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)

The Samyutta Nikaya, the third division of the Sutta Pitaka, contains a couple of thousand, mainly short suttas, grouped by topic into five sections (vaggas). In this, the Pheṇapiṇḍūpama sutta, the Buddha invokes a series of vivid similes to illustrate the core-less-ness of the five aggregates. As Bhikkhu Bodhi points out: The sutta is one of the most radical discourses on the empty nature of conditioned phenomena; its imagery (especially the similes of the mirage and the magic illusion) has been taken up by later Buddhist thinkers, most persistently by the Madhyamikas... In the context of early Buddhist thought these similes have to be handled with care. They are not intended to suggest an illusionist view of the world but to show that our conceptions of the world, and of our own existence, are largely distorted by the process of cognition... Instead of being seen as transient and selfless, they appear as substantial and as a self You can find more of...

The Aṅguttara Nikāya, the fourth division of the Sutta Piṭaka, consists of several thousand suttas arranged in eleven books (nipatas). The first nipata — the Book of the Ones — contains suttas concerning a single topic. I have chosen the Aṅguttara Nikāya for my first attempt at translation as it's grammar is fairly straightforward and shows the same sentence pattern repeatedly. I publish it here as an aid to other students attempting the same thing. You can find more of my sutta translation exercises here. I must stress that I myself am just a student of Pali and make mistakes. For the sake of example, the translations are very literal and of course could be phrased differently.

This post is a bit of an aside to my normal investigation of Pali language. It is a partial overview of the term grammar which will hopefully shed some light on the difference between grammatical subject and thematic agent. What is this Grammar thing anyway? Not that long ago, "grammar" meant the study of Latin, the language of choice for educated people. In fact, "grammar" came to referred to any kind of learning. This is reflected in the English term "Grammar School" and as such the word grammar can have many meanings and uses. More specifically grammar is used to describe an attempt to understand the make up of a language - the ways that words can be put together in order to make sentences. Even in linguistics, there are  several types of grammar. What follows is a rough and ready summary of what can fall under the umbrella of grammar.

Participles are a kind of adjective formed from a verbal base. Like verbs, they divide into Present, Past and Future; and each group can again be divided into Active and Passive (voice). Being in the nature of adjectives most decline in the three genders - agreeing with their nouns (subjects), in number, gender and case. . So in Pali, we have seen there are roughly six kinds of participles: Past Passive Participles, Past Active Participles, Present Passive Participles, Present Active participles, Future Passive Participles / Gerundive & Indeclinable Participles, In this post we are going to look at how the declinable participles are formed (that's the first 5 above). There's going to be a lot of tables of endings and I apologise now for this. But it's an area where the tools (DPR & Pali Lookup) often fail. All the participles are composed of three components: verb root/stem + participle infix + nominal (case) ending. In the previous post we saw ...

One of the main problems facing the novice student learning Pali is understanding the many terms and technical phrases littering the grammar guides. The theory of Pali verbs and verbal tense systems as described in the mainly Victorian Pali grammar guides employs many grammatical terms (often borrowed from Latin) to describe systems that were detailed by early Pali grammarians who themselves were usually following Paninian Sanskrit grammars. No wonder then that the modern reader can often feel overwhelmed. So this is an attempt to explain what's going on.

The Pali verb tenses/moods discussed so far are termed primary derivations. What is known as a secondary   stem can be developed from a primary stem by the addition of a new 'secondary infix or by the replacement of an existing suffix. √kar Primary base       prefix Pres. stem modal infix Personal Ending     - karo eyya si   present, opt 2nd per, sgl => kareyyāsi       Secondary base       prefix Pres. stem sec infix modal infix Personal Ending     - karo iya eyya si   present, pass opt 2nd per, sgl => kariyeyyāsi ...

The term aorist  derives from the grammar of ancient Greek. In Pali, it can be regarded as a simple past tense. Note however, the use of the aorist tense in Pali covers both the simple past, the present perfect and occasionally also the imperfect aspect . For example, agami can mean:  he/she went" (simple past), "he/she has gone" (present perfect), and occasionally (imperfect) "he/she was going. It should also be noted that the past participle is often used for the past tense. The aorist verb is often used with the prohibitive negation mā: mā agamāsi =  do not go. mā atthāsi, = do not stand. mā bhuñji, = do not eat. Checkout this video tutorial on Tense and aspect in Pali. Tense vs Aspect & Participles in Pali Following on from the previous tutorial on tenses of the English Language, this tutorial looks at Tense & Aspect in the Pali language. You will see the difference between inflection and auxiliary verb... Formation o...

Tense and Moody? Must be a Verb... Pāḷi has three moods  in the present tense, which are used to express the speaker’s attitude toward the action. Indicative : used to express statements, proclamations, opinions. Optative : used to express the hypothetical, and also wishes or hopes Imperative : used to express commands and invitations The conditional too is often classified as a mood rather than a tense, though it is most often placed with the future tense. With this exception, all of the above moods exist only in the present tense. Each of the other tenses has only one mood. We saw the indicative mood in the last post.

The inflection of verbs is known as “ conjugation ”. It consists of changes in form to show differences in person, number, tense, mood, and voice. In this post we will start our look at the present tense in Pali. By now you may have realised that the available tools (DPR & Pali Lookup) are good but not infallible when it comes to detecting the inflections of Pali verbs. Nouns tend to be straightforward, there are many groups but the ending are fairly regular. However, verbs and their derivatives can be very irregular and multitudinous and not all the variations are caught by the automated parser - nor the dictionary. This then can cause the amateur translator hours of frustration in their attempts to search for that one illusive word not in the dictionary.