Pāṇinian Grammar: Part 10 - The Light Before Heavy Principle
Where Should the Head Be
Now which is a better way of communicating - telling the head first and then its modifiers (head initial)? - or telling the head last after describing it completely using the modifiers (head final)? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a head-initial versus head-final communication at least for a noun-adjective case? Think about it for a minute yourself before reading further.
Turns out head-initial constructions where the main matter HEAD comes first and then the MODIFIER, are easier on the mind to understand. Consider the simple phrase that we started with - “the beautiful house” - a head final construction. Syntactically it is not an efficient way to understand and parse because when you hear the words theand beautiful, there is a brief moment of tension wherein you dunno what the heck is being talked about. This tension is released only after the head word ”house” is obtained. The moment you understand that it is a “house”, you have to go back for a few milliseconds, and connect the descriptions “the” and “beautiful” to the house to get a complete mental picture of a beautiful house. So, in a head-final construction, you cannot gradually build up your understanding. Initially all the information that you get are about the modifiers that are hanging in the air. But the moment you get the HEAD, you have to go back and connect the MODIFIERs to the HEAD and you get the complete picture. So, in head-final constructions, understanding is not gradually built up but it is built all of a sudden after the HEAD is obtained finally and then by remembering the MODIFIERs and relating them to the HEAD. So, in a head-final construction, the modifiers that come initially are hanging in the air, waiting for the main HEAD to come. But imagine a head-final construction in a language like Basque where the first information that we get is the word “house” that is the HEAD. Now, immediately we can create a mental picture and understanding of a house. Then as the modifier words “the” and “beautiful” enter your head, you gradually refine your mental picture and understanding of the house (HEAD). So, in a head-initial construction, understanding is built gradually without any accumulation or suspense. So they are easier on the head for comprehension. Head-final constructions resemble a magic trick. This is because they keep the reader or the listener in suspense by only revealing at the end of the sentence what it is that’s being discussed about! So, head-final constructions are difficult to comprehend but have an advantage in vivid storytelling by enabling the story-writer to keep the reader in suspense and only revealing finally to the reader what has happened.
So, we see that head-final constructions are heavier on the head but are good for vivid storytelling but head-initial constructions while being light on the head are not good for suspensive narration. Let us now witness this by reading a typical sentence in Tamil, Sanskrit, Hindi and English and see how the head positioning in relative clauses, affects comprehension.
Consider the following sentence in English:
This article, which I, a student of Sanskrit in Chennai, have written about Panini, who was a genius who lived in ancient India, seems to be getting off to a slow start.
In this English sentence, every time more information is added about something, it comes after that something. So, information is gradually built up. But in Tamil, the word order will be almost reverse of that of English because the small small extra bits come first and finally only, the main noun. I now give the above sentence in Tamil in both Tamil and Roman transliteration and a literal word-by-word translation. TAMIL SENTENCE:
பண்டைய இந்தியாவில் வாழ்ந்த மேதையான பாணினியைப் பற்றி சென்னையில் சமஸ்கிருத மாணவனாகிய நான் எழுதிய இந்தக் கட்டுரை மெதுவாகத் தொடங்குவதாகத் தெரிகிறது. Paṇṭaiya intiyāvil vāḻnta mētaiyāṉa pāṇiṉiyaip paṟṟi ceṉṉaiyil camaskiruta māṇavaṉākiya nāṉ eḻutiya intak kaṭṭurai metuvākat toṭaṅkuvatākat terikiṟatu.
WORD-BY-WORD TRANSLATION OF THE TAMIL SENTENCE:
Ancient in-India lived genius Panini about in-Chennai Sanskrit student I have-written this article slowly starting looks-like-it.
TRANSLATION:
This article, which I, a student of Sanskrit in Chennai, have written about Panini, who was a genius who lived in ancient India, seems to be getting off to a slow start.
Except for the predicate, the relative clauses in the subject for Tamil are exactly reversed as that of English.
