Dear Yong Peng and all;

Here is a link to the publisher's page of the Steven Collins book:

http://www.silkwormbooks.com/each_titles/e_buddhism/pali.htm

(This book is very easy to buy in Bangkok.
For example, the new Silkworm Books branch
at the Siam Society at Asoke station or at the
Kinokuniya bookstores.)

Judging from studying many of the example sentences, Pali grammar also
seems to have a philosophical aspect to it, how the descriptions given
by language relate to the world described, a sort of metaphysics or
semantics. (I can provide examples from the sentences Collins quotes).
In Burma Pali works focused on grammar and Abhidhamma.

gdbedell: "...the Paali grammarians did not set out to write the
grammar of Paali on the basis of primary data (the canon); rather they
formulated rules based on those given in Sanskrit grammars and then
searched for relevant examples in the canon."

I wonder how commentary writers used formal Pali grammar rules in
interpreting ambiguous passages? Or how committees of monks editing
definitive editions of the Tipitaka or how translators used it when
faced with difficult points of grammar?

BTW has anyone ever seen "Kachchayano's Pali grammar with Chrestomathy
and Vocabulary" by Francis Mason, D.D., Toungoo, Burma, 1868? Does
this work actually reflect Kaccayana's Pali grammar?

With metta,
Jon Fernquest