Thank you very much for the explanation, James.

You have provided the type of clear, concise, and full explanation of
basic Pali concepts that is so helpful to beginners like myself (and
probably others as well).

I hope that you continue to give more of them, via this list, in the future!

With metta,
Peter Bowen


2009/2/14 James Whelan <james.whelan5@...>:

> Hello Dipa,
>
> Hopefully I may be able to give a little help herre.
>
> Word order in Pali is to a large degree flexible. Usually, in fact almost
> always, the verb comes last in a sentence. Usually (but not always) the
> direct object (here 'food') comes immediately before the verb. Usually (but
> not always) other qualifying expressions (here 'to the beggars') come before
> the direct object. Usually (but not always) the subject of the sentence
> (here 'the servants') comes first. Take a sentence of similar construction
> such as 'the Buddha gives instruction to the monks'. The (so called) usual
> order would be 'the Buddha to-the monks instruction gives / buddho
> bhikkhuunam saasanam dadaati'.
>
> By changing the usual order we can change the emphasis slightly. If we want
> to enphasise that is to the monks and not to others that he is giving
> instruction, we can take 'monks/bhikkhuunam' out of its usual place and
> emphasise it - just a little - by placing it directly before the verb
> 'Buddho saasanam bhukkhuunam dadaati'. We can emphasise it even more by
> placing it in an even more unusual position, right at the beginning of the
> sentence: 'saasanam buddho bhikkhuunam dadaati'. This is what you would do
> if for example someone asks you, 'Is the Buddha giving clothes to the
> monks', and you want to answer ''No, it's instruction that he's giving, not
> clothes', you could take 'instruction / saasanam' out of its usual place
> directly before the verb, and draw attentnion to it by putting it in that
> slightly unusual position at the beginning: saasanam buddho bhikkhuunam
> dadaati.'
>
> In fact one of the emphatic particles would in practice be used - words like
> 'hi' or 'eva', which you place immediately after a word to show that it is
> that word that you are emphasising. You may not have come to these yet but
> don't worry - you will, they are very easy, and they are very useful.
>
> In the English sentences 'the dogs bites the man' and 'the man bites the
> dog' we know who is doing what to whom by the word order - and by the word
> order alone. In Pali the 'usual' word order for 'the dog bites the man' is
> 'su.noo naram khaadati'. But if we change the order of the words and say
> 'naram su.noo khaadati', that is grammatically equally correct, but just
> emphases that it is the man (and not anyone or anything else) that the dog
> is biting. And of course we change the meaning to 'the man bites the dog'
> not by altering the word order, but by altering the endings: 'naro su.nam
> khaadati'.
>
> Now, we can doubly emphasise the extreme unusualness of the occurrence of a
> man biting a dog by taking the unusual step of putting the object after the
> verb, right at the end of the sentence: 'naro khaadati su.nam'. This is, of
> course, a very unusual word order, but is quite justifiable here to
> emphasise the effect of 'Wow! - did you see that!? - man biting dog!'.
>
> So you see, the order is not rigid, and there is no 'rule' about any
> particular word having to come directly before the verb, and certainly no
> rule (as you seem to have thought there might be) about words denoting human
> beings having to come directly before the verb. If the 'official' answers to
> the exercises have a different word order from the answers you have done,
> don't worry, chances are you are just as right as the 'official' answer.
> (Provided, of course, you have got everything else right - especially the
> word endings!)
>
> You are still in the early stages but you will find that you quickly get a
> feel for the balance of the sentence, and the differences of emphasis
> depending on word order. And bear in mind that sometimes it just makes no
> difference at all - often it is just a matter pure style and speaker's
> preference.
>
> I hope this make some sense - and good luck!
>
> Metta,
> James Whelan
>