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Noun Attributes: Adding a little quality

Usually in Pali, words referring to the same thing are in the same case & number. This is especially true of nominative & accusative cases. In this post we're going to look at common examples when two or more nouns occur together in Nominative or Accusative cases.

Pali Noun Attributes

Most commonly, several nouns occurring in the nominative (& sometimes in accusative) case are probably attributes to a similar substantive noun. (Note: substantive is a loose term meaning something of substance, an entity, which can stand by itself, in distinction to an adjective).

Noun attributes describe or qualify a noun. They add a characteristic or specify quality. For instance:
a big book
a blue book
a sad book

We've seen this already in our previous example (SN8.6):
sāriputto mahāpañño dhammaṃ deseti bhikkhunaṃ
Nom Nom Acc Pres, Act Dat/Gen
m m m   m
sgl sgl sgl sgl pl
      3rd pers  
sāriputta (the) very wise (the) doctrine (he) teaches (to) the monks
Sāriputta, the very wise, teaches the doctrine to the monks

In English, a noun attribute can be of several types: These are all different ways of describing or qualifying the noun Sāriputta. In Pali, any attribute of a noun is always in the same case gender & number as the noun to which it belongs.

Pali Adjectives

Adjectives in Pali usually precede the nouns they qualify. This is one way to distinguish them.
odātaṃ vatthaṃ  a white robe
kallāyo kaññāyo  clever girls
khuddā gajā   little elephants
dhanavā puriso  a rich person

In certain situation, there can be a gender conflict when an adjective is used to qualify several nouns each with different genders:
kallo dārako kaññā => the clever boy & girl
When genders conflict, the masculine takes precedence over the feminine, and the neuter over both.
More on adjectives in Pali in the next post.

Pali Attributes in Apposition

Unlike adjectives, attributes in Apposition in Pali, usually follow the noun they qualify. As in the nominative phrase ‘sāriputto mahāpañño’. We can guess from the word order that mahāpañño is not an adjective but an Appositional attribute.

Apposition is where the attribute semantically ‘runs alongside’ the subject noun while both referring to the same thing and is often expressed in English by parenthesis. For instance:
John, our butcher,...
My friend, the monk,…
Ānanda, the Buddha's attendant,...

So ‘sāriputto mahāpañño’ can be rendered ‘Sāriputta, the very wise,..’
Another example of apposition in Accusative:

buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi
Acc Acc Pres, Act.
m n  
sgl sgl sgl
    1st pers.
(the) Buddha (a) protection (I) go
To the Buddha, a protection, I go
Here we can discern that the verb gaccha + āmi is 1st pers. sgl. and so we can insert an 'I'. Next we can attempt to identify the subject. 'saraṇaṃ' is either nominative or accusative. It could be taken as the nominative subject of the verb but, as the verb is in 1st person, it does not agree and would not make sense. So we can conclude that the subject is the implied 'I' and saraṇaṃ is in accusative. 'Buddhaṃ' being in accusative is the object of the verb and is also the destination of the motion ‘to go’. 'saraṇaṃ' being in accusative too then becomes an attribute of Buddhaṃ and so can be rendered:
I go to the buddha, a protection"
"I go to the buddha, (who is) a protection

Note: that if the author meant: ‘I go to the buddha for protection’, i.e. in order to receive protection, then saraṇa would be in the dative case. Some authors translate this ‘I go to the buddha as protection’, which is a compromise.

Complements, Linking verbs & Nominal Sentences

Similar to apposition are linking verbs or copulas. Linking verbs unlike normal verbs, equate a subject to a state of being, rather than describing an action.
the monk is sad
the book is large

Technically, they do not take objects, but complements. (also sometimes confusingly called predicates!)
And can be of two types:
He is a monk He = a monk (predicate nominal)
The elephants are small  The elephants = small (predicate adjective)

Linking verbs include copulas such as the English verb ‘to be’ and its derivatives ‘am, is, are, was, were’ etc. as well as verbs of perception such as look, sound, or taste.

Now often in Pāli these linking verbs are not explicitly written... This means, not all Pali sentences contain a verb!

In some situations, two adjacent nouns in the same case & number may be equated where a linking ‘is’ has been omitted. In this case, the first noun is usually the subject and the second the complement (an adjective, pronoun or noun). This can also happen with phrases within a larger sentence too.

