Neural Network Model for Semantic Analysis of Sanskrit Text

Semantic analysis is the process of extracting meaning of the sentence, from a given language. From the perspective of computer processing, challenge lies in making computer understand the meaning of the given sentence. Understandability depends upon the grammar, syntactic and semantic representation of the language and methods employed for extracting these parameters. Semantics interpretation methods of natural language varies from language to language, as grammatical structure and morphological representation of one language may be different from another. One ancient Indian language, Sanskrit, has its own unique way of embedding syntactic information within words of relevance in a sentence. Sanskrit grammar is defined in 4000 rules by PaninI reveals the mechanism of adding suffixes to words according to its use in sentence. Through this article, a method of extracting meaningful information through suffixes and classifying the word into a defined semantic category is presented. The application of NN-based classification has improved the processing of text.

Interpretation, Indian theories of

Need for interpretation of texts was felt already during the ancient period of Vedic texts in India. Vedic texts were orally transmitted for over a thousand years. During this period, the change in locations of people reciting the texts and the mother tongues of the reciters led to a widening gap between the preserved sacred texts and their interpreters. Additionally, there was a notion that the sacred language was a mystery which was only partially understood by the common people. This led to the early development of exegetical tools to assist the interpretation of the sacred literature. Later, grammarians and etymologists developed sophisticated exegetical tools and theories of interpretation. These generally led to a deeper understanding of the structure of language. The priestly tradition developed its own canons of interpretation, which are manifest in the system of Mīmāṃsā. Here we have the first fully developed theory of discourse and context. The categories developed by Mīmāṃsā were used by other schools, especially by the school of Dharmaśāstra, or Hindu religious law. Both Mīmāṃsā and Dharmaśāstra created sets of hierarchical principles for authoritative guidance in interpretation. Other philosophical and religious traditions developed categories of their own to deal with problems of interpretation. A major problem was created when the literature accepted as authoritative by a tradition contained apparently contradictory passages. The traditions had to deal with this problem and find ways of explaining away those passages which did not quite fit with their own view of truth. For this purpose, a whole set of categories were employed. At a later period, several ingenious principles of interpretation were used for texts in general. Here, significant contributions were made by the traditions of Sanskrit grammar and poetics.

Meaning, Indian theories of

The term artha in Sanskrit is used for the notion of meaning, in the widest sense of the word ‘meaning’; it can be the meaning of words, sentences and scriptures, as well as of nonlinguistic gestures and signs. Its meaning ranges from a real object in the external world referred to by a word to a mere concept of an object which may or may not correspond to anything in the external world. The differences regarding what ‘meaning’ is are argued out by the philosophical schools of Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Mīmāṃsā, Buddhism, Sanskrit grammar and Sanskrit poetics. Among these, Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika and Mīmāṃsā have realistic ontologies. Mīmāṃsā focuses mainly on interpreting the Vedic scriptures. Buddhist thinkers generally depict language as giving a false picture of reality. Sanskrit grammar is more interested in language than in ontology, while Sanskrit poetics focuses on the poetic dimensions of meaning. Generally, the notion of meaning is stratified into three or four types. First there is the primary meaning. If this is inappropriate in a given context, then one moves to a secondary meaning, an extension of the primary meaning. Beyond this is the suggested meaning, which may or may not be the same as the meaning intended by the speaker. Specific conditions under which these different varieties are understood are discussed by the schools. The various Indian theories of meaning are closely related to the overall stances taken by the different schools. Among the factors which influence the notion of meaning are the ontological and epistemological views of a school, its views regarding the role of God and scripture, its focus on a certain type of discourse, and its ultimate purpose in theorizing.

Language, Indian theories of

Language is a much debated topic in Indian philosophy. There is a clear concern with it in the Vedic texts, where efforts are made to describe links between earthly and divine reality in terms of etymological links between words. The earliest surviving Sanskrit grammar, Pāṇini’s intricate Aṣṭādhyāyī(Eight Chapters), dates from about 350 bc, although arguably the first explicitly philosophical reflections on language that have survived are found in Patañjali’s ‘Great Commentary’ on Pāṇini’s work, the Mahābhāṣya (c.150 bc). Both these thinkers predate the classical systems of Indian philosophy. This is not true of the great fifth-century grammarian Bhartṛhari, however, who in his Vākyapadīya (Treatise on Sentences and Words) draws on these systems in developing his theory of the sphoṭa, a linguistic entity distinct from a word’s sounds that Bhartṛhari takes to convey its meaning. Among the issues debated by these philosophers (although not exclusively by them, and not exclusively with reference to Sanskrit) were what can be described as (i) the search for minimal meaningful units, and (ii) the ontological status of composite linguistic units. With some approximation, the first of these two issues attracted more attention during the early period of linguistic reflection, whereas the subsequent period emphasized the second one.

Mack the Knife and Knife-Black Dorothy Appositional Metaphoric Compounds: A Comparison and Contrast of the Varying Approaches in Sanskrit Treatises on Grammar and Poetics

The present article focuses on appositional metaphoric compounds karmadhāraya-rūpaka in Sanskrit. A first section addresses some problems of compound typology in Western works, where appositional compounds have often been identified as copulative dvandva. Following this general analysis there is a section on appositional compounds from the perspective of the classical Sanskrit grammar, in particular the Pāṇinian tradition where the metaphorical aspect has not been explored specifically. The final section deals with the contribution of Sanskrit treatises on poetics to the identification of metaphoric compounds and their differentiation from compound similes. The approach suggested in later texts on poetics seems to be based on syntactical criteria, the ambiguity of the double-head topic, i. e. candra-mukha, a moon-face being specified in the comment. According to this, an appositional compound should be analysed as a simile, if the comment refers to the actual part of the compound, i.e. the subject of the simile, or as a metaphor, if the comment refers to the standard of comparison, thus shifting the focus of the sentence from the actual to the imagined entity.

Linguistics in Premodern India

Indian linguistic thought begins around the 8th–6th centuries bce with the composition of Padapāṭhas (word-for-word recitation of Vedic texts where phonological rules generally are not applied). It took various forms over these 26 centuries and involved different languages (Ancient, Middle, and Modern Indo-Aryan as well as Dravidian languages). The greater part of documented thought is related to Sanskrit (Ancient Indo-Aryan). Very early, the oral transmission of sacred texts—the Vedas, composed in Vedic Sanskrit—made it necessary to develop techniques based on a subtle analysis of language. The Vedas also—but presumably later—gave birth to bodies of knowledge dealing with language, which are traditionally called Vedāṅgas: phonetics (śikṣā), metrics (chandas), grammar (vyākaraṇa), and semantic explanation (nirvacana, nirukta). Later on, Vedic exegesis (mīmāṃsā), new dialectics (navya-nyāya), lexicography, and poetics (alaṃkāra) also contributed to linguistic thought. Though languages other than Sanskrit were described in premodern India, the grammatical description of Sanskrit—given in Sanskrit—dominated and influenced them more or less strongly. Sanskrit grammar (vyākaraṇa) has a long history marked by several major steps (Padapāṭha versions of Vedic texts, Aṣṭādhyāyī of Pāṇini, Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali, Bhartṛhari’s works, Siddhāntakaumudī of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita, Nāgeśa’s works), and the main topics it addresses (minimal meaning-bearer units, classes of words, relation between word and meaning/referent, the primary meaning/referent of nouns) are still central issues for contemporary linguistics.