Guest guest Posted January 14, 2003 Report Share Posted January 14, 2003 Again, I don't object if people want to make fools of themselves. V. Swaminathan, Retired Principal, Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tiruchur, now finds himself on the "patriotic" bharatvani web site in the good company of Rajaram, Frawley et al. Thank god(s) I can save time to answer this purely grammatical question (which could have been handled calmly!) Daniel Baum <dbaum has felt it necessary to correct the grammatical deficiencies of Swaminathan in his Indo-Iranian list (Mon, 13 Jan 2003): indo_iranian : see [indo_iranian] Digest Number 150 I quote: ================================================================ While I cannot comment on whether or not Panini or Sayana were acquainted with the functions of the injunctive (although it's pretty obvious they were acquainted with the forms themselves), the description of the functions of the injunctive as found in this article are quite inaccurate. Firstly, the augment is probably never optional, simply to be dropped when the poet felt like it. Thus the augmentless forms should always be termed injunctives. They do not really behave very much like indicative forms, although as the description of the function of the indicative forms themselves in this article is also inaccurate it would make my message extremely long to go into details, so I suggest a look at the standard work on the subject, which is Hoffmann's "Der Injunktiv im Veda". There is a big difference between the present injunctive and aorist injunctive. The second person of the latter may sometimes be used instead of the imperative, mostly in cases where morphological limitations preclude the formation of a 2 pers. sing. impv. This use is probably secondary, the modality being "borrowed" from the cases where the inj. is used with "maa". The pres. and aor. also differ in their other functions when not combined with "maa", also as detailed by Hoffmann. The pres. inj. is apparently never used modally. As to the injunctive being used as a subjunctive or an optative, I simply don't know what the writer is referring to, unless it is the famous "indrasya nu viryani pra vocam". Assuming that "vocam" really is an injunctive and not a subjunctive form as suggested, I believe, by Insler, I believe here that the key to the problem is that the performative meaning is not contained within the injunctive but within the particle "nu". In general, the injunctive lacks verbal categories, and gains extra meaning from the addition of particles, examples being "maa" - negative modality - and the augment "a", which gives it a past meaning and from which were created the past indicative tenses. There are cases where the identification of certain forms as subjunctives or injunctives is uncertain, e.g. ju.santa etc. Daniel Baum P.S. I am recently compiled a list of all of the examples of the aor. inj. in RV. It forms a 96 page Word document! ===================================================================== Jayatv anusandhaanam ! MW RE: >The following article is now uploaded on the Bharatvani website - > >Panini's Grammar, Sayanacharya's Vedic Bhashyas >& Michael Witzel's `Philology' > >at the URL > >http://www.bharatvani.org/reviews/philology.html > >Sincerely, > >Vishal Agarwal ============================================================ Michael Witzel Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages) home page: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 15, 2003 Report Share Posted January 15, 2003 INDOLOGY, Michael Witzel <witzel@f...> wrote: > > Again, I don't object if people want to make fools of themselves. > > V. Swaminathan, Retired Principal, Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tiruchur, VA: Correction. It is vidyapeetha at Guruvayur. Anyways, what is the source of the piltdown quotation "han Indro' him han" in your newspaper article? > now finds himself on the "patriotic" bharatvani web site in the good > company of Rajaram, Frawley et al. VA: As a 'scholar' on India, you should be aware that patriotism is considered a virtue in India by Indians (except of the Marxist variety). So your sarcasm is wasted breath. Besides, the website does not really project itself as a 'patriotic' website, nor is Mr. Frawley a 'patriotic' Indian. Likewise, Mr. Rajaram is an American citizen. > > Thank god(s) I can save time to answer this purely grammatical question > (which could have been handled calmly!) VA: I certainly question your ability to deal with such questions calmly. The response from Dr. Baum was a windfall for you. Anyways, I will forward the response to Dr. Swaminathan and see what he has to say. Vishal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 18, 2003 Report Share Posted January 18, 2003 >INDOLOGY, V.shal Agarwal wrote: > The response from Dr. Baum was a windfall for you. No, not for me. The sponge-like memory of Agarwal has failed him this time.... See my detailed discussions in a series of exchanges in INDOLOGY in 1999, of the whole of the Indo-European verb system, including the role of the (verbal category of the) Injunctive (though in a slightly different context): See http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/indology.html with (among others) items : 016370 99/02/25 16:39 119 Re: Yet another areal feature in SA languages? 016476 99/03/03 16:54 210 Re: Yet another areal/DETAILS about Indra + han: "whether you tell your listeners a fact (a-han, impf.), or you just mention it (han, injunctive) since they know it anyhow, or whether you stress that he has killed him off (jaghAna, perf.), ...." [ Incidentally,though I intentionally did not quote/discuss any particular RV passage in a general grammatical paranthetic reference in a newpaper article, guess who killed the dragon at RV 5.29.2: Adatta vajram abhi yad ahiM hann apo yahvIr asRjat sartavA u ?? ] 016602 99/03/14 23:01 103 Re: Yet another areal/GENERALITIES and cf. 016475 99/03/03 15:46 114 Re: Yet another areal/GENERALITIES Since K. Hoffmann was one of my Gurus, I read his then still unpublished "Injunktiv" already in 1967 (written around.1950), and haven't forgotten, nor should we all, this seminal work since. There is a long English summary (as table of contents) in his book. But this news clearly has not reached the backwaters of Kerala yet. As I had told V. Swaminathan (as per his son: "My father Sri V. Swaminathan, Retired Principal, Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha, Tiruchur, India") .... No "windfall" needed :-) Make my own WAVES. Cheer up, MW. ============================================================ Michael Witzel Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University 2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138, USA ph. 1- 617-496 2990 (also messages) home page: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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