Dear Mahinda and Nina,

yes, thank you, Mahinda, for your patience. I again have to say that Saddaniiti is a completely different genre from the suttas, and the uninitiated, like myself, will take a little while to get used to it.

After the last two bouts of your explanation, it is even much clearer, and such information will be very useful to our continuation of this study. I have not peep to see what is coming up next, but so far, we have been introducing 'dhaatu' as the verbal root, and the author has been explaining to his Pali readers and students why 'dhaatu', although we already know its meaning in English, is chosen as the word for this concept of a 'grammatical root'. Thank you.


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Nina van Gorkom wrote:

> He means that the word 'dhaatu' is proper for the verbal root because its own root is that which we find in the word 'vidahanti'; and he says the same word 'dhaatu' is appropriately used to indicate material elements like iron and copper which are used to produce more complex objects.

N: Now it is clearer, after you explained vidahanti: which has dha as root. I see that Sanskrit helps you.