compound analysis in e-texts

[thompson at jlc.net]

Gail Coelho has put her finger on the point precisely, by reminding us of
the elegant arrangement of the devanagari characters according to a
remarkable phonological analysis [into kulas, according to points and
manner of articulation, etc.], testifying to the dazzling linguistic
sophistication of the grammarians [and so early too!].  The other point
that I was groping for was that devanagari also places a different emphasis
on the role of the isolated word [pada].  Whereas early Greek and Latin
grammars were essentially word-based, Skt. grammar never was [except,
perhaps, in the case of the padapATha].  Perhaps the fact that, for
BhartRhari, the basic linguistic unit was the sentence [vAkya] rather than
the word, is also reflected in the devanagari script.
George Thompson