Introduction

Now that we have built up a basic system, we can start to apply that system to the rest of the language. We will start with subantas, one of the two main word types in the Aṣṭādhyāyī.

sup is the name for a nominal ending, so a subanta is a word that ends in one of these endings. subantas include nouns and adjectives:

and perhaps more surprisingly, indeclinables:

In this section of lessons, we will focus on nouns and adjectives. Specifically, we will learn how to create prakriyās for the 24 standard forms of the stem rāma. At the end of this section, we will return to why indeclinables are considered subantas and how this decision makes sense within the Pāṇinian system.

How to derive a subanta

Roughly, we derive a subanta as follows. We start with some specific meaning that we want to express. For example, perhaps we want to express that Rama is acting as the subject of our sentence.

Based on the meaning we want to express, we choose a stem and an ending:

We then apply extra substitution rules as needed, although we don't need any here. Then we combine the stem and the ending and apply normal sandhi rules. The result is a complete Sanskrit word:

Choosing a stem is simple, and we already know how to apply sandhi rules. But what is more interesting here is how we decide which ending to choose. To choose an ending, we must understand how the Aṣṭādhyāyī models the meanings of different words. In the lessons to come, that is where we will focus our time and energy.

Nominals for beginners

Sanskrit nominals have two main parts: a stem and an ending. The stem carries the word's basic meaning, and the ending modifies that basic meaning to create a complete word.

Sanskrit nominals are highly expressive. They can express three different genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter) and three different numbers (singular, dual, plural). In Western terms, they also express eight different cases (nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, genitive, ablative, locative, vocative).

Sanskrit nouns generally use a single fixed gender. So for a masculine noun, we have 3 numbers × 8 cases = 24 different forms.