How best to trace substantives to their dhātu?

[Taff Rivers]

All,

   How best to trace substantives to their dhātu?

This may seem an obvious question, but in practice I have yet to come across a method that doesn't get to be a little tedious. 　

Even using a dictionary arranged according to the dhātu system, such the MW, can be a hastle.

When the MW does name the root in the definition, which isn't very often, it still requires a little cutting 'n' pasting of the named root to look it up, the while to keep tabs on the substantive.

   e.g. the entry for yoga names √ 1. yuj for the root.

yoga
       • m. (√ 1. yuj; ifc. f. ā) the act of yoking, joining, attaching, harnessing, putting to (of horses), ṚV. MBh.

                 . . .

But mostly, it is a matter for manually working back through the preceding entries, looking out for the preceding verb, jumping around if required - usually though, to disappear into the ether.

   viz.

nārī
       • f. (of °ra, q.v.) a woman, a wife (in older language also nāri), ṚV. &c. &c.

nārī ==> nāra

nāra
       • mf(ī)n. (fr. nara) relating to or proceeding from men, human, mortal, Mn. Kāv.

nāra ==> nara

nara
       • m. (cf. nṛ) a man, a male, a person (pl. men, people), TS. &c. &c.

nāra ==> nṛ

nṛ
       • m. (acc. naram, dat. nare, gen. abl. naras, loc., nari; du. narā, narau.
      • pl. nom. voc. naras, acc. nṝn.

       • [may also stand for other cases.
       • for the final, n before p cf. Pāṇ. 8-3, 10], instr. nṛbhis, or nṛbhis.
       • dat. abl. nṛbhya or nṛbhyas, loc. nṛṣu or nṛṣu[vi, 1, 184, gen. narām. nṛṇām or nṝṇām[vi, 4, 6]) a man, hero (used also of gods), person.
       • mankind, people (mostly pl.), ṚV. &c. &c.

         ...

So, I get as far as to understand that 'women' nārī is a derived from 'people' nṛ as indeed (mostly) she is, so this does make sense.

But I am still at a substantive, so preceding to nearest dhātu:

nuḍ
       • cl. 6. P. nuḍati.
       • to hurt-strike, kill, Dhāt. xxviii, 92 (Vop.) [567,2]

Whereby I am in the ether and derived of sense  ...

   Surely, these day, it should not be necessary to have to endure of Pāṇini, simply to arrive at a grammatical etymology?

It only requires a decent substantive-to-root relational database, does it not?

Maybe a learned one can advise how to make rooting more sukha than duḥkha?

   Taff Rivers

[Hnbhat B.R.]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 3:25 AM, Taff Rivers <eddie...@gmail.com> wrote:

All,

   How best to trace substantives to their dhātu?

I am afraid I am not able to understand your question clearly. As far as I know, the primary derivatives are the participle suffixes and conjugational suffixes. which give participle from a  धातु, unless you are under impression that all the substantives have necessarily be traced back to any of the roots, like the followers of Shakatayana of Grammarians and Nirukta school.

This may seem an obvious question, but in practice I have yet to come across a method that doesn't get to be a little tedious. 　

The above explained difference is to make your work tedious. Simple process, to get derivatives, one can go from गम्+ participles, suffixes etc. 

गच्छन्, गच्छन्ती, etc. and गतः, गमन. and then little far going, अवगमन, सहगमन, निगमनम्, etc. in which the relation to the verb, unprefixed or prefixed, do not vary from their relevant roots. Then, गमेर्डोस्, गच्छतीति गौः, अश्नोतीति अश्वः, etc. move much more from the verb, गौः means cow and not anything else, that is moving. and अश्वः means horse and nothing more than that, and does not mean anything that spreads. So this is the process Panini has followed for etymology and has followed certain derivatives to their meaning like जालमानायः  - आनायः is derived from the root नी in the sense of net. This is the process where the relation is obvious, but little more extended in meaning, without totally ignoring or restricting the meaning, as in अश्वः, and गौः. Other than these, there are many where one has to guess from the substantive forms and many of the roots listed under Dhatupatha are just traced back from their substantives, with little or not change from the substantives. For example, गण्डः > one can trace back this to a verb गडि वदनैकदेशे, which is obvious that the verb is not used in the sense, गण्डति = distorts one's face. For the simple words, like मुख, नख, etc. one can trace back to some roots, but there is not any relation, with the roots so traced back, and this makes the work tedious and useless. In these cases the meaning itself clear for the substantives even without tracing their root or their verbs.

