he is busy and the internet connection is
difficult in Sri Lanka. I write to him off line.