[INDOLOGY] asti as copula

[Madhav Deshpande]

Sometimes the non-verbal use of अस्ति is said to be an अव्यय, more
specifically a विभक्ति-प्रतिरूपक अव्यय.

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Sat, May 4, 2024 at 11:24 AM Uskokov, Aleksandar via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> On a related note, is there a reason why the secondary formations such as
> astitva etc. would not be of an action noun asti (like zakti, zruti, smRti,
> bhUti, etc.) rather than of the verb? Is that discussed anywhere?
>
> Best wishes,
> Aleksandar
>
> Aleksandar Uskokov
>
> Senior Lector and Associate Research Scholar
>
> South Asian Studies Council and Department of Religious Studies, Yale
> University
>
> 203-432-1972 | aleksandar.uskokov at yale.edu
>
> "The Philosophy of the Brahma-sutra: An Introduction"
>
>        https://www.amzn.com/1350150002/
>
>
> *Office Hours Sign-up:* https://calendly.com/aleksandar-uskokov
> ------------------------------
> *From:* INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of
> jason.cannon-silber--- via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>
> *Sent:* Saturday, May 4, 2024 1:45 PM
> *To:* indology at list.indology.info <indology at list.indology.info>
> *Subject:* [INDOLOGY] asti as copula
>
>
> Dear members of the Indology listserv,
>
> I have recently been wondering about the nature of the copula in Sanskrit
> grammar (both in theory and in practice), and specifically whether and how
> often the form *asti* is used as a copula in Classical Sanskrit. I am
> sorry if this subject has been raised before on this list, but from my
> search of the archives it seems it has not been addressed directly.
>
> Any user of Sanskrit will know that there need be no word meaning "to be"
> (i.e., no copula) in a sentence expressing that "X is Y" (i.e., a nominal
> sentence). But from the exchange between Profs. Deshpande and Bronkhorst in
> the pages of *Annals BORI*, I gather that at least some *vaiyākaraṇa*s
> understood there to be a "silent," copulative *asti* in such nominal
> sentences as *Devadattaḥ pācaka odanasya* or even *Rāmo gataḥ*. (Whether
> Pāṇini himself was likely to have had such an understanding was there the
> *vivādāspada*.)
>
> On the other hand, I have been told by someone whose knowledge of Sanskrit
> usage I hold in high esteem that authors of classical Sanskrit almost never
> use *asti* in this way, and that such usage might even be considered
> wrong. This same person has suggested to me that (part of) the reason for
> this may lie in the fact that technical terms derived from the form *asti*
> (please bear in mind that I am speaking here only of the form *asti*, not
> of forms of the root *as-* in other tenses, persons, or numbers), such as
> *āstika* or *astitva*, are invariably connected with *asti*'s existential
> (or perhaps "adessive") meaning. I have noted that Speijer seems aware of
> no such avoidance, and gives a couple examples of what he understands to be
> copulative *asti* from the story literature (*Sanskrit Syntax* §§2-3).
>
> I would therefore like to know if there is any literature discussing this
> avoidance (or perhaps even proscription) of using *asti* as copula. A
> pre-modern discussion would be especially interesting, but I would also
> appreciate further secondary resources, or even your own thoughts.
>
> With best wishes,
> Jason Cannon-Silber
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20240504/7ef6736b/attachment.htm>