 

And dictionary sometimes may follow this reasoning, with Comparative Etymology with relation to other Aryan languages or Paninian system. So it is not always simple as it seems to be. So they do not always list the words under the root, unless the relation is clear or specified either by शाकटायन or निरुक्त. Even Paninian system accepts many words underived and consider derived words by उणादि suffixes, the purpose of etymology depending on their relation to Paninian. 

कमेः सः कंसः परान्श्र्णाति इति परशुः इति । उणादयः अव्युत्पन्नानि प्रातिपदिकानि । (कात्यायन वार्तिक)वृद्धावृद्धावर्णस्वरद्व्यज्लक्षणे च प्रत्ययविधौ तत्सम्प्रत्ययार्थम्(वार्तिकान्त) 

This is the finding of Mahabhashya. So one can try his intellect with dictionaries and proceed to tracing the substantive to some roots, but in many cases, MW himself accepts of doubtful origin. This is what I found.

Now the traditionaly grammarians too failed to understand the relation. Hence the Vartikakara derives, the word नारी from both the words, नर or नृ, both words used to denote man, or people in general. 

"नृ-नरयोर्वृद्धिश्च" वार्तिक under (शार्ङ्गरवाऽद्यञो ङीन् ४।१।७३)

 

But I am still at a substantive, so preceding to nearest dhātu:

nuḍ
       • cl. 6. P. nuḍati.
       • to hurt-strike, kill, Dhāt. xxviii, 92 (Vop.) [567,2]

Whereby I am in the ether and derived of sense  ...

   Surely, these day, it should not be necessary to have to endure of Pāṇini, simply to arrive at a grammatical etymology?

It only requires a decent substantive-to-root relational database, does it not?

Maybe a learned one can advise how to make rooting more sukha than duḥkha?

I have already dealt with your question. Is it necessary to dig up to the roots for these words?

One can use उणादिसूत्र-s of शाकटायन also, or some Sanskrit dictionaries, which also give many words traced back one or other root. Yet you will find the same reasoning and make yourself the tedious attempt, like मुख, सुख, दुःख as yourself acknowledge without much success, if you are still looking for support for your assumption all the substantives are traceable. I have given the views of Patanjali and Vartika in the above extracts in this respect. 

 

[Taff Rivers]

Professor,

Thank you for your patient reply.

            I now realise that what I am seeking does not exist, and unsurpringly does not have a name.

 　

Therefore a clarification by way of description indeed becomes necessary.

My understanding is that the 'Pāṇinian Dhātupāṭha is a list of roots that is an essential constituent of Pāṇini’s grammar and that is required by the set of rules in his Aṣṭādhyāyī for the derivation of innumerable verbal forms and nominal derivates'.

I read 'list of roots' as 'list of verbs'. (Shastri’s editions of the Mādhavīyā Dhātuvṛtti and Nāmadhātuvṛtti.)

Now, and with some difficulty* I have found the words - dfficult, because the words in question aren't always there to be found.

In short, I seek a lexicon of verbs ordered by semantic relationships viz. hypernym and hyponym.

Linguistically, there are relatively few hypernyms ( 'main/root verbs').

　

Now, our mutual cow will Graze. Graze being a hyponym of eat, which in turn is a hyponym of do.

Our cow being a 'substantive' grammatically speaking, is but one of the trio 'Śabda artha pratyayānām'.

These three. understood as 'word object meaning', where word is but a sound, object an individual material entity, meaning as a mental 'picture' residing inside the head.

Artha's in their turn are also 'threefold'. Such 'Objects', (viz. substantives), whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, behave (viz. verbs).

Where there is cow, there is behaviour - cow will be lying down, sitting, standing, trotting.

Where there is a behaviour, there will be that which so behaving. Never the one is encountered without the other.

Nor without the third - 'location' an 'object' will always have a particular somewhere and somewhen.

I must properly locate my words, as being not in the context as of word to sentence, but of word to object.

          As far as I can tell, from random browsings of the specialist linguistic articles, 2,000 years on, such a lexicon remains at the discussion stage.

　

Thank you for the your insight.

　

Taff Rivers

　

*difficulty

Webster's Unabridged does not have an entry for hypernym.

Oxford Talking Dictionary while its does have both terms, is not at all clear about their all important relationship.

