Ven. Pa.n.dita,

Thank you very much for your response to my previous comments, and (again) for distributing your paper 'Two Unique Grammatical Tools Used in the Traditional Pali Studies of Burma'.

(i) I seem to have failed to make clear what I meant by saying:

>I think we should be surer that Aggava.msa in fact understood it (= tulyaadhikara.ne) in that >way (= having the same substratum).

Aggava.msa did not coin the term tulyaadhikara.ne, but took it from earlier grammarians of Pali (eg. Kaccaayana) or Sanskrit (eg. Kaatantra). Just from its appearance in 869-871, it isn't clear what Aggava.msa meant by it, regardless of what it originally meant or how later commentaries interpreted it. Perhaps we can draw some conclusions from looking at other places where he uses it. I am mindful here of E. G. Kahrs, 'Exploring the Saddaniiti' JPTS 17, pp. 1-212. Kahrs translates Aggava.msa's suttas dealing with kaarakas, and argues, convincingly in my opinion, that although Aggava.msa uses the same terms as in mainline Sanskrit grammar, he does not understand their original sense.

>For Paa.nini the introduction of kaarakas is a technical device serving a distinct theoretical >purpose in the derivation of correct linguistic forms. For Aggava.msa they serve no such >purpose. The kaaraka concept serves to give names to the various participants in actions as >expressed in a sentence and in this way it could work as a useful tool in sentence analysis. >This possibility, however, breaks down when Aggava.msa constantly blurs the distinction >between kaaraka and vibhakti. In fact he treats kaarakas as a subset of vibhaktis. In the >A.s.taadhyaayii the abstract syntactic level of kaarakas is introduced in the derivational >process to secure the correct distribution of vibhaktis, case endings and verbal endings. >Aggava.msa's lack of distinction here reflects his absolutely mechanical way of proceeding. >(p. 203)

Something like this could be true of tulyaadhikara.ne as well.

(ii) Let's go back to your examples illustrating the idea of 'substratum':

>In the sentence "puriso bhatta.m pacati", "puriso" refers to a particular man so that man is
>the substratum of "puriso". The verb "pacati" refers to the action of that man, so he is also >the substratum of "pacati". Then "puriso" and "pacati" have the same substratum.

and

>In classical Pali grammars, content is treated as the locus (location) of the language that
>refers to it. So "havin the same substratum" means that both "puriso" and "pacati" have the >same location, i.e., the same referent.

I agree that the noun "puriso" refers to a particular man, and that the verb "pacati" refers to a particular action of that man. I am willing to say that that man is the substratum of "puriso", and that that man's action is the substratum of "pacati". But I don't see in what sense that man (alone) is the substratum of "pacati". At best that man is a component of the substratum of "pacati"; how can we say that he is the substratum (by himself)? I much prefer 'referent' to 'substratum' here not only because it is a familiar term, but also because its meaning is clear. The referent of "puriso" is a person and the referent of "pacati" is an action, and there is no way they could be the same. Insofar as it might make sense to say that the substratum of "puriso" is the same as the substratum of "pacati", then 'substratum' and 'referent' must refer to different things.

Why do we not say about "puriso bhatta.m pacati" that "bhatta.m" refers to a particular amount of rice, and "pacati" refers to a particular action affecting that rice, and that therefore they have the same substratum or referent? We do say something like that about "purisena bhatta.m paciiyate", but I don't think the question can be answered by thinking about substrata or referents. Somehow we have to mention the difference between "puriso" (nominative) and "purisena" (instrumental) and "pacati" (active) and "paciiyate" (passive), not to mention "bhatta.m" (accusative) and "bhatta.m" (nominative). I really don't see how your footnote 3 in the paper (which discusses the distribution of nominative case) bears on this issue.

(iii) When I have had time to read your paper carefully, I expect to have many comments, but for the moment I will make just one or two very general remarks. You say about 'Relational Grammar':

>The fundamental concept of RG is to think of Pali syntax solely in terms of word-to-word >relations, and to entirely ignore the word order of Pali sentences. (p. 2)

I can't agree that treating syntax in terms of word-to-word relations is in any sense special to Pali or uniquely Burmese. On the contrary, it seems to me that syntax is nothing more than the word-to-word relations (within sentences). Offhand I cannot think of any approach to syntax of which this could not be said. 'Parsing' sentences in traditional European grammar, or 'tree diagrams' in linguistics are just examples of representing word-to-word relations. Of course that is not to say that different approaches to syntax do not treat or classify such relations differently, or that all grammars put equal emphasis on syntax.

The matter of word order does not affect this; that some languages such as Pali do not use word order to signal word-to-word relations (while others such as English do) is also nothing special to Pali or uniquely Burmese. There is a large literature concerning the syntactic role of word order in languages; one example is J. F. Staal (one of my teachers). His book 'Word Order in Sanskrit and
Universal Grammar' (1967) discusses Indian versus Western approaches:

>Almost all Indian theorists did, either implicitly or explicitly, regard word order as free. For >no independent word is a specific position in the sentence prescribed. Sentences which
>differ in the arrangement of their words only, are considered as equivalent and synonymous. >(p. 60)

>For the Indian grammarians, ... grammatical relations between words in the sentence, i. e. >kaaraka relationships and similar grammatical relationships, are expressed by inflexion and >the like. The order of words of the sentence, on the other hand, has no such significance; it >is entirely superficial. (pp. 60-1)

He is speaking not about Pali here, but Sanskrit.

Linguists generally regard approaches to syntax as applying not just to one particular language, but to any language. Otherwise we cannot meaningfully compare the syntax of one language with that of another, or understand why children are not programmed to learn the language of their parents, but learn any language they are exposed to while they grow up. From that point of view, Relational Grammar is mistaken in ignoring word order. I wonder if it has ever been used to analyze Burmese. If so, I think it would not ignore order. In spite of the above, I remain eager to learn more about the practice of syntactic analysis in Myanmar, not because of its uniqueness or isolation from other approaches, but for what it can tell us about Pali. Please continue your efforts to explain it to us.

* * * * *
George Bedell
230/5 Suan Lanna Village, Huay Kaew Road,
t. Chang Phuak, a. Muang
Chiang Mai 50300, Thailand
+66-53-414100
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