Sanskrit

[Vidhyanath Rao]

Elliot Stern <emstern at NNI.COM> wrote:

> >Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote
> >>2) to.t.ti enn-Al ta.n.nIr-Ati ko.n.tu nirappa-pa.t-.t-atu
> >>[...]
> >>A. Water was filled in the tank.

> A'. Water filled in the tank.
>
> Further, while I would not go so far as to say that the passive
> construction translation in A could not occur, my feeling as a native
> Brooklyn, NY, USA speaker of American English is that it is somehow wrong;
> I would probably understand A as a mistake for A'.

What about the literal translation of 2)-like construction:
A''. The tank was filled with water by me.

This is also the typical construction in Sanskrit, according to
Macdonnel (Vedic Gr. for students) and Speyer. The ta.n.niiraati(?)
(should it be -.t.ti or ta.n.niiraikko.n.du or some such) seems to
be due to the desire to avoid two instrumentals in one sentence.

[Does double use of a single case in one sentence occur in Dravidian?
It seems to be rare to absent in Modern Tamil.]

Regards
-Nath