Learn Pali Language

In this post we'll look at how both nouns and verbs can be formed into adjectives by use of suffixes. (And though a little off subject, how they can be formed for other uses...). It follows on from the post on  participles in Pali . What is an adjective? It's probably worth pointing out, in these posts I've been happily talking about word classes - nouns, verb, adjectives etc - without really defining what I mean. Linguists have categorised words as belonging to certain groups. And we are told that a noun is the name of a person, place, thing or idea; a verb is an action or state; while an adjective is a description word that tells us more about a noun. The question arises 'how do we know?' Some words appear to belong to two or more categories: cold : 'I have a cold' (noun) or 'it is a cold night' (adj) smile : 'the monk smiled' (verb) or 'I like your smile' (noun)

Declension is the addition to the stems of Nouns suffixes which indicate grammatical category , such as: case ,  number  &  gender . Formally, declension is the variation in the endings of nouns, pronouns, & adjectives, by which grammatical case, number, and gender are identified. This subject is dealt with in many grammar guides and summary tables, so I'll be brief. Noun Stems The stem of a noun is the base form before any suffix has been added and are usually the forms listed in dictionaries. Noun stems in Pāli are regularly grouped into two divisions, those that end in: Vowels, comprising all the stems that end: -a, -ā, -i, -ī, -u, -ū, (o) Consonants, which include stems ending: -ar, -ī/in, -an, -at/ant, -as & -us

In the last couple of posts I’ve been looking at verb participles . They are a verb form that although called past & present actually have little to do with tense/time and are mainly associated with verb aspect  – the extent to which an action is completed. When they are not playing in the role of main ( finite ) verb of a sentence they are called non-finite (or infinite) verbs as they aren't 'limited' by tense. In other words, a non-finite verb is any verb that is not the main tense marked verb of the sentence. As such they tend to act or function as verbal adjectives  and are thus often called 'Verbals'. Verbal adjectives act like verbs - in that they form a verb phrase, possibly taking objects and other dependents and modifiers of verbs - however that verb phrase then plays the role of an attributive adjective  in the larger sentence. In Pali they can be divided into two groups: declinable  & non- or indeclinable .  Participles form ...