Dear Dr. Pind

Many thanks for your explanation.
So, could we say it is wrong for PED p.733 to take hetu in this construction to be in accusative case? And the commentatary, for example, Ps I 149, is right to construe 'kissa hetu' with ki.m kaara.naa, which seems to suggest hetu here is syntactically ablative?

best regards,

Tzung-Kuen
Dear Tzung-Kuen,

kissa is genitive of the stem ki(.m) syntactically dependent on hetu. In
Buddhist Sanskrit literature we find heto.h ablative singular in similar
constructions. This would indicate that hetu syntactically is ablative in
the sense "on account of kissa "what" i.e. "for what reason" "why." Speakers
evidently preferred this solution instead of the morphological constraints
on the ablative inflection of u-stems that would require the ending -usmaa
or -umhaa.

Best regards,

Ole Pind



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