Nina,

I am not sure that I understand what is bothering you. The only Paali in the excerpt below
is:

Tattha ti anti, si tha, mi ma, te ante, se vhe, e mhe icc etaa vattamaanaa-vibhattiyo
naama.

Translating more literally, tattha 'there'; ti anti, si tha, mi ma, te ante, se vhe, e mhe icc
(=iti) '(quotation marks around the) list of six endings'; etaa 'these (fem. pl)'; vattamaanaa-
vibhattiyo 'present endings (fem. pl.); naama 'name'

tattha, like tatra in (2) is a common conjunction in this style of Paali. Literally it means
'there'; if you wonder where? then the answer must be something like 'in the matter at
hand'. Naama is a noun, but in this construction it has a verbal sense and we have to
translate it 'are called' in English.

If something like this kind doesn't help, please describe more clearly what you would like.
One thing that is important to see is that this statement is not trying to define any terms
or explain anything. It is merely giving a name to a list of endings.

George

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Nina van Gorkom <vangorko@...> wrote:
>
> Dear George,
> Thank you very much.
> We could take these part by part, very little at a time, since it is
> somewhat tough.
> Op 28-dec-2008, om 11:55 heeft gdbedell het volgende geschreven:
>
> > The lists of endings which follow are found in all Paali
> > grammars beginning with Kaccaayana, with few variations. In the
> > Suttamaalaa, the same lists are given in suttas 896 to 903. The
> > classification of these 'conjugations' into tenses, aspects and moods
> > is a Western imposition.]
> >
> > (3) Tattha ti anti, si tha, mi ma, te ante, se vhe, e mhe icc etaa
> > vattamaanaa-vibhattiyo naama.
> > *These are called the present endings:
> > -ti -anti -te -ante
> > -si -tha -se -vhe
> > -mi -ma -e -mhe
> > [The term vattamaanaa means 'presently existing': an appropriate
> > choice for the present tense.]
> -------
> N: The first is clear, but the second and third I wonder?
> Nina.
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>