WordWeb Pro

Noun: hypernym

    1. A word that is more generic than a given word

                      Noun: hyponym

                          1. A word that is more specific than a given word

Webster's Unabridged

                       n. hyponym

                               a term that denotes a subcategory of a more general class: "Chair" and "table" are hyponyms of "furniture."

　

Wikipedia, connects the two

[Hnbhat B.R.]

On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 5:08 AM, Taff Rivers <eddie...@gmail.com> wrote:

Professor,

Thank you for your patient reply.

            I now realise that what I am seeking does not exist, and unsurpringly does not have a name.

 　

Therefore a clarification by way of description indeed becomes necessary.

My understanding is that the 'Pāṇinian Dhātupāṭha is a list of roots that is an essential constituent of Pāṇini’s grammar and that is required by the set of rules in his Aṣṭādhyāyī for the derivation of innumerable verbal forms and nominal derivates'.

I read 'list of roots' as 'list of verbs'. (Shastri’s editions of the Mādhavīyā Dhātuvṛtti and Nāmadhātuvṛtti.)

Now, and with some difficulty* I have found the words - dfficult, because the words in question aren't always there to be found.

In short, I seek a lexicon of verbs ordered by semantic relationships viz. hypernym and hyponym.

Linguistically, there are relatively few hypernyms ( 'main/root verbs').

　

Now, our mutual cow will Graze. Graze being a hyponym of eat, which in turn is a hyponym of do.

Our cow being a 'substantive' grammatically speaking, is but one of the trio 'Śabda artha pratyayānām'.

These three. understood as 'word object meaning', where word is but a sound, object an individual material entity, meaning as a mental 'picture' residing inside the head.

Artha's in their turn are also 'threefold'. Such 'Objects', (viz. substantives), whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, behave (viz. verbs).

Where there is cow, there is behaviour - cow will be lying down, sitting, standing, trotting.

Where there is a behaviour, there will be that which so behaving. Never the one is encountered without the other.

Nor without the third - 'location' an 'object' will always have a particular somewhere and somewhen.

Thank your explanation. I think this is exactly what Mahabhashya has said in his discussion, what is the word गौः? i.e. the nature of the word cow?

गौः इति अत्र कः शब्दः । किं यत्तत्सास्नालाङ्गूलककुदखुरविषाणि अर्थरूपं सः शब्दः । न इति आह । द्रव्यं नाम तत। यत्तर्हि ततिङ्गितं चेष्टितं निमिषितं सः शब्दः । न इति आह । क्रिया नाम सा । यत्तर्हि तत्शुक्लः नीलः कृष्णः कपिलः कपोतः इति सः शब्दः । न इति आह । गुणः नाम सः । यत्तर्हि तत्भिन्नेषु अभिन्नं छिन्नेषु अच्छिन्नं सामान्यभूतं सः शब्दः । न इति आह । आकृतिः नाम सा । कः तर्हि शब्दः । येन उच्चारितेन सास्नालाङ्गूलककुदखुरविषाणिनां सम्प्रत्ययः भवति सः शब्दः । अथ वा प्रतीतपदार्थकः लोके ध्वनिः शब्दः इति उच्यते । तत्यथा शब्दं कुरु मा शब्दं कार्षीः शब्दकारी अयं माणवकः इति । ध्वनिं कुर्वनेवं उच्यते । तस्मात्ध्वनिः शब्दः । (पाणिनीयसूत्र ३)

 

I must properly locate my words, as being not in the context as of word to sentence, but of word to object.

I think your idea is reflected while when the Mahabhashya starts its discussion of what is grammar and its purpose:

(कात्यायन वार्तिक)सिद्धे शब्दार्थसम्बन्धे(वार्तिकान्त) 

and concludes the purpose of grammar is to just analyze the relationship of the word and its meaning already established by usage and not to create new words not in usage. This is the general perspective of descriptive grammar of Panini and it could well be used as prescriptive one, but with limitations.

     

[Taff Rivers]

Re.  a lexicon of verbs ordered by semantic relationships viz. hypernym and hyponym.

  Thank you professor,
  

I shall seek elsewhere for information on the above, and a related nāma-dhātu.

  Taff Rivers

[Taff Rivers]

All,

On Wednesday, 20 August 2014 22:55:58 UTC+1, Taff Rivers wrote:

All,

   How best to trace substantives to their dhātu?

