Bhante Sujato Pali Course 2023: Warder lesson 7

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Dear Bhante @sujato,

Stephen kindly helped a lot, but I’d be grateful if you could address the following:

Question 1: Use of Past Participle to indicate Present Perfect in Active Voice

Is this explanation correct, please? “The past participle will be in the nominative case and agree with the subject’s number and gender. So will the auxiliary verb.”

Ahaṃ āgato asmi = present perfect = I have arrived.

Question 2: Word order in a sentence

Mr. Learning Pali explains the word order of the sentence:

He locks the door with a key.

= tāḷena dvāraṃ pidahati

at https://youtu.be/xDrYreeCU-U?feature=shared&t=341:

“In Pali, the subject, along with things that belong to the subject, comes first in the sentence. In this case, the subject modifier is the ‘means to do something’ = a key = tāḷena. Then, it is followed by the object in the accusative case. The verb is at the end.”

So, the formula of the word order would be:

Subject + Subject Modifier, including a means to do something (here = instrumental case) + Object + Verb

However, examples from Meiland shows that the modifier comes before the noun:

The created being lives.

= nimmito satto jīvati.

The Blessed One has been seen by the freed prince.

= bhagavā vimuttena rājaputtena diṭṭho.

Perhaps I misunderstood Mr. Learn Pali?

Question 4: desito Ānanda mayā dhammo1

= Ānanda, the doctrine has been taught by me.

I can’t translate this sentence as I didn’t know how to work out the word order for this sentence.

After seeing the answer, I guess that Ānanda is the vocative because it is the second word of the sentence (because a Vocative can’t start a sentence). But I don’t understand why the verb desito starts the sentence when the subject dhammo is at the end. Can’t the Pāli be: “mayā dhammo Ānanda desito”? Is it because Ānanda would become the third word of the sentence.

Totally puzzled here…

Question 5: iminā tvaṃ purisa dhanena jivāhi

= You, man, make a living with this money!

My interpretation “Man, you must live by virtue” seems incorrect. Why can’t dhanena here mean ‘virtue’?

Question 6: te ca me evaṃ puṭṭhā āmā ti vadanti

= And asked thus by me, they said ‘yes‘.

Would the translation “They say ‘yes’ to the question asked (thus) by me” change the meaning of the source text?

Can puṭṭhā be interpreted as a noun in this sentence?

If not, I guess it is because of the word ‘ca’ — ‘ca’ combines the two clauses here? But I guess there are other grammatical reasons too?

Question 7: dānaṃ detha

= Give alms.

I guess we can’t translation it as “Please allow this gift” because in order to mean ‘to allow’, the verb {deti} needs to be followed by an object and an infinitive?

Question 8: They experience happiness

= (te) sukhaṃ paþisaṃvedenti

I couldn’t recall seeing the verb paṭisaṃvedeti, so I consulted the DPD and came up with this sentence: = sukhaṃ papponti. Will it be acceptable?

Question 10: I have heard this

= evaṃ me sutaṃ

Why is evaṃ, not idaṃ, used here? Are these also acceptable: mayā idaṃ sutaṃ and idaṃ suṇiṃ?

Question 11: I did the work

= ahaṃ kammaṃ akāsiṃ

11.1 Are these also acceptable: ahaṃ kammaṃ kariṃ?

11.2 If we want to make this sentence into the passive voice, what can we say? I got “mayā kammaṃ katena”. Will it be ok?

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Is the Zoom link at the top correct, Bhante? :pray:

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Yes.

Yes.

LP is using “subject modifier” to mean “means to do something = instrumantal”. This is a copula, and as we have covered in previous lessons, the order can be reversed willy-nilly. Or nilly-willy, same diff.

There’s no modifier here, “was seen” is a passive past participle governed by “the freed prince”.

Word order is almost always irrelevant for the meaning of the sentence. It usually conveys only emphasis.

Ānanda is the stem form, thus it must be vocative, no guesswork needed.

For emphasis.

  • Taught, Ananda, is the Dhamma by me.

The placement of the vocative is stylistic only, not a hard and fast rule. Change the word order all you like.

Dhana means wealth, which can be used in a metaphorical sense to say that “morality is a person’s true wealth”, but there is nothing in the context to suggest it is a figurative meaning.

