Part 4 - Exercise 3 Answers and Lesson #4
Play the audio and follow along.
Use the 'play time' buttons within the text to navigate the audio.
Start here:
Exercise 3 - Answers
Translate into English
Click the Pali to reveal/hide the answers in English or use the buttons:
Translate into Pali
Click the English to reveal/hide the answers in Pali or use the buttons:
Lesson 4
Past (Aorist) Tense
The usual past tense, which is called the "aorist" (ajjatanī) tense, is generally formed directly from the root (more rarely from the present stem) by adding special inflections. Sometimes the vowel a is prefixed to the root as an indication of past time, though the difference of inflections avoids ambiguity in most cases.
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | upasaṃkami “he approached” | upasaṃkamiṃsu |
| 2nd person | upasaṃkami | upasaṃkamittha |
| 1st person | upasaṃkamiṃ | upasaṃkamimhā (or –imha) |
compare to present tense table from page 10 ...
3rd person (paṭhamapurisa)
"he", "it", "she", "they"
bhavati
"he is"bhavanti
2nd person (majjhimapurisa)
"you"bhavasi bhavatha
1st person (uttamapurisa)
"I" ,"we"bhavāmi bhavāma
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | desesi “he taught” | desesuṃ |
| 2nd person | desesi | desittha |
| 1st person | desesiṃ | desimha |
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | akāsi “he made” | akaṃsu |
| 2nd person | akāsi | akattha |
| 1st person | akāsiṃ | akamha |
Verbs
stem | verb | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| as (to be) | āsi | he was, it was |
| (p)pa-(k)kam | pakkāmi | he went away |
| (j)jhe | jhāyi | he meditated |
| pucch | pucchi | he asked |
| bandh | bandhi | he bound |
| bhās | abhāsi | he said |
| (p)pa-(v)vaj | pabbaji | he went forth |
| (p)pa-vis | pāvisi | he entered, he went |
| ni-sīd | nisīdi | he sat down |
Verbs
stem | verb | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| kath | kathesi | he related, he told |
| dev (to lament) (with the prefix pari, meaning "round", "around") | paridevesi | he lamented, he grieved |
| āmant | āmantesi | he addressed |
see also desesi table from page 25 ...
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | desesi “he taught” | desesuṃ |
| 2nd person | desesi | desittha |
| 1st person | desesiṃ | desimha |
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | akāsi “he made” | akaṃsu |
| 2nd person | akāsi | akattha |
| 1st person | akāsiṃ | akamha |
Verbs
stem | verb | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| (ṭ)ṭhā | aṭṭhāsi | he stood, he remained |
| dā | adāsi | he gave |
| (p)pa-hā | pahāsi | he renounced |
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | ahosi “he was” “there was” | ahesuṃ |
| 2nd person | ahosi | ahuvattha |
| 1st person | ahosiṃ | ahumha |
The aorist is used for all kinds of past actions, including besides the "historical" or "narrative" past particularly the (present-) perfect: desesiṃ = "I have taught".
The second and first persons plural are not often found in the Pali texts. The third person is extremely common, both singular and plural.
Agreement of Verb and Agent
When a verb has two or more agents it usually agrees with the sum of the agents and is plural;
more rarely it may agree with the nearest agent only or with the agents taken as a collective, being singular.
If the persons conflict, the second takes precedence over the third and the first over both.
Vocabulary
Some indeclinables (nipāta):
indeclinable | meaning |
|---|---|
| atha | then (atha kho combined mean "then", moreover", "rather") |
| ettha | here |
| kho | indeed (slight emphasis) |
| ca | and (always follows the word it connects, or the first word of a phrase it connects called therefore an "enclitic" or "postpositive". Very often repeated after each connected word) |
| tadā | then |
| nāma | by name (used after the name) (sometimes merely emphatic, "indeed") |
| bhūtapubbaṃ | formerly, once upon a time |
| sace | if |
Masculine nouns in a:
noun | meaning |
|---|---|
| kumāro | boy, prince |
| purohito | high priest, (approx.) prime minister (the priest who is chief adviser to the king, "instructing": anu-sās, him in both secular matters and religious duties) |
| māṇavo | boy, young priest |
| rājaputto | prince |
| sahāyo | friend |
upāsakā nisīdiṃsu
bhūtapubbaṃ rājā Disampati nāma ahosi. Reṇu nāma kumāro putto ahosi. Govindo nāma brāhmaṇo purohito ahosi. Jotipālo nāma māṇavo putto ahosi. Reṇu ca rājaputto Jotipālo ca māṇavo sahāyā ahesuṃ. atha kho Govindo brāhmaṇo kālam akāsi.1 rājā Disampati paridevesi.
evaṃ tadā āsi
1 This idiom "made his time" means "he died".
Translate into Pali
The priest went away
The fortunate one entered the village
The son was called Uttara
The fortunate one addressed Ānanda2
I have taught the doctrine
The nobles approached the prince
I spoke thus
The prince went forth
2A famous disciple of the Buddha, his personal attendant and "dragon" (for keeping time-wasters at bay).