[INDOLOGY] Query on negation

Jonathan Silk kauzeya at gmail.com
Tue May 21 05:57:39 UTC 2013


dear All,

I too would be very curious to read this paper, especially since I had the
idea that the difference between the two forms of negation was rather that
one is implicative and the other not: there is no elephant in the room does
not imply that the elephant is waiting in the corridor, while this elephant
is not white does imply that he is another color. (Probably these are not
perfect examples, so apologies in advance for the imprecision, but I think
the point remains clear--or rather, the question!)

jonathan


On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 12:54 AM, Brendan S. Gillon, Prof. <
brendan.gillon at mcgill.ca> wrote:

>  Thanks to Birgit for referencing my article. The upshot of the article
> is to argue that the distinction the two forms of negation identified by
> the grammatical tradition corresponds to what contemporary linguists would
> characterize as wide and narrow scope negation. The parsing of the compound
> as (a-dharma)-j~na gives the privative prefix narrow scope, while the
> parsing as a-(dharma-j~na) gives the privative prefix wide scope.
>
> This ambiguity is exhibited by such English compounds as `un-button-ed'.
> An `unbuttoned shirt' may be either a shirt which one has never buttoned or
> shirt which had been buttoned but someone has undone the buttoning.
>
> Such ambiguities are typically decided by context, as Madhav pointed out.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Brendan Gillon
>
>  Brendan S. Gillon                            email:
> brendan.gillon at mcgill.ca
> Department of Linguistics
> McGill University                             tel.:  001 514 398 4868
> 1085, Avenue Docteur-Penfield
> Montreal, Quebec                           fax.:  001 514 398 7088
> H3A 1A7  CANADA
>
> webpage: http://webpages.mcgill.ca/staff/group3/bgillo/web/
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* INDOLOGY [indology-bounces at list.indology.info] on behalf of
> Madhav Deshpande [mmdesh at umich.edu]
> *Sent:* Monday, May 20, 2013 5:02 PM
> *To:* Patrick Olivelle
> *Cc:* Indology
> *Subject:* Re: [INDOLOGY] Query on negation
>
>   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
>> >> _______________________________________________
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>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > --------
>> > 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
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> 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
>
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>



-- 
J. Silk
Instituut Kern / Universiteit Leiden
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Johan Huizinga Building, Room 1.37
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden
The Netherlands


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