Part 5 - Exercise 4 Answers and Lesson #5
Play the audio and follow along.
Use the 'play time' buttons within the text to navigate the audio.
Start here:
Exercise 4 - Answers
Translate into English
Click the Pali to reveal/hide the answers in English or use the buttons:
(Once upon a time there was a king called Disampati. The prince who was a son was named Reṇu. There was a Brahmin called Govinda who was prime minister. The boy called Jotipāla was the son. Reṇu the prince and Jotipāla the boy were friends. Govinda the Brahmin died. King Disampati grieved.)
(Thus it was then)
Translate into Pali
Click the English to reveal/hide the answers in Pali or use the buttons:
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | upasaṃkami “he approached” | upasaṃkamiṃsu |
| 2nd person | upasaṃkami | upasaṃkamittha |
| 1st person | upasaṃkamiṃ | upasaṃkamimhā (or –imha) |
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | desesi “he taught” | desesuṃ |
| 2nd person | desesi | desittha |
| 1st person | desesiṃ | desimha |
or use kumāro for prince
(khattiyā rājaputtaṃ upasaṃkamiṃsu)
Lesson 5
Pronouns: Personal and Demonstrative
The personal pronouns are inflected as follows:
First Person
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | ahaṃ "I" | mayaṃ "we" |
| accusative | maṃ "me" | amhe "us" |
Second Person
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | tvaṃ "thou", "you" | tumhe "you" |
| accusative | taṃ (or tvaṃ) "thee", "you" |
Third Person
| singular | plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | feminine | masculine | feminine | |
| nominative | so (sometimes sa) "he" | sā "she" | te | tā |
| accusative | taṃ "him" | taṃ "her" |
||
Although the person is expressed by the inflection of the verb, the pronouns of the first and second persons are frequently used, giving a slight emphasis to the subject. The third person pronoun is less often used in this way.
The third personal pronoun is used also as a demonstrative, meaning "that", "it", in three genders.
It is generally used as what is known as an "anaphoric " pronoun, that is to say it refers back to someone or something previously mentioned in a narrative.
As opposed to the use in conversation and other direct speech of "pronouns of presence" referring to someone or something present ("this man", "that jar"), these pronouns are called "pronouns of absence" because it is most often used to speak of someone or something in a story and therefore not present to the listeners.
It may serve to connect the sentences of a narrative into a continuous paragraph or longer section. It is used also as an emphatic pronoun (in combination with another pronoun or occasionally with 1st person, for example in the expression so 'haṃ "I" (literally "that I").
In combination with a noun it is again emphatic and may sometimes be translated "the". The masculine and feminine demonstrative pronouns are as above, the neuter inflections are:
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| nominative and accusative | taṃ or tad | tāni |
Another form of the demonstrative pronoun is used to denote a present object or person, corresponding roughly to the English "he", "she", "it", and "this". It may be called a "deictic" pronoun, pointing to someone or something present to the hearers in direct speech.
The inflections are the same, with the prefix e:
| singular | plural | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | feminine | neuter | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
| nominative | eso (sometimes esa) | esā | etaṃ or etad | ete | etā | etāni |
| accusative | etaṃ | etaṃ | ||||
Another demonstrative pronoun, also "deictic" or "present" and translatable "he", "she", "it", or "this" and so hardly distinguishable in meaning from eta, is inflected as follows:
| singular | plural | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | feminine | neuter | masculine | feminine | neuter | |
| nominative | ayaṃ | idaṃ | ime | imā | imāni | |
| accusative | imaṃ | |||||
There being no "definite article" in Pali the demonstrative pronouns are sometimes used where English would use the definite article, and may sometimes be translated "the" rather than "he", "that", "this", etc.
Demonstrative pronouns must agree in number and gender (and case) with the nouns to which they refer.
The Verb 'as'
The verb as, "to be", asserts with emphasis the existence of something or somebody. (hoti is not emphatic).
