Re: [INDOLOGY] Patañjali's syntax

[Adriano Aprigliano]

Dear colleagues,

Since we seem to have reached a safe explanation for the syntactical problem discussed, I write this one just for thanking you all for the suggestions.

best wishes
Adriano


Prof. Dr. Adriano Aprigliano
Área de Língua e Literatura Latina
 
Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas
Universidade de São Paulo
São Paulo, Brasil








Em 30/10/2013, às 20:16, Hock, Hans Henrich escreveu:

> Thanks for this, Tim. I deal with this issue in some detail in my contribution to the just-published proceedings volume of the Veda Section, 15th World Sanskrit Conference--copies available on request.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Hans
> 
> 
> On 30 Oct 2013, at 16:59, Lubin, Tim wrote:
> 
>> In re this message of Andrew's, I differ strongly on the middle bullet point below (scroll down).  I tracked this carefully a number of years ago, and though I don't have hard numbers, I would say that the inverse is the case at least 90%  of the time or more: vai marks the predicate in a nominal sentence, i.e., X vai Y = Y is X.
>> 
>> e.g., uṣā vā aśvasya medhyasya śiraḥ BĀU 1.1.1
>> The head of the sacrificial horse, clearly, is the dawn.  (Olivelle tr.; Hume got it backwards!)
>> 
>> That the horse and not the dawn is the topic becomes clear further on in the passage, where the syntax shifts:
>> 
>> yad vijṛmbhate tad vidyotate…
>> When it yawns, lightning flashes...
>> 
>> I don't have time to multiply examples, but if checked it will bear out.
>> 
>> In the case of the construction under discussion, it seems to me that the formula "etad- yad Y" is simply an idiomatic expansion of "Y" marked as topic. 
>> So Prof. Bhattacharya's rendering of mleccho ha vā eṣa yad apaśabdaḥ ("For a corrupt word is indeed a barbarian") gets things in the right order (as well as capturing the sense of the statement as a whole).
>> 
>> Tim 
>> 
>> 
>> Em 30/10/2013, às 16:53, Andrew Ollett escreveu:
>>> Dear Adriano,
>>> 
>>> I am by no means an expert, but I would agree with Dr. Hock about "invariable yat" (discussed by Gonda in Lingua 4:1ff.) for the following reasons:
>>> I take "ha" to be a causal particle (= yasmāt, hence yat != yasmāt);
>>> I take "vai" to mark the topic of the sentence (usually equivalent to the subject: in most nominal sentences, the subject comes AFTER the predicate, i.e., X Y should be translated as "Y is X," but X-vai Y should usually be translated as "X is Y");
>>> hence "for this mleccha (viz., 'mleccha' in the prohibition "na mlecchitavai") in fact means (yat) 'a bad word'"
>>> Andrew
>> 
>> Timothy Lubin
>> Professor of Religion
>> Washington and Lee University
>> Lexington, Virginia 24450
>> 
>> http://home.wlu.edu/~lubint
>> http://wlu.academia.edu/TimothyLubin
>> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=930949
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>> 
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> 



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