Changing word order

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 17 Aug 2006, 12:04

In a non-cm work related context, while discussing natural language grammars, the topic of jumbling word order came up. I had heard before that Sanskrit is one of the languages that each word contains enough context with its suffixes ( aka morphemes ) that one can jumble the word order and it will still makes sense. How much of that is really true? Meaning, if it is 100% you can randomly jumble it and one can still make sense out of it. Say 80-90% would be, "yeah it is mostly true but you can not do it too indiscriminately" etc.

For example, picking one from the MD thread, "Himadri Jamaadru Jamboopathi Sahithe", can I jumble the words while retaining the meaning?

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 17 Aug 2006, 12:42

VK
We in chennai dont take much time to pass from a situation of
NO WATER PROBLEM
to
NO WATER PROBLEM
It takes only one downpour to solve it !!
BTW I have noticed that DKJ sings Graha Balamemi Ramanu
Graha Balamemi Ramanu

and TRS sings it as Graha Balamemi RamanuGrahabalamemi ...

is it a poetic license or built into the composition that way...

vgvindan · Post by **vgvindan** » 18 Aug 2006, 11:34

The Thyagaraja Kriti is as under -
P graha balam(E)mi zrI rAm-
(A)nugraha balamE balamu

P Of what (Emi) potency (balamu) the planets (graha) are? The real potency (balamu) is the that (balamE) (literally potency) of the grace (anugraha) of Lord zrI rAma (rAmAnugraha).

Therefore, one should sing as 'graha balamEmi zrI rAmAnugraha balamE balamu' and not repeat 'graha balamEmi zrI rAmAnugraha balamEmi' - This will give meaning 'what is the potency of the grace of Lord rAma' which is totally against the wordings and spirit of the Kriti.
If one is to repeat at all, let them do so as 'graha balamEmi zrI rAma'- by terminating at the correct word-ending, instead of splitting the word 'anugraha' in the middle and joing 'anu' with 'graha' at the beginning. Such shortening of sAhitya within the metre is possible and well known to the musicians.
Such instances of splitting the words in the middle and joining elsewhere, twisting the meaning, are the ones which I wanted to highlight in my thread 'Rendering of Thyagaraja Kritis'.
Musicians should not split words or join words wherever they feel like, violating the meaning of the kriti. Please refer to the quote of Kanchi Mahasvami which I have posted in the thread 'Rendering of Thyagaraja Kritis'.
V Govindan
PS : This kRiti is yet to be posted as a blog. If any is in need of the complete Kriti with meanings, please contact me at vgvindan@sify.com

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 18 Aug 2006, 19:31

There is another example that NKB quotes:
Take the phrase 'dharaNIlO nIvanTi deivamu lEdaNDI' - the outpouring of a very devout mind.

If it is split as dharaNI lO nIvanTi..........deivamu lEdanDI it becomes the presiding mantra of a gaggle of athiests!

Another of NKBs examples:

'un darisanam kiDaikkumO naTarAja dayAnidhi' - famous pallavi line, requesting darshan of the lonrd of chidambaram - sung my most musicians as 'un darisanam kiDaikkumO naTa (usually pronounced naDa) (pause) rAja dayAnidhi - it becomes a request for (the royal) patron to leave....
Ravi

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 18 Aug 2006, 19:44

But, going back to VKs post, all of these languages have their own syntax ... that is why when someone requests for translation for the purposes of choreography, it will be appropriate to have both padArtha (word-for-word) as well as vAkyArtha (running), because, while choreographing pieces, esp. in bharatanATyam, the idea is first presented in the padArtha format, but just before branching off into sanchArIs, I have observed some dancers perform vAkyArtha abhinaya.
Ravi

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 19 Aug 2006, 02:00

For example, picking one from the MD thread, "Himadri JamaatRu Jamboopathi Sahithe", can I jumble the words while retaining the meaning?

Actually
HimadriJamaatRuJamboopathiSahithe is one word and there is nothing to jumble!
You cannot change the word order in a compound! It is like the 'reverse polish notaiton' each word operates on the succeeding word combination.
The dissolution is as follows
sahitE (partner) kasya ? (whose?)
jambUpati kim ? (who?)
jAmAtRu (son-in-law) kasya ? (whose)
himAdri (himavAn)

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 19 Aug 2006, 02:27

It is jAmAtRu not jAmAdru.

