overview of flat and bentmmmmmmmmm ^ M- C- 1460

According to the grammar rules, there are flatty roots like car, that take flat kartari endings only --

carati "moves"

and bendy roots like plu, that take only bent --

plavate "jumps"

and flattybendy roots like yudh, that may take both with no change of meaning --

yudhyati "fights"

yudhyate "fights"

and there are a lot of grammar rules that explain which roots are flatty, which are bendy, and which are flattybendy.

Please be warned that lots of authors in the last three thousand years have either never heard of those rules, or unapologetically ignored them. So, don't panic when you find a plavati or a carate written somewhere. This happens quite a lot in the epics, often metri causa --

tiSThate hi suhRd yatra na bandhus tatra tiSThati "where there's a friend (in need) there's (often) no friend (nearby)"

Here the tiSThate is ungrammatical and has the exact same meaning as the tiSThati. But don't fix it, because doing so will screw up the verse.

rules that should be studied firstmmmmmmmmm ^ 1461

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If you buy any book that promises to teach you Esperanto, Ancient Greek, or Tagalog, chances are that's a tutorial: you are expected to learn the first lesson first, then you do the exercises, and then you'll know enough to go ahead to the second lesson. And so on.

The paNini grammar cannot be read like that, because it is in absolute disorder. Chapter one will mention things that won't be explained until chapter 32. Oh, and there are no exercises.

Why?

Because it has never been a book for people that want to learn Sanskrit. More than a book, it is a bunch of notes for teachers. Or a collection of lesson names. No one has ever learnt anything from reading a rule and then trying to figure out alone what it means. The basic assumption of the grammar maker is not that you will read the book from lesson one to lesson 32. Rather, the grammar maker assumes that your teacher will tell you about a rule when it is necessary for you to know about it, and then will explain its meaning.

So going into pAnini grammar without a teacher is a bit like going into a coal mine without a lamp. You WILL get lost.

Asume you know enough about Sanskrit to be able to explore a bit of the coal mine sometimes. What rules should be looked at first?

The sandhi rules are used all the time. You should first do some tutorial about sandhi, then after you are used to the most common instances, looking at the way pANini stated the rules might be interesting. Or not.

Next come the rules about adding sup affixes and feminine affixes to nounbases. These too are used all the time.

And then the rules about making verbs, such as kartarizap.

Intro to these groups --

wordfinal sandhi rules

choose-tiG rules

change-tiG rules ( tiG completion)

choose-sup rules

change-sup rules ( sup completion)

choose- tiG rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1462

change- tiG rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1463

choose- sup rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1464

change- sup rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1465

wordfinal sandhi rulesmmmmmmmmm ^ 1466

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The wordfinal sandhi rules are the rules that affect the last letter of a word when it is before pause, or in saMhitA before another word.

Let me show some examples of the effects of these rules.

(A) when a word ends in i or I, and the next starts with any other vowel, the i or I turns into y.

admi + odanam → admyodanam "I'm eating boiled rice"

(B) when a word ends in i or I, and the next starts with i or I, both letters are replaced with one I.

dadhi + icchati → dadhIcchati "wants curds"

(C) when a word ends in s or r, and it comes before a pause, say an H sound instead of the s r.

atra + punar + @pause → atrapunaH "here again"

punar + atra + @pause → punaratra "here again"

There are one or two hundred such rules. Please DO NOT PANIC. You do not have to study them or memorize them before you get used to do what they say. And you don't have to do that afterwards either.

QRAQRAQRA

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QRA QRA QRA