Dear Florent, Ole and friends,

thanks. First, I just found this from Ven. Narada's book:

"... A~n~na, a~n~natara, itara, eka are sometimes declined in the
Dative and Genitive feminine singular as: a~n~nissaa, a~n~natarissaa,
itarissaa and ekissaa respectively; in the Locative feminine singular
as: a~n~nissa.m, a~n~natarissa.m, itarissa.m and ekissa.m
respectively.

Pubba, para, apara are sometimes declined in the Ablative masculine
singular, as: pubbaa, paraa, and aparaa respectively; in the locative
masculine singular, as: pubbe, pare, and apare respectively. ..."

http://www.tipitaka.net/pali/pali.php?course=lesson13

As for your question, Florent, it is indeed possible for a~n~na to be
unrelated to the succeeding word. This feature exists in many
Indoeuropean languages, I guess. ;-)

However, a~n~na remains an adjective, never is it a pronoun. The only
difference is the noun it is qualifying is obvious or implied in the
context, and so it is omitted, and only the adjective remains.

In English, such usage is more common in verse forms, rather than
prose, I guess. For example, when we say "the other", "the
beautiful", etc.

Using the quote above, "in the tank belonging to others" would
be "a~n~nissaa vaapiya.m". "aññesa.m vaapiya.m" is also correct
grammatically.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, flrobert2000 wrote:

But what if I wanted to express "in the tank belonging to others"?
Would it be aññesa.m vaapiya.m? In this case does aññesa.m just stay
a pronoun and not become an adjective?

> a~n~na is an adjective, so it follows the rule of adjectives, i.e.
it is declined in case, gender and number of the succeeding word.