Traditional Pali term for predicate and linking verb

Discussion
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Dear all Pali friends!

My name is Khanh. I have been studying and teaching Pali in Vietnam. I am now preparing a Pali course for my students that is based on the Pali traditional grammar terminology & rules. When comparing with the ‘Western’ grammar system, I have some concern that needs advises:

  1. There seems no similar term for Predicate of Equational Sentence in the traditional grammars at least in Kaccāyana & Saddanīti. For example: Buddho kusalo hoti. ‘Kusalo’ is called Predicate in the ‘Western’ grammar but what we should call it according to the traditional? Of course, it can be considered as a Visesana [modifying word] for the kattu [buddho] but I think it’s not enough to cover its characteristic.
  2. The verbs derived from the root √bhu such as hoti, bhavati… are known for 2 usages: (i) as a Verb of Existence; and (ii) as a Linking Verb. That seems however not expressed clearly in Kaccāyana and Saddanīti and so again there is not a distinct term for its Linking Function. Even in Saddanīti Bhavati… is treated as a Akammaka Ākhyāta [verb with no object] that is only correct for the existence function.

Hope to hear from you

Sincerely yours,

Khanh

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Hi Khanh,

For English, we must state Predicate of Equational Sentence to accommodate the pāli sentence structure, which is unlike English. Otherwise, English-speaking students will keep looking for the “to be” verb or similar – the linking verb, also called a copula.

Is it that Kaccāyana & Saddanīti don’t need to speak grammatically to copulas because they don’t exist? I don’t know…hopefully someone who knows about those grammars can contribute.

Isn’t hoti derived from √hū?

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Hi Mahāvarāha (such a nice nick! :slight_smile: ),

  1. I am not an expert in the traditional vyākaraṇa (at all), but I think that there is simply no such term.

What would correspond to European “predicate” (I think the latest linguistics largely stopped using this category, having relegated it to formal logic, etc.) would exactly be ākhyāta (as “something spoken of/about something else”, “something announced about something”) but in the Pāli (as well as the Sanskrit one, AFAIK) grammatical tradition this notion strictly stands only for a finite verb.

In your example, I think kusalo is simply an adjective, from the traditional point of view.

In the Pāṇinian tradition, there is the notion samānādhikaraṇa, “co-reference” or “syntactic agreement”, and buddho and kusalo would be in that relation (I don’t remember whether it is discussed in the Saddanīti, but I think it is)

https://www.studiesaggilinguistici.it/ssl/article/download/252/209/927

The notion of “predicate” presupposes the notion of “grammatical subject”, but the Indian grammatical tradition does not have anything strictly corresponding to it:

Vernacular grammar has no term to name the subject of the sentence or grammatical subject.

J. S. Speijer, Sanskrit Syntax (1886)

«Pāṇini’s grammar is characterized by an important absence: the notion of grammatical subject is absent» (Cardona 1974: 244)

And regarding the “predicative nominative” you may consult this:

https://ancient-buddhist-texts.net/Textual-Studies/Syntax-of-the-Cases/01-Nominative.htm#toc3

I find it enlightening.

  1. AFAIK, again, not a problem for the traditional grammar – there is no clear difference in those usages for it.

As you probably know, in Sanskrit, Pāli, other Indic languages, and, broadly, other Indo-European languages, the copula (what you are calling “Linking Verb”) is often simply not necessary. Buddho kusalo is enough to say buddho kusalo hoti. The copula is especially important for the so-called Ancient European branch of Indo-European languages, one which gave us French, German and English. In Sanskrit, Avestan, modern Armenian, Russian, Hindi, or Bengali, it is simply not necessary (= it is not really a copula).

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Dear Sphairos,

I quite understand the difference between the verb IS and HOTI as well as the issue of the grammar subject of Pali. What troubles me, however, is the lacking of a proper term for each of those stuffs. As a teacher, I need theoretical tools to express clearly sentence structures and guide my students through their practice. If the terms are not available that means I must create my own; that work should only be undertaken when necessary.

Thanks for all the information.

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No problem.

You may also consider simply using the “Western” grammatical terms. I don’t see a significant problem here, and do it myself.

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Why?

It seems to me that in both of these uses the verb is akammaka (intransitive). E.g. there is no kamma in the sentence Sunakhā honti, nor one in Sunakhā catuppādā honti.

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Dear Reddison

First, we should consider the fact: Buddho kusalo hoti = The Buddha is wholesome. The word Buddho is kattu [agent]. Here maybe we still don’t know the corect term for Kusalo but we could be sure it is NOT kattu. Then what is the correct term for it in term of KĀRAKA - in Pali traditional grammar? Either I must create my own or we should consider the term kamma for it - the only possible though not perfect. That solution has an implied logic: the word Kusalo is bound through Hoti to Buddho. The fact is totally different in such instances as Buddho hoti/buddho atthi = there is a Buddha. Nothing is bound through hoti to Buddho.

Sincerely yours,

Khanh