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 19 Aug 2006, 03:04

VK,
Try this simple exercise: I just tried it, and I am making it up as I go -

English: You come here - 'you here come' will sound awful.
Hindi: tum (you) idhar (here) AvO (come) will work as well as tum (you) AvO (come) idhar (here).

You can do this for other South Indian languages as well. They way these languages form parts of the sentence make it easy to move the words around for the most part and retain the meaning.

English: Rama called Krishna -
tamizh: rAman krishNanai kUppiTTAn - krishNanai rAman kUpiTTAn.

and so on.

Ravi

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 19 Aug 2006, 03:38

Ravi: yes, Tamil is jumblable

to some extent. It is probably less than Sanskrit. That is what I want to get a feel for. Russian seems to be amenable to jumbling quite a bit.

CML. if you have such multiple compounds in a sentence, will jumbling preserve the syntax and semantics?

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 19 Aug 2006, 04:06

Take for example a sentence in kannada meaning "What is your name?"

ninna hesarEnu?

This can also be said as "Enu ninna hesaru?"

And also as "hesarEnu ninnadu". (note that there is a slight change in that a irreducible/avyayva is added at the end in the 3rd form(adu).

Also as "ninnadEnu hesaru"

And all these forms are used in day-to-day conversation.

Another similar example (with no modifications)- "He had lunch"

avanu UTavannu mADida.

UTavannu avanu mADida.

avanu mADida UTavannu

mADida avanu UTavannu.

And in literature, even more possibilities will be used with other sentences although they may not be seen in spoken language.

But the confusion will arise in any language when there is more than one subject involved or when it is a compound or complex sentence. If words are jumbled wily-nily, ther will be utter confusion as to what refers to whom. This will be the cae wit any language- including sanskrit.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 20 Aug 2006, 23:08

VK

Sanskrit tolerates to some extent jumbling. It is a misnomer to say that it can be done universally expecially with complex sentences. Again in sanskrit verses it is the responsibility of the reader to make correct sense! Since the compound words have to preserve the order Sanskrit has preserved the compounding and (sandhi) carried to ridiculous extent. Vedic sanskrit was indeed free of those malaise and was much simpler. But there word order is usually important (anyway you can't take liberty with the vedas even inpronunciations!).

I have been told that Chinese tolerate jumbling remarkably (since sentences are pictograms!). Is that true?

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 20 Aug 2006, 23:20

cml,
spanish is too, isn't it?
How about the impact factor in jumbling?
tamizh:
sItayaik kaNDEn
kaNDEN sItayai!

srini_pichumani · Post by **srini_pichumani** » 20 Aug 2006, 23:58

NCV

although Sanskrit is considered to a free-word-order language, the subject-object verb (SOV) situation is common. I will post the description on this topic from Madhav Deshpande's Sanskrit primer -- he had a concise section on syntax that addresses this issue.

-Srini.

coolkarni · Post by **coolkarni** » 21 Aug 2006, 03:35

Russian seems to be amenable to jumbling quite a bit.

VK
In an introduction to War and Peace ( a publication of a series of 10 novels -Tiltled 10 Best novels or something similar) Somerset Maugham writes a detailed chapter on the challenges of translating from Russian.
One particular quote comes to mind immediately .
He says there are 20 different ways of addressing a person by Name and gives the example of the heroine - Natasha,Natalie and so many others , each with a different meaning in the context of story telling.
I am speaking from memory though since I dont have book with me right now.

Add the factor of jumbling and we should have quite a bit of fun

srini_pichumani · Post by **srini_pichumani** » 21 Aug 2006, 04:49

Here's a quote from "A Sanskrit Primer" by Madhav M.Deshpande, The University of Michigan, 1995, Ann Arbor, Michigan:

"Sanskrit syntax is in its general features Indo-European and the use of cases, tenses, and moods in Sanskrit has close parallels in Greek and Latin.

