Sakatayana
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Sakatayana is an Indian grammarian earlier than the 8th c. BCE. His work is referred by scholars such as Yaska(around 7th c. BCE) and Panini (d. circa 460 BCE), as well as other Sanskrit grammarians, but is lost to us today.
One of his views which generated considerable controversy in the Indian tradition, and receives some support in modern etymology, is that most nominal roots are ultimately derived from actions. This refers to the origin of names of things, or nouns. For example, the noun origin derives etymologically from the Latin originalis, ultimately derived from the verb oriri, "to rise". An example of a morphological derivative might be the noun hitter - derived from the verb hit.
The controversial claim is that all nouns are ultimately derived from some verbal root. This process is reflected in the Sanskrit grammar as the system of krit-pratyayas or verbal affixes. It is possible that the debate is based on two interpretations of root -- as referring to the etymological root (as in origin), as opposed to the morphemic stem (morphological root, as in hitter). However, for many nouns (e.g. the English stem root), it is hard to defend even the etymological claim.
A modern interpretation of this claim is that cognitively, most nominal categories are based on behaviours rather than other attributes (e.g. an aeroplane may be made to have the shape of a bird), a point that is reinforced in most cognitive semantics approaches to the lexicon.
In his The word and the world, the philosopher Bimal Krishna Matilal refers to this debate (which lasted several centuries) as an
interesting philosophical discussion between the nairuktas or etymologists and the pāṇinīyas or grammarians. According to the etymologists, all nouns (substantives) are derived from some verbal root or the other. Yaska in his Nirukta refers to this view (in fact defends it) and ascribes it to an earlier scholar SākaTāyana. This would require that all words are to be analysable into atomic elements, 'roots' or 'bases' and 'affixes' or 'inflections' -- better known in Sanskrit as dhātu and pratyaya.... Yaska reported the view of Gārgya who opposed ShakaTAyana (both preceded Panini who mentions them by name) and held that not all substantival words or nouns (nAma) were to be derived from roots, for certain nominal stems were 'atomic'. (p. 8-9)
His text may have been called the Lakshaṇa Sāstra, in which he also describes the process of determining gender in animate and inanimate creation (Sanskrit is a strongly gender-inflected language).
Unfortunately, not much is known about Sakatayana's life, but it is likely that he lived in Gandhara, what is today the Pakistan-Afghanistan region.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Matilal, Bimal Krishna (1990/2001), The word and the world: India's contribution to the study of language, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-565512-5.