The verb atthi is very irregular; the present tense is as follows:
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | atthi | santi |
| 2nd person | asi | attha |
| 1st person | asmi or amhi | amha (sometimes amhā) |
Negation
There are two main negative indeclinables, na and ma. The first is the usual negative "not", placed in front of the word or phrase negated, or at the beginning of a negative sentence:
tvaṃ na passasi - "you do not see"
The vowel of na is often elided when the word following it begins with a vowel
n' atthi - "it is not", "it doesn't exist"
The second negative is used for prohibitions or negative injunctions or wishes, usually with the second person of the aorist tense, which loses its time reference and applies to the present or future.
mā paridevesi - "don't grieve"
More rarely mā appears, sometimes with the particle eva, or h’ eva1, with the third person of the verb:
mā h'eva rājā kālam akāsi - "may the king not die"
(mā h'eva means "don't" or simply "not").
1 h' is the emphatic particle ha, " indeed," with elision of its vowel before another vowel
mā with the third person appears regularly in polite address.
A double negation is equivalent to a strong affirmation:
mā h'eva kho kumāro na rajjaṃ kāresi - "don't let the prince not rule (kāresi: aor. 3 sg.) the kingdom (rajjaṃ)"
i.e. let him rule, he must rule.
Aorist of vac
The aorist of the verb vac, to say, is very irregular:
singular | plural |
|
|---|---|---|
| 3rd person | avoca - "he said" | avocuṃ |
| 2nd person | avoca (also avaca) | avocuttha (also avacuttha) |
| 1st person | avocaṃ | avocumha (or-umhā) |
Vocative Case
The vocative case, or "nominative of address", of masculine nouns in a has in the singular merely the uninflected stem: deva, “O king." The plural is the same as the nominative plural. The vocative is used "enclitically", i.e. it does not stand at the beginning of a sentence.
Vocabulary
Verb of the first conjugation:
stem | verb | meaning |
|---|---|---|
| apa-i | apeti | he goes from, he goes away (poetic) |
Indeclinables:
indeclinable | meaning |
|---|---|
| tuṇhī | silent, silently |
| tena | this way, that way |
| pi | also, too (like ca this follows the word, or the first word of the phrase, connected by it) |
| ha | indeed |
Masculine nouns in a:
noun | meaning |
|---|---|
| issaro | lord, god |
| nirodho | cessation (of unhappiness and of perception, sensation and mental states), |
| paribbājako | wanderer |
| mahārājā | great king, king (nom. sg. as rājan-, but rest follows a declension on stem -rāja-, e.g.: acc. mahārājaṃ. The nom. pl. may be written either ~ā or ~āno) |
Reṇu rājaputto rājanaṃ Disampatiṃ etad avoca. mā kho tvaṃ deva paridevesi. atthi deva Jotipālo nāma māṇavo putto ti. atha kho rājā Disampati purisaṃ āmantesi.
ahaṃ ime dhamme desesiṃ
rājā khattiyo taṃ purisaṃ etad avoca
mā samaṇaṃ upasaṃkami
ahaṃ purohito brāhmaṇo ahosiṃ
ahaṃ asmi brahmā issaro
idaṃ avoca bhagavā1
te rajāputtaṃ avocuṃ
mā saddam akattha
so nirodhaṃ phusati
samaṇā amha
na taṃ deva vañcemi
eso mahārāja bhagavā
mayaṃ bhagavantaṃ upasaṃkamimhā
atthi kāyo
upeti pi apeti pi
evam2 etaṃ brāhmaṇa
1 Rhetorical and emotive inversion of agent and verb, for emphasis. In their context these words follow the utterance of an important statement.
2 ṃ may change to m when a vowel follows in close junction.
Translate into Pali
The wanderer said this to the fortunate one
Those wanderers were silent
I teach the doctrine
I am a priest
This king is a human being, I too am a human being
I love her
Don't go in (sing., use two words only)
We said to that fortunate one
Don't grieve (plur.)
He goes forth (use pronoun)
Then (add kho) Mahāgovinda the priest towards those nobles approached that way
He said this to those nobles
They ask me the meaning
He said this to us
She said this to me
I teach this doctrine
This (is) cessation (use idaṃ-)
You are (emphatically) priests, O Vāseṭṭhas
(word order: pronoun, kho, verb, vocative …)