Re: Dhammapada commentary

Hi Jim.

thanks for keeping on looking into this: it's very helpful to be able to
work together with you on it.  I only have time now for a few brief comments
and indications, which I hope might also suggest directions or approaches to
your investigation.

-- As I was writing this, the message from Ma Vajira arrived, and while I've
read it, I can't yet incorporate the very interesting and important
indications she's made therein (thank you, Ma Vajira).  I'll have to come
back to those a little later.


On 18 September 2010 10:45, Jim Anderson <jimanderson_on@...> wrote:

>
>
> 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.
>

What about if we had (using attena as instr. form but could also use
attanaa):

      1. pa.n.ditena attena ganthaa pa.thitabbaa

      2. pa.n.ditena attena ganthe pa.thitabba.m

arguing that the second might be grammatically possible according to the
analysis already suggested hypothetically for:

      bhikkhunaa attanaava attaana.m eva.m paccavekkhitabba.m


> 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).
>

Unfortunately, I don't have Warder or Perniola on hand here.  Oberlies and
Geiger can't help on this, nor Edgerton, nor Coulson or Whitney.  Duroiselle
has a very skimpy section on the syntax of the FPP §622, but he does not
touch upon the kind of impersonal construction we're inquiring into.  He
does mention (as does Coulson with reference to Sanskrit, bhavitavya.m, in
Ch. 12) the impersonal use of bhavitabba.m with the instrumental of the
logical subject: Coulson nicely describes this as 'marking an inference'.

But I'd like to make a research suggestion.  On the hypothesis that ancient
Greek grammar and syntax demonstrate many striking parallelisms with
Sanskrit and Pali, and that there may also be a very close parallelism
between verbal adjectives (= present passive participles) in Greek and in
Pali (= gerundives/future passive participles), I would want to check the
following (cf. Smyth, §§2149-2152):

      Intransitive verbs can only take the impersonal construction.
      But this does not mean that _only_ intrasitive verbs can take the
impersonal construction.

      Transitive verbs can take _both_ the personal and the impersonal
construction.
      When transitive verbs take the personal construction, the subject is
emphasised.
      When transitive verbs take the impersonal consctruction, the verbal
adjective (i.e., its verbal meaning or function) itself is emphasised.

      Only transitive verbs in the impersonal construction can take an acc.
object.

Most of this agrees with what you have found in the traditional grammars,
except the distribution of possibilities for transitive/intransitive verbs.
It would be interesting to look into this carefully.  "IF" the example
"bhikkhunaa attanaava attaana.m eva.m paccavekkhitabba.m" is an impersonal
construction (with an acc. as the "object" of the verbal meaning of the
FPP), then a transitive verb can be used in an impersonal construction.  My
hunch is that the rules in Pali as to the use of transitive/intransitive
verbs with the FPP could well turn out to be exactly the same as the Greek
verbal adjectives.


> Perniola does
> give an example of the subject in the accusative case
>

Could you please provide details of this example to me, Jim?


> 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.
>

I wonder if grammatical science could be compared at all to medical
science??  There are some things I'd much prefer to treat with traditional
natural medicines, but other things I'd prefer to treat with 'modern
Western' medical methods; and sometimes probably with a bit of both for
maximum effect.

Many thanks for your help, Jim.  Must go, now.
Metta,
Khristos


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