The older Sanskrit relied more on the finite verb as the center of its sentences, while the late classical language became more nominal through the use of participles and purely nominal sentences.

While Sanskrit is one of the so-called free-word-order languages, generally the word-order is of the SOV type, though the pragmatic shifts of focus and emphasis can alter this prototypical word-order.

In non-emotive technical prose, the topic-comment (uddes'ya-vidheya) order is generally followed, while in the conversational language, the emphasized part of the sentence is often fronted.

The word-order dictated by pragmatic considerations has to interact with other rules requiring specific positions for pronouns, clitics etc., and this often leads to discontinuous constituents. Adjectives generally precede nouns, but when functioning as predicates, they generally follow a noun. The older language shows a free choice between prepositional and postpositional usage of adverbs, but the later language generally moves in the direction of postpositional use.

The use of passive voice gradually increases in the Classical language, and the usage of passive participles, even where it is not warranted by the discourse-pragmatics, is taken as an indication of the influence of the ergativity in the substratum languages.

The syntax of the late Classical language is substantially influenced by that of the first language of its users, and features such as ergativity are reflected in the use of Sanskrit through changed frequencies of various forms.

The most remarkable feature of the Classical language is the compounds, especially their phenomenal length. Long compounds are used with great facility to present vistas of frozen descriptions, while the action in the narrative is handled by means of participles and verbs."

srini_pichumani · Post by **srini_pichumani** » 21 Aug 2006, 05:13

CML sir,

the caution about not messing with the Vedas, particularly in pronunciation/recitation, has to be interpreted with a lot of care.

While we definitely have to tip our hat and more to this bit of received wisdom, it seems that the "messing with" has been going on throughout the ages, be it in the loss of the Vedic accent or changes in accent, the influence of one recension on another, and the all-important influence of the vernaculars, etc.

This has been very well-documented by several scholars who have studied the different schools of Vedic recitation all over India.

-Srini.

cmlover · Post by **cmlover** » 21 Aug 2006, 06:28

Srini
I am well aware of that! Even within teachers there are variations! There has been an overkill on accent using 'indrashatrurvadasva..' But the shifting of word orders are uncommon except in regional Ghanam recitation. From what I have heard the variation is high in the sAman recitations.

vasya10 · Post by **vasya10** » 17 Mar 2007, 09:42

Russian seems to be amenable to jumbling quite a bit.

it is jumble-able to some extent. but unlike samskrita or tamil/kannada it doesnt have too many verb/noun inflexes. there are prepositions too, so its kind of a mix. whereas in samskrita, (tamil, kannada) the noun inflexes itself defines the vibhakti, in Russian, you still have to add a preposition along with the inflex. but the grammar itself has plenty of similarities with samskrita (smaller russian numerals are very similar to samskrita).

one thing i have wondered always is inspite of samskrita influencing dravidian languages, the numbers have not changed at all? for eg, all the 4 dravidian languages have similar numerals (ondru, ondu, okati; irandu iradu;.. .etc.. pattu, hattu, padi).. only at thousand we see kannada using sAvara (skt sahasra, tam Ayiram); But then the big numbers are pretty much same (laksha, koti) in all languages. i dont think we have any dravidian equivalent for it... or is there?

any one wondered what the historical reason could be ?

drshrikaanth · Post by **drshrikaanth** » 17 Mar 2007, 15:02

vasya10 wrote:one thing i have wondered always is inspite of samskrita influencing dravidian languages, the numbers have not changed at all?any one wondered what the historical reason could be ?

sanskrit "influencing" dravdian languages has been predominantly by lending countless words to express certain ideas/thoughts etc and in the way the brammar is described/categorzed. But the actual texture/foundations and the cement have largely remained untouched. The dravidian aspect of SI languages has remained intact. This is very likely the result of a longstanding literary tradition and the availability of script as well to an extent.

"number" form a fundamental part of a language vocabulary. They tend to remain unchanged despite many other changes. Even in the central/North dravidian languages whose vocabulary has been largely influenced/supplanted by neighbouring Indo-aryan/other languages, you will see at least a few numbers retaining their dravidian names for them.

sAvira, Ayiram are both derivatives of the sanskrit word sahasra(m) only.