Re: Kacc 271

Jim,

Thanks very much for the elaboration.  You are right that questions are easily recognized
if they contain an interrogative word, but not all questions do.  In particular those like 'is
that you?'  One can imagine understanding ta.m yathaa as 'namely?'  That would give the
text a catechitical flavor.  But it is mere speculation, since I really don't know how the
grammar is used to teach Pali in Myanmar.

George

--- In palistudy@yahoogroups.com, "Jim Anderson" <jimanderson_on@...> wrote:
>
> Dear George,
>
> I was attempting to produce a text using only the single or double da.n.da
> (and line spacing) to separate portions of the text. In dealing with the
> question marks, I was uncertain as to whether I should use a single or a
> double da.n.da. In my experience, I don't think the text loses in its
> intelligibility with the exclusive use of a danda system of marking off
> portions of a Pali text compared to the use of Roman punctuation or a
> mixture of the two systems. Questions are easily recognized by the
> interrogative words they contain. However, in the case of || ta.m yathaa ||,
> I don't see it as a question so I will need to do a bit of research to find
> out why it is considered a question by editors. I thought the phrase meant
> "as follows, namely, i.e., e.g.".  I also wonder if the two words should be
> separate and not compounded as in "ta.myathaa".
>
> Best wishes,
> Jim
>
> > It is not entirely clear to me what Jim is trying to do in his
> transcription of Kacc 271
> > from the Burmese 1982 edition.  And in particular why he is concerned
> about how to treat
> > the question marks there.  It is true that there is no equivalent to a
> question mark in most
> > pre-modern Pali texts.  That makes it a little odd to ask if it is
> 'correct' to use double
> > da.n.das in place of question marks.  Since a double da.n.da is not
> equivalent to a question
> > mark, it will lose information to replace them.
>
>
> ---
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