Re: Dhammapada commentary

Hi Khristos,

> Unfortunately, he doesn't address this particular matter as such.
Also, the > point is (if the hypothesis is sound) that in the kind of
'impersonal' > construction in question, the acc. is functioning as an
'object', not a > 'subject', of the verbal adjective.  I know that may
sound very strange to > you; but it's very very clear in the Greek (I
think it occurs also in Latin, > but that's not for me).  I'm not sure
if this may help, it's not really > possible to translate into English
the differences in sense and form between > the personal and
impersonal verbal adjectives, but:
>
>      The book (nom.) is needing-to-be-read (nom.)
>
>      It-is-needing-to-be-read (nom. nt. sg.), the book (acc.)
>
> Maybe you could try writing two parallel sentences in Pali, as an
exercise, > following the above case indications, and see what you
get?

I would translate both sentences the same: gantho pa.thitabbo.

Yesterday, I read what Warder and Perniola had to say about the future
participle passive and I find the distinction made between the
personal and impersonal construction is not all that clear. Today, I
had a look at what Kaccaayana and the Saddaniiti had to say and I
notice two very different cnncepts about the impersonal construction.
In the traditional grammar, we have to make a distinction between the
future participle passive and the future participle
impersonal/stative. In the latter case only an intransitive verbal
form can be used  The "it" stands for the activity (bhaava) of the
verb and there seems to be no direct object or agent whereas in the
passive construction, the verbal form is typically transitive with a
direct object as the subject in the nominative case and the agent in
the instrumental (the agent isn't always expressed). Perniola does
give an example of the subject in the accusative case and another
example with the subject being the goal of motion and not the direct
object in the case of an intransitive "gantabbo". I'm talking here
about the fpp being used as a sentence verb. The fpp can also be used
as an adjective or a noun. I think the future participle impersonal
must be rare because I can only give "bhavitabba.m" (it may be) as an
example.

Anyway, all this is from my little bit of reading on the topic from
both the traditional and Western perspective although I have to admit
a bias in favour of the traditional methods which go back more than
two millennia.

Best wishes,
Jim