Sanskrit passive tense

[icarus]

Buried and confused: nowhere does it tell us how to form the past imperfect passive tense on the very irregular "to make." Of course, like all irregular verbs, it's used all the time.

*guesses wildly*

Hmm. What I just wrote, my unique version of "was made" looks very illegal.

How the hell am I going to do all this? I'm taking second quarter Sanskrit with a less structured teacher than last quarter (he's not bad, just not the crack-the-whip, step-by-step type) alongside two graduate courses.

Thank god for snow. It's beautiful outside with a crystal white dusting like icing everywhere. And a pink sky over silver blue mountains. wildernessguru's home, happy to not be kicking around work with nothing to do in this cold. "The cold's not bad when you're working, but when there's nothing to do...."

He's cuddled under the blankets, oblivious to Monte kitty bouncing after his fuzzy ball.

Back to Sanskritsanskritsanskrit... only eight more to do. Let's look at it that way.


ETA: Kitty's sproing-sproing-Pounce woke WG up. "Is that Monte?" Now the mountains are pink. Those roads look icy, don't they?

Comments

[sarka.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't you just love it when the textbook forgets to put in irregular things. I actually once had a textbook explain that the imperative of the word brát (Czech for "to take") was particularly interesting and difficult, and then not include the example.

Good luck!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Gah. This is what class is for, of course, but I've learned this week that (unlike our other teacher) if we show up for class without having done the homework he puts us on the spot and makes us "wing it" in the translation. In front of the entire class.

Icarus

[sarka.livejournal.com]

Oh, now that's just mean.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

He doesn't have a nasty edge to it. I get the impression that he had a traditional Indian teacher, and that is how they do it. But I'm *hiding* until I get caught up.

And it snowed last night.

Praise the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas for such a pristine, lovely, and perfect excuse.

[sarka.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can imagine that stuttering in front of the entire class is not fun. (Actually, I know, since I did just that this morning, when called on in Theories of Philosophy.)

It's snowing here right now. There is nothing so lovely as late-afternoon dusk, an absolute stillness of air and those white crystals falling from the sky. It's gorgeous out there - though also, very, very cold and I'm pretty glad I'm in here right now.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Mmmm... afternoon snow. I think Seattle's snow might just melt off by afternoon.

Oh, I'd better email my professor.

[florahart]

He's cuddled under the blankets, oblivious to Monte kitty bouncing after his fuzzy ball.

I would just like to tell you that I initially interpreted the "his" before "fuzzy to refer to he=WG. And was all, dude, he's oblivious to... oh. Right. The cat's fuzzy ball. Um.

:D

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, ow, ha! That would be very, um, resilient of him.

[blackletter]

This is just a wild theory...but could the passive be a different verb? (I know it is in Latin. "Facio" for the active and "fieri" for the passive. So if a student tries to look up the passive of "facio", they won't get very far. Damn irregular verbs...)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Good theory, but no, it's the same verb. We're shown how to do the passive present tense:

Step one - add ya
Step two - add the passive ending

So, to make is kri, which in active third person present is karoti. The passive ending for the third person is "te."

Step one - kri-ya

Gotta love those exceptions. Here the vocalic "r" is turned into an "i," to make kri. The spelling difference between this kri and the root kri doesn't come across in English romanization, naturally.

The present becomes karo because all the present verbs have "ganas" in ten fantastic flavors. This is an 8th "gana" verb, which gets an "u" added before you take on the endings. In a fun uniquely Sanskrit-y twist, the Sandhi changes the "u" to an "o" -- voila, kri becomes karoti.

By comparison the passive is simple. No ganas, hallelujah, you just --

Step two - kri-ya-te

-- take on the ending after the ya.

Here's the tricky part. To make a past tense (called imperfect in Sanskrit, but not the same as imperfect in the English sense, Sanskrit doesn't have that refinement of tenses) you do this:

Step one - add "ah" to the beginning
Step two - append the past tense ending

Oh. Duh. I just answered my own bloody question. I need to add the passive past tense endings, not double up the endings like I'm doing.

Thank you. You have no idea how helpful you are in making me think this through.

Icarus

[harveywallbang.livejournal.com]

i want snow.....

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I'll mail you a snowball? It's beautiful, but damn cold.

Icarus