That seems fine.

“interpret” schmerpret, it’s a past participle. But if you’re asking about translation, then yes, it’s quite common to find cases where it is convenient to translate a past participle as a noun or whatever.

In fact, the shoe really should be on the other foot. It is normally wise to ignore the purely lexical features of the source language when crafting a translation. Different languages accomplish the same thing in different ways. Grammar, and indeed vocabulary, are sets of abstractions invented by grammarians, and a so-called “literal” translation is merely an attempt to mimic one set of abstractions with another set of abstraction.

Our job as students is to recognize how those abstractions work in Pali. Our job as translators is 10% to understood what the text is saying and 90% express it in the target language.

There are, however, some cases where lexical features should influence translation from one language to another. In Pali, one of these cases is word order, specifically in those instances where the text departs from normal word order for the sake of emphasis. That’s why we learn word order.

But even then, the existence of a specific lexical feature—such as an emphasized word at the start of a sentence—does not necessarily mean it should be translated with the same lexical feature. Sometimes the gods of language smile upon us and make this possible. But the main thing is that the emphasis is conveyed, not that the lexical feature is imitated.

Per Stephen, the ca connects it with a wider context.

This sounds unnecessarily complicated. Detha is imperative plural , and the phrase means “give alms!”

Grammatically it is correct, but the sense is not quite the same. pappoti can be “to experience”, but in the sense of “to gain an experience of something”, i.e. to reach or attain it.

DPD says this spelling is allowed, but kar normally takes the augment, so ahaṁ kammaṁ akariṁ. But sure.

Should be:

mayā kammaṁ kataṁ
by me / the deed / was done

kata is not instrumental, as it is not performing the deed.

Consider the following:

mayā katena kammaṁ kataṁ
The deed was done with what I made.

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hmmmmm…

hmmmmm…

And this is only Lesson 7!

:grimacing: :crazy_face: :dizzy_face: :woozy_face:

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So, if we wanted to stress that e.g. the seat was prepared (but isn’t anymore) could we use the aorist with the past participle? āsanaṃ paññattaṃ ahosi?

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7 posts were merged into an existing topic: Bhante Sujato Pali Course 2023: lesson 8

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OK, these are how my rudimentary note cards are progressing for noun inflections. Yes I use all the computer-based tools that people have offered. Still, I find myself studying every day with these humble note cards in front of me. :crazy_face:

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There is something very powerful about writing out things by hand. I think it’s very helpful.
Less clicking more writing!

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And even more study reveals that, in the second card, the (instr)(nt)(s) and the (instr)(nt)(pl) – the last line – should be, respectively:
yānena
yānehi

UGH!!! :upside_down_face:

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When students tell me they have trouble remembering case endings I tell them to write out a full declension 10x. Or 20x. Or 100x.

As John Cage said, more or less, if you find something boring after 10 times, do it for 20 times. Still boring, do it for 40 times. After a while it’s not boring at all.

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Thank you, dear Stephen! Lest I lead anyone astray, here are my corrected & augmented note cards (may they be correct this time):

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5 posts were split to a new topic: Individual learning styles

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Does “stems in consonants” (I’ve seen this phrase before) mean “stems that end in consonants”?

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yes that is what I determined. some of the most important nuggets of info are hidden in big paragraphs. in this book. that’s fine…i’m so happy Warder even wrote this book

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Piyāyyaputto, perhaps “āsanaṃ paññapesi”? “paññatta” is pp rather than aor.

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Gillian, when you have some downtime and you feel inspired, could you direct me to the location of the PED files such that I can integrate them into the Golden Dict app? I just need to know where they are. I haven’t found the online PED of much use (compared to DPD) despite Stephen’s admonitions to use it.

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Sorry about what felt like an admonishment, really just what works for me personally.

I’ve noticed in Ven. Bodhi’s Pali class he is now using this version of the Dictionary (along with Cone). Perhaps it will work better for you than the U Chicago.

https://gandhari.org/dictionary?section=ptsd

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Just go to the DPD homepage. Search for the word “more” and you can find the link.

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There are some dictionaries, but I don’t see the PED there.

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It’s not in combined-dictionary-stardict.zip?

It seems to be for me:

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