[INDOLOGY] Query on negation

Tue May 21 07:57:57 UTC 2013

I would like to point out that the EDSHP, Deccan College, Pune has a
policy of a. recording compounds and b. showing such meaning differences
in such compounds with a cut, an ic (immediate constituent) cut. I believe
they have covered 'adha...'. I do not have the Dictionary with me as I am
travelling but surely the word and the reference, Patrick quotes, may be
referred to there.

Malhar Kulkarni.

> 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<mailto: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<mailto: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<tel:%2B49%280%296221%20-%2054%204301>
>> F: +49(0)6221 - 54 4012<tel:%2B49%280%296221%20-%2054%204012>
>> http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/research/cluster-professorships/buddhist-studies.html
>>
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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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