Participles in Sanskrit and other IE languages

Stephen Carlson
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Re: Participles in Sanskrit and other IE languages

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Well, I'm currently reading Eystein Dahl's Time, Tense and Aspect in Early Vedic Grammar: Exploring Inflectional Semantics in the Rigveda (BSIELL 5; Brill, 2010), but it is mainly to understand what kind of theoretical approach the Norwegian Dahl brings to the analysis, since I lack the background to evaluate his analysis of specific examples.. Sanskrit slices up the verbal tense-aspect space quite differently from Greek, so it seems like it will not have much of a direct bearing to understanding Greek. As far as his theoretical approach, he's in that long Vendler-Reichenbach-Dowty tradition that so many linguists have been employing for a while (i.e., Aktionsart classes plus the three time system for tense-aspect with a bunch of formal semantics to express it all).
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: Participles in Sanskrit and other IE languages

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen Carlson wrote: Oh, OK. I can't really discuss Sanskrit, knowing only so much as I indirectly get from my PIE reading. Latin has participles too and they use them quite a bit, sometimes in imitation of Greek style. The only problem with Latin is that only two participles are in common use, while Greek has so many more.
I'm not sure what you mean by only two participles in common use? Latin has a present active participle, but no present passive participle (and no participle at all for the present of the verb to be, esse); it has both a future active and a future passive participle (but the future passive as a true participle is rare, though the form is common in such usages as the passive periphrastic or the gerundive); and a perfect passive participle but no perfect active participle. The upshot is that one sees the participle used somewhat less than in Greek and a greater usage of relative and subordinate clauses to effect the same purpose. Do you have any specific examples of Latin authors using participles in imitation of Greek style?
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Participles in Sanskrit and other IE languages

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Unfortunately, most of my Latin reading lately has been ecclesiastical including the Vulgate, so I cannot recall the higher style Latin writers at the moment. Yes I was referring to the present active (amans) and perfect passive (amatus) particles, while Greek also has aorist active and present middle participles. In the Vulgate there is a tendency to keep the participles in the Greek source unless they can't be expressed directly as such, in which case a relative or subordinate clause is used instead. As you noted too. Without getting bogged down on the details, my point is that one can get a feel for participles with Latin making it less necessary to go to a more exotic language like Sanskrit.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Hughes
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Re: Participles in Sanskrit and other IE languages

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stephen Carlson wrote:Without getting bogged down on the details, my point is that one can get a feel for participles with Latin making it less necessary to go to a more exotic language like Sanskrit.
Fortunately for you, you can handle your Latin. I only took the one year of it at the RC seminary in Sydney, and I also had the privilage of chatting with the teacher in Latin on the ferry on the way back to the city.

While I understand that in the popular imagination res indica are usually exotic, for me looking at participles (or other points of grammar) in Sanskrit would be easier than in Latin.

The "big choice" I made in my BA was to take Modern Greek instead of Latin to study Greek rather than Classics. It further that end in a general way, I did, however, do just a Sanskrit as a course in the Indian Studies department (primarily designed for those who would go on to research in religious studies).
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Participles in Sanskrit and other IE languages

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen Carlson wrote:Unfortunately, most of my Latin reading lately has been ecclesiastical including the Vulgate, so I cannot recall the higher style Latin writers at the moment. Yes I was referring to the present active (amans) and perfect passive (amatus) particles, while Greek also has aorist active and present middle participles. In the Vulgate there is a tendency to keep the participles in the Greek source unless they can't be expressed directly as such, in which case a relative or subordinate clause is used instead. As you noted too. Without getting bogged down on the details, my point is that one can get a feel for participles with Latin making it less necessary to go to a more exotic language like Sanskrit.
Ok, so you were talking about translation literature, not Latin in general. Of course, you can find future participles in the Vulgate, and Jerome is known, with some occasional exceptions, of sticking to the syntax of the original even when it's not the most idiomatic Latin.

I could have taken Sanskrit in grad school (and a number of my classmates did so), but could never quite fit it into the schedule. Then I got married and left for seminary...
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
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