Summary – Section 6 (Facts 77 to 79)
In this section we discuss the syntax of our Mother Tongue
Fact 77 – Syntax deals with the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. We discuss the fact that Sanskrit generally follows a SOV (subject-object-verb) word order. The main features of Classical Sanskrit style are: The use of the past participle instead of the finite verb; use of the passive rather than active forms; heavy use of compounds; the use of locative absolutes; indeclinable participles instead of subordinate clauses; absence of indirect construction; not using the subjunctive mood; predominance of coordination; and the use of periphrastic verbal forms.
Ancient Sanskrit differed from Classical Sanskrit in that there was more use of the middle voice, fuller use of the tenses, moods, infinitives, inflected participles and genuine prepositions.
We also look at the theory of word order (SOV vs SVO etc.)
Fact 78 – In this fact we look in detail at the uses of the cases of Sanskrit.
Fact 79 – We look at an interesting aspect of Sanskrit called absolute construction. An absolute construction is one standing apart from a normal or usual syntactical relation with other words or sentence elements. It modifies an entire sentence and is not attached to a single element (like a noun–the subject or object) in the sentence.
In Sanskrit absolutes are normally of two types – genitive and locative. English also has absolute constructions but it is in the nominative case.
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Paramu Kurumathur 