[INDOLOGY] Query on negation

[Madhav Deshpande]

If we are dealing with accented Sanskrit, then adharma+jña would give us
the udātta accent on the final syllable, while a+dharmajña would give us
the initial udātta.  But in Sanskrit without accents, we have to rely on
the context to make this distinction.  A good case may be adharmacārin that
I have seen in a few places, where it indeed means those who behave in
unrighteous ways.

Madhav


On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 3:46 PM, Patrick Olivelle <jpo at uts.cc.utexas.edu>wrote:

> Thank you very much, Birgit. This is very illuminating. I will check out
> this study.
>
> Patrick
>
>
>
> On May 20, 2013, at 2:25 PM, Birgit Kellner wrote:
>
> > Brendan Gillon once argued that the distinction between the two types of
> negation called prasajyapratiṣedha and paryudāsa is precisely the one that
> accounts for the different interpretations in Patrick Olivelle's example: a
> syntactic difference in terms of whether the negation has wide scope
> (prasajyap.) - "not knowing the dharma" - or narrow scope (paryudāsa) -
> "knowing something that is not dharma". But I can't think of indicators
> other than context that would allow to determine which interpretation is to
> be preferred.
> >
> > @ARTICLE{Gillon_Brendan_1987,
> >  author = {Gillon, Brendan S.},
> >  title = {Two Forms of Negation in Sanskrit: prasajyapratiṣedha and
> paryudāsapratiṣedha},
> >  journal = {Lokaprajñā },
> >  year = {1987},
> >  volume = {1/1},
> >  pages = {81-89},
> >  }
> >
> > With best regards,
> >
> > Birgit Kellner
> >
> > Am 20.05.2013 21:09, schrieb Patrick Olivelle:
> >> bhoḥ paṇḍitāḥ!!
> >>
> >> I have a question regarding a negative prefix "a" when used in a
> compound.
> >>
> >> For example, at Manu 8.59 we have the compound "adharmajñau", which in
> my translation I have rendered as "two men ignorant of the Law" taking the
> negative prefix to apply to the whole compound "dharmajñau". Medhātithi
> commenting on this verse (and the Smṛticandrikā [Mysore ed. III: 287] cites
> Medh approvingly) appears to think that these two men were proficient in
> adharma, that is, in subterfuge (chala). Then the compound would consist of
> adharma and jña -- adharma being here ways of subverting justice. In the
> Smṛticandrikā the example given is a man who, knowing that other kinds of
> evidence is valid only for a year (I am not sure how he gets this??), gets
> a document written with 10 thousand paṇas, when it should have been just 5
> thousand. This is the chala or adharma (ways of getting around legal
> procedures) in which the man if proficient.
> >>
> >> This sort of ambiguity must occur also in other similar compounds. Is
> there a way to detect that? Or is it just a matter of context and
> interpretation. Have the grammarians talked about this?
> >>
> >> Thanks.
> >>
> >>
> >> Patrick
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> INDOLOGY mailing list
> >> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> >> http://listinfo.indology.info
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > --------
> > Prof. Dr. Birgit Kellner
> > Chair in Buddhist Studies
> > Principal Investigator
> > Deputy Speaker Research Area D "Historicities and Heritage"
> > Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context - - the
> Dynamics of Transculturality"
> > University of Heidelberg
> > Karl Jaspers Centre
> > Vossstraße 2, Building 4400
> > D-69115 Heidelberg
> > P: +49(0)6221 - 54 4301
> > F: +49(0)6221 - 54 4012
> >
> http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/cluster-professorships/buddhist-studies.html
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > INDOLOGY mailing list
> > INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> > http://listinfo.indology.info
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> http://listinfo.indology.info
>



-- 
Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
202 South Thayer Street, Suite 6111
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608, USA


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20130520/d27ab5ca/attachment.htm>