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Agreement in Pali: Quick Reference Guide

Deciphering a clause We’ve covered a lot of Pali syntax already and this post is a recap and summary. I’ve put together a quick reference guide to Subject-Verb Agreement to aid students (and myself ) when attempting to translate. This helps to determine which word belongs where...

I’ll paraphrase Duroiselle & Bomhard here:
Clauses in Pali have at least two elements:
  • The “subject” — the person, place, or thing which the sentence is about – always in nominative case or implied.
  • The “predicate” — that which happens to the subject.
The predicate may contain:
  • A main finite verb, in which case it must agree with the subject in number and person.
  • A past passive participle used as a finite verb., in which case it must agree with the subject in gender and number. (Present participles never appear as finite verbs)
  • A noun with an implied hoti ‘to be’ understood after it, in the same case and usually number, but no concord of gender or number need take place!
  • An adjective with an implied hoti ‘to be’ understood after it, in which case it must agree with the subject in case, gender and number

Subject-Verb Agreement [Concord]

Agreement or concord is quite important when deciphering a clause and so I’ve made up a table for quick reference. I’ve tried to organise it by different word types and how they are being used and to what they then must agree either in: case, number, gender or person. Also with finite verbs I’ve detailed the case in which the agent and patient will occur.

So to interpret the first row of the table for you; a personal pronoun will agree in number and gender with it's referent. For an explanation of the terms referent, antecedent etc. you'll have to go back and read the previous posts...
Key
R = the referent   [ ] = if possible
Ant = the antecedent noun   Ag = agent
Q = the qualified noun   Pt = patient

Case Numb. Gender Pers.
Pronoun Personal pronoun = R = R = R
Demon pronoun = R = [R]
Relative pronoun = Ant = Ant
Co-relative pronoun = Ant = [Ant]
Attribute Adjective = Q = Q = Q
Demon pronoun (adj) = Q = Q = Q
Apposition = Q = [Q] = [Q]
Complement = Q = Q = [Q]
Non- Finite Participles
(Past, Pres & Fut)		 = Q = Q = Q
in loc, gen, acc  then maybe an absolute
Case Numb. Gender Pers. Agent Patient
Finite Past Participle (act) =Ag = Ag = Ag nom acc
Past Participle (pass) = Pt = Pt = Pt instr (gen) nom
verb (act) = Ag = Ag nom acc
verb (pass ind) = Pt = Pt instr (gen) nom

Method for Analyzing a Clause in Pali

What follows is a brief overview of whats been said on blog so far. I struggled with various ideas of how to best present this info – flowchart, decision tree etc – but settled on a plain list.
  • Begin by analysing the word endings noting case, number gender of nouns and tense, number & person of verbs. Pay particular attention to pronouns, participles and verbs.
  • Add in any articles (a, the) & any pronouns implied by the verb endings.
  • Identify the subject of each participle/verb through agreement/concord using the above table as a guide.
  • Is the verb active, in which case the agent will be in nominative case; transitive, in which case a direct object will be accusative? Or is the verb passive (or a past participle in nominative) in which case the patient will be in nominative and the agent in instrumental or genitive.
  • If there is no verb or the verb is a form of √hū / √bhū (hoti / bhavati) or √as (atthi) then it is an equational sentence and the complement will be in nominative.
  • Identify the modifiers: adjectives (qualifying nouns), adverbs (modifying verbs, adjectives or other adverbs). A noun in neuter accusative singular maybe acting as an adverb.
  • If there are multiple nouns in nominative are they adjective, appositional or linking complement?
  • If there are multiple nouns in accusative are they adjective, appositional or double accusative objects?
  • Are adjectives simple/positive, comparative (with the thing compare to taking instrumental or ablative case) or superlative (where the compared noun will be in genitive or locative plural).
  • Personal & demonstrative pronouns may function either as substantives (representing people or things) or as adjectives qualifying a substantive noun. The pronouns 'so', 'sā', 'taṁ' etc. can function either as 3rd person personal pronouns, as a demonstratives, or as definite articles.
  • Prepositional phrases (nouns all in the same oblique case) also function like adjectives (qualifying nouns), or adverbs (modifying verbs, adjectives or other adverbs). Oblique is the term used to mean any case that is not subjective or objective - not nominative, vocative or accusative. In other words, the prepositional cases of Pali.
  • Participles may also function as adjective, adverbs or even as nouns.
  • A past or present participle in locative, or present participle in genitive or accusative, if accompanied by other nouns or pronouns in the same case could be acting as an absolute clause. In which case this could imply a temporal or causative relation – when, due to or despite etc.
  • Are conjunctions joining words, phrases or independent clauses?
  • Participles, adverbs, absolutives and infinitives may function as subordinating conjunctions joining subordinate adverbial clauses to independent main clauses. Relative adverbs or pronouns marking the start of a relative clause which is usually followed by a co-relative personal or demonstrative pronoun marking the main clause.
There's probably many more that could be added but I use this as a sort of check list when translating...

Though I haven't employed them on this blog, a very useful technique is to diagram out Pali sentences. It can help with deciding what belongs where in a sentence as in the graphic at the start of this post.

There are two very good guides to creating these diagrams for English sentences: 

The next post we'll have a look at the formation of compound words in Pali.


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