deriv LSK ETT STT aSTA ALPH OLDHOMEPAGE NEWHOMEPAGE

@headless relative clauses

We saw in page relative clauses that we can say —

yo bhaSati kukkuraH यो भषति कुक्कुरः "the dog that is barking"

wher kukuraH कुकुरः is said to be the HEAD noun, and we saw in page oblique relative clauses that we can say —

yAn kSetre biDAlo mUSikAn khadati यान्क्षेत्रे बिडालो मूषिकान्खदति "the mice the cat eats in the farm"

where mUSikAn मूषिकान् is the HEAD noun.

If it is clear that we are talking about a dog or about mice, we may erase the head noun. Because of the intrincacies of English grammar, in Sanskrit we can just erase the head noun and leave the rest unchanged, but in the English transalation, when we take away "dog", we have to add something like "he", "the one", "this", "that", "whoever", see —

yo bhaSati kukkuraH यो भषति कुक्कुरः "the dog that is barking"
yo bhaSati यो भषति "the one that is barking" / "he who barks"

yAn kSetre biDAlo mUSikAn khadati यान्क्षेत्रे बिडालो मूषिकान्खदति "the mice the cat eats in the farm"
yAn kSetre biDAlaH khadati यान्क्षेत्रे बिडालः खदति "the ones the cat eats in the farm" / "they whom the cat eats in the farm"

yasmin kSetre mUSikAn biDAlaH khadati यस्मिन्क्षेत्रे मूषिकान्बिडालः खदति "the field the cat eats mice at"
yasmin mUSikAn biDAlaH khadati यस्मिन्मूषिकान्बिडालः खदति "the place the cat eats mice at"

Those expresions cannot be used alone, we must add a tad sentence

yo bhaSati sa rugNaH यो भषति स रुग्णः "the one who barks, he's ill"

yAn kSetre biDAlaH khadati यान्क्षेत्रे बिडालः खदति, te sthUlAh ते स्थूलाह् "the ones the cat eats in the farm, they are large ones"

yasyAm mUSikAn biDAlaH khadati यस्यां मूषिकान्बिडालः खदति, sA zAlibhUH सा शालिभूः "the place the cat eats mice at, it is a ricefield"

Of course when we translate those into English we must turn two sentences into one —

"the one who barks is ill"

"the ones the cat eats in the farm are large"

"the place the cat eats mice at is a ricefield"