To answer my own request, which I post, as it may be of value. 

I have come across complete synsets* of semantic relations on the Web.

For those interested, they are frreely available (and free) in WordNet 3.1

(http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn).

They have actually been there from 2001.

Such word relations always apply, regardless of language.

There are downloadable Windows/Unix versions.

I have found such, very useful for obtaining the exact word(s) needed, with the precise meaning, transferable within or between languages.

Taff Rivers.

　

*synsets

Most synonym sets are connected to other synsets via a number of semantic relations.

These relations vary based on the type of word, and include:

Nouns

hypernyms: Y is a hypernym of X if every X is a (kind of) Y (canine is a hypernym of dog)

hyponyms: Y is a hyponym of X if every Y is a (kind of) X (dog is a hyponym of canine)

coordinate terms: Y is a coordinate term of X if X and Y share a hypernym (wolf is a coordinate term of dog, and dog is a coordinate term of wolf)

meronym: Y is a meronym of X if Y is a part of X (window is a meronym of building)

holonym: Y is a holonym of X if X is a part of Y (building is a holonym of window)

Verbs

hypernym: the verb Y is a hypernym of the verb X if the activity X is a (kind of) Y (to perceive is an hypernym of to listen)

troponym: the verb Y is a troponym of the verb X if the activity Y is doing X in some manner (to lisp is a troponym of to talk)

entailment: the verb Y is entailed by X if by doing X you must be doing Y (to sleep is entailed by to snore)

coordinate terms: those verbs sharing a common hypernym (to lisp and to yell)

[Amba Kulkarni]

Hello Taff,

You might also like to know that there is a Sanskrit WordNet available.

Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya, who heads the INdoWordNet project, and Dr. Irawati Kulkarni are the perons whom you can contact for further details. The Sanskrit Wordnet is available at http://www.cfilt.iitb.ac.in/wordnet/webswn/

Best,
Amba Kulkarni

--
आ नो भद्रा: क्रतवो यन्तु विश्वत: ll
Let noble thoughts come to us from every side.
- Rig Veda, I-89-i.
Assoc Prof.  and Head
Department of Sanskrit Studies
University of Hyderabad

Prof. C.R. Rao Road 

Hyderabad-500 046

(91) 040 23133802(off)

http://sanskrit.uohyd.ernet.in/scl
http://sanskrit.uohyd.ernet.in/faculty/amba

[Taff Rivers]

Thank you professor,

  I have sent feedback via the links, but http://sanskrit.uohyd.ernet.in, is unresponsive.

Sanskrit WordNet works just fine when browsed in IE 11 under Windows 8.1 Pro on my desktop.

However, the download of Sanskrit WordNet from http://www.cfilt.iitb.ac.in/wordnet/webswn/downloaderInfo.php
has files not conforming to the naming conventions expected by my windows Word Net 2.1 installation
   viz. index.verb, verb.idx, etc. not to mention .tcl and .dll ...

It would be nice also, as an English only reader, who is obliged to have to convert the Devanagari, before and after using the interfaces, for Sanskrit WordNet to have the option of a Roman (diacritics) interface.

  Taff Rivers

All good things come to him that waits.

[Amba Kulkarni]

Hello Taff,

On 26 August 2014 03:10, Taff Rivers <eddie...@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you professor,

  I have sent feedback via the links, but http://sanskrit.uohyd.ernet.in, is unresponsive.

The internet connectivity might have been disturbed due to frequent power cuts in Telanagana region.

At the time of writing this email from Dublin, Ireland, the server is working.
 

Sanskrit WordNet works just fine when browsed in IE 11 under Windows 8.1 Pro on my desktop.

However, the download of Sanskrit WordNet from http://www.cfilt.iitb.ac.in/wordnet/webswn/downloaderInfo.php
has files not conforming to the naming conventions expected by my windows Word Net 2.1 installation
   viz. index.verb, verb.idx, etc. not to mention .tcl and .dll ...

It would be nice also, as an English only reader, who is obliged to have to convert the Devanagari, before and after using the interfaces, for Sanskrit WordNet to have the option of a Roman (diacritics) interface.

You may write to Prof. Pushpak Bhataachaaryaa or Dr. Iravati Kulkarni, whose email ids are available at the bottom of the Sanskrit WordNet page regarding this.

Thanks,
Amba Kulkarni
 

  Taff Rivers

All good things come to him that waits.

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