"Sanskrit students are like delicate houseplants"

[icarus]

My Sanskrit teacher is the sweetest person in the world. I told her how frustrated I was, emailed her my questions, and she found time in her busy schedule. As we left Sanskrit class she told me, "Based on your questions I think this is fairly simple."

In our meeting she said, "The problem's with the textbook."

She explains. The textbook uses some indeclinable examples in the section where it decribes the declinable relative/correlative, and declinable examples where it describes the indeclinable relative/correlative. Then the section on declinable relative/correlative begins in the middle of the discussion of the indeclinable, stops, goes back to a discussion of the indeclinables, then returns to the declinables.

She says, "I'd hate to have to write a textbook, you have to make choices," and this textbook is so much better for beginning student than many others, which were written in 1800s, "but this chapter is problematic. I mentioned this in class."

So I explained it to wildernessguru last night (I figure if I can explain it to the guy who has no interest in foreign language, then I've got it down).

There are relative and correlative clauses. Some don't point to a specific. 'When I went to the store, then I bought some milk.' The 'when' doesn't point to anything specific. That's an indeclinable -- "yadaa/tadaa." So that would be:

'When I went to the store, then I bought some milk.'
'Yadaa I went to the store, tadaa I bought some milk.'

Some relative/correlatives point to a specific person or a place etc. Those are declinable. Let's use Monte kitty as an example:

'Which cat snuggled under the covers?'
'The one, Monte, is the cat who snuggled under the covers.'

(Sorry about the awkward construction. I'm keeping it close to Sanskrit. In English we omit a lot of the correlatives.)

That's where I was confused. I didn't realize that there was a difference between the relative clause that points to a specific who, what, or which, and a relative clause that's just general, "when I went to the store..."

---

A little fun with declinable relative pronouns, if you're curious how this works.

If we're talking about Monte kitty, well, he's a he, right? So in Sanskrit we have a different word if the subject is a he or she. Since Monte is a boy it would be "yaha/saha":

'Which cat snuggled under the covers?'
'The one, Monte, is the cat who snuggled under the covers.'
'Saha, Monte-ha, is the cat yaha snuggled under the covers.'

(If Monte were female it would be "yaa/taa." You were going to ask, weren't you? ;)

Let's bear in mind that Sanskrit almost always has the relative clause first. So this would really be: "Yaha snuggled under the covers saha Monte is the cat."

In Sanskrit we have a different ending depending on whether Monte is the subject or if something is given to Monte (for example) and he's the object. The version above Monte is the subject, "yaha/saha." If Monte were the object, it would be "yam/tam."

Quick refresher on the endings I described weeks ago.
Monte the subject would be: Monte-ha
Monte the object would be: Monte-m

'Which cat did wildernessguru give a treat to?'
'wildernessguru gave a treat to the cat, who is Monte.'
'Yam wildernessguru-ha gave a treat to the cat-m, saha is Monte-ha.'

Wait, wait, you say. Shouldn't that be "yam/tam"? "Yam wildernessguru-ha gave a treat to the cat-m, tam is Monte-m"? Well, you have to splite the sentence into pieces.

'wildernessguru gave a treat to the cat...'

What's the subject of that sentence? The cat? Or wildernessguru? WG, of course. Cat is the object, right?

'...who/the one is Monte.'

What's the subject of that sentence? "The one/who" is the subject. Who does the "the one/who" refer to? Monte.

Now. The entire sentence, 'wildernessguru gave a treat to the cat, who is Monte' -- is it about wildernessguru, or is it about Monte? That's right. Even though Monte's the object of the first part of the sentence, he's the star. So:

'Yam [points to the star of the sentence and tells us the star is the object in this half] wildernessguru-ha gave a treat to the cat-m, saha [points to the star of the sentence and tells us the star is the subject in this half] is Monte-ha.'

Is that cluttered enough for you? :D

It's a two-step process to translate.

1 - As soon as you see the "ya/ta" (or "ya/sa") relative/correlative combo, you divvie up the sentence. The "ya" and the "ta" are going to refer to the same thing.

2 - Then you check out the ending to your "ya" and that'll point to the star in that clause, and check out the ending to your "ta" which'll point to the star in that clause. Monte could be mentioned in both, but, well, that would be a little redundant even for Sanskrit. He'll probably only be mentioned in the first part.

Sometimes he won't be mentioned at all. You'll just get the "ya" and "ta." What do you do then? Oh, that's our good friend context. You can probably figure it out from the earlier sentences.

Now I can't wait to do my homework.