Verb-less (Nominal) Sentences in Pali

If the linking verb is omitted these are sometimes termed nominal sentences as they are made up of entirely nouns. So, as example, consider the following sentence where there is no verb and every noun is in nominative case!

kammaṃ khettaṃ viññāṇaṃ bījaṃ taṇhā sneho.
nom nom nom nom nom nom
(an) action (a) field awareness (a) seed thirst liquid/milk
action (is) the field, awareness (is) the seed, thirst (is) the moisture

So here, pairs of nouns are equated or linked together with an implied 'is':
kammaṃ khettaṃ = action is a field etc...

Aside: Copulative verbs

Now while we are on the subject of copulative verbs, it’s important to note that the objects of linking/copula verbs in Pali do not take (as one would expect being objects) the accusative case but that of their subject, even when the verb is expressed.

An example:

bhikkhu kāme avīta+rāgo hoti
Nom Loc Nom Pres, Act
m m m  
sgl sgl sgl sgl
      3rd pers
A monk in wanting not free of infatuation is
A monk in wanting, is not free of infatuation
Here the subject is 'bhikkhu'. The verb hoti agrees in number & person and links the subject to a complement, also in nominative! (The locative identifies the place or situation where this equation takes place).

Note however, there are two verbs in Pali meaning ‘to be’:
  • √hū = √bhū => hoti / bhavati which is generally used in a copulative sense, 'is'
  • √as => atthi, is used in an existential sense to assert the existence of something or someone. 'There is'
So, the verbs from ‘atthi’ meaning ‘to be’ tend to assert the existence of something and, as far as I know, are never used in a copulative/equational sense (A is B).
An example:
atthi kho, bho, eso attā
pres, act indec   Nom Nom
      m m
sgl     sgl sgl
3rd pers        
There is indeed friend this self
Indeed friend, there is this self
Indeed friend, this self exists!
(A sentence beginning with the main verb is usually done for emphasis. This is hard to express in written English and some authors resort to italics).

So to summaries: Equational sentences can be tricky to parse. They can be distinguished by the main verb being a form of hoti / bhavati, or there being no verb at all in the sentence. In either situation the nouns being linked will be in nominative case.

Double Accusatives

The accusative case is used usually to denote a direct object of a transitive verb or motion towards... However there are special cases where a double accusative is sometimes found:
  • an attribute of another accusative noun. We have already seen an example of two nouns in accusative being in apposition). Here's another:
    • upāsakaṃ maṃ bhavaṃ gotamo dhāretu
    acc acc nom nom pres, Imp.
    m m m
    sgl sgl sgl sgl sgl
    pn-1st 3rd
    a lay devotee me Sir, Master Gotama (May he) bear
    May Master Gotama bear me (as) a devotee.
    More on Imperative verbs in a future post.
  • with verbs, meaning to ‘call, tell, ask’, which can take two objects:
    • what was said and
    • to whom it was said.
    kāḷiṃ dāsiṃ etad avoca
    acc acc acc Aor.
    f f n
    sgl sgl sgl sgl
    3rd
    Kāḷī servant girl this (S)he said.
    She told this (to) the servant girl Kāḷī.
    bhagavantaṃ imaṃ pañhaṃ pucchi
    acc acc acc Aor.
    m m m
    sgl sgl sgl sgl
    3rd
    Blessed One this a question (he) asked
    He asked the Blessed One this question.
    And slightly differently:
    taṃ ahaṃ brūmi brāhmaṇaṃ
    acc nom pres, act. acc
    m     m
    sgl sgl sgl sgl
      pn-1st 1st pers  
    He / this I say (a) Brahmin
    Him I call a Brahmin

  • and with causative verbs which may also take two accusatives -
    • one expressing the person or thing caused to act, and
    • the object of the action itself.
dārakaṃ bhagavantaṃ vandāpesi
acc acc Causative, past
m m  
sgl sgl sgl
    3rd Pers
(the) boy The blessed one (He) paid homage
He (had) the boy pay homage (to) the blessed one

Move on Causative verbs in a later post...

We'll continue with our subject of noun attributes with a closer look at Pali Language adjectives in the next post...

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