Re: appatissa, disobedient

Hi Ole and group,

Over the years I've pencilled a number of notes and corrections into
my copy of the PED. This is the first such note I've had the pleasure
of adding to my copy of Cone's Dictionary of Pali.

The presentation is very clear but I'd just like to ask a beginner's
question about the reduction ava>o. Of course we've all seen this in
initial position (avalokesi > olokesi) but at the end of a word
mightn't the case terminations 'protect' the form somewhat?
patissavo, patissavena etc.

Assuming this transitional form in pali you wouldn't usually have
-ava as such in practice at the end there. The final short a is
usually replaced by the case termination. This might not be an issue
at all, since I'd expect av is itself enough to change to o, but I
just wondered about it. (for example might there have been some
declined prakrit form involved along the way, such as a nom sing
patissoe or patisso-o?)

best regards,

/Rett

>Hello all,
>
>I suggest that we leave the mysteries of compound formation for a while and
>address an interesting lexicographico-linguistic problem: the term appatisso
>(also spelled appa.tisso). There is no doubt about the denotation of the
>term. It is an adjective meaning "disobedient," and it usually occurs in a
>formula together with agaarava. The problem is the etymology of the term. It
>is impossible to find a match for it in Sanskrit except in pratishrava. Pali
>disallows the consonant clusters /pr/ and /shr/. Since /p/ and /sh/ stand
>higher in the hierarchy of sonoritites than /r/, /r/ is elided. It is
>reflected, however, in the geminations /pp/ and /ss/. On the other hand, one
>would expect the reading to be patissava, but this hypothetical form is only
>found in post canonical lit., although Dhammasangani records the abstract
>formation patissavataa. How is this to be explained? The problem is
>evidently the phonological representation of the group /ava/. In general
>labial /v/ entails lowering of the back vowel /a/ to /o/, and the whole
>group becomes /o/. patissava thus develops into patisso. Formally this form
>in indistinguishable from any noun or adjective ending in /a/ + the
>inflectional ending /s/ of the nominative singular, whose generalized sandhi
>form is /o/. patisso was therefore re-interpreted as an adjective ending in
>/a/ as can be observed from the m. pl. form appatissaa. Later generations of
>Buddhists had difficulties with the term and evidently did not understand
>the Pali form as can be observed in Buddhist Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid
>Sanskrit. Thus, in the end there is no mystery at all, the term is fully
>understandable with the background of the phonology of the canonical
>language.
>
>Ole Pind
>
>
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