- ENGLISH ORDER OF SUBJECT: This article, which I, a student of Sanskrit in Chennai, have written about Panini, who was a genius who lived in ancient India
- TAMIL ORDER OF SUBJECT: Ancient in-India lived genius Panini about in-Chennai Sanskrit student I have-written this article slowly starting looks-like-it.
Let us now see this sentence in Sanskrit!
SANSKRIT SENTENCE:
प्राचीन-भारते उषितवतः प्रतिभाशालिनः पाणिनेः विषये मया चेन्नैनगर-संस्कृत-छात्रेण लिखितः अयं लेखः मन्दप्रारम्भं कुर्वन् इव दृश्यते।
WORD-BY-WORD TRANSLATION OF THE SANSKRIT SENTENCE:
in-Ancient-India lived genius Panini about by-me Chennai-Sanskrit-student written this article slowly starting looks-like-it.
Note how exactly the Tamil word order almost mirrors the Sanskrit one. But Hindi deviates considerably and is close to English. HINDI SENTENCE:
यह लेख, जो मैं, चेन्नई में संस्कृत का एक छात्र, ने पाणिनि के बारे में लिखा है, जो प्राचीन भारत में रहने वाले एक प्रतिभाशाली व्यक्ति थे, धीमी गति से शुरू हो रहा है।
WORD-BY-WORD TRANSLATION OF THE HINDI SENTENCE:
This article, which I, Chennai in Sanskrit ‘s a student, Panini ‘s about wrote, who ancient India in living a genius person was, slow state with start has.
So, Hindi follows the English more closely than Sanskrit for relative clause syntax and in general for head and modifier ordering!
Now, let us go back to the two sentences presented in the beginning of this article.
The view that beating a third-rate Serbian military that for the third time in a decade is brutally targeting civilians is hardly worth the effort is not based on a lack of understanding of what is occurring on the ground.
It’s not a lack of understanding of what is occurring on the ground that creates the view that it’s hardly worth the effort to beat a third-rate Serbian military that is brutally targeting civilians for the third time in a decade.
The reason why the first sentence is difficult to comprehend whereas the second sentence is easy is because the first involves a large number of nested head-final constructions.
One of the reasons why Sanskrit literature is difficult to translate is excessive usage of head finals especially through compound words to create vivid effects. For example, SANSKRIT PHRASE:अज्ञाप-रोग-पीडित-धनिकः LITERAL TRANSLATION: Unknown-disease-stricken-richman.
On reading the first word, you don’t get anything. What is unknown here? On reading the second word, you think the phrase is about an unknown disease. But upon seeing the next word, you realise that it talks about pain and suffering and only the last word breaks the suspense that it is about a rich man. Now that you know that the subject is a rich man, you go backwards and figure out that the rich man is suffering due to an unknown disease. But the head-initial English construction “The man stricken by an unknown disease” sounds straightforward and plain. First, you have a solid idea that the subject is a man. Then you know that he is suffering. Then, you get that he is suffering from an unknown disease (a rare instance where head final construction is followed in English where the noun comes later after the adjective that modifies it).
This principle in linguistics where head-initial constructions are easier for cognition is called the “light-before-heavy” principle. This is because, in a head-final construction, you are holding a heavy MODIFIER together for a long time at once, waiting for the single HEAD (lighter one) to finally come. But in a head-initial construction, you are introduced to the short HEAD first and gradually build up the load of its modifiers.
Panini and Light-Before-Heavy
This light-before-heavy principle is also important in mere listing of items. For example, why do we say “bread and butter” not not “butter and bread”? Look at the following lists
- bread and butter (not: butter and bread!)
- Tom, Dick and Harry (not: Harry, Dick and Tom!)
- light and darkness (not: darkness and light)
- Tit for Tat (not: tat for tit)
There are many rules governing the ordering of the constituents in a list. Such lists are common in Sanskrit too and are called by the name of dvandva samāsa. It turns out that in such listings too, the light before heavy rule applies. Items with lower number of syllables appear first!! That is why it is “bread” (one syllabled word) and then butter (two syllabled word)! Words with lesser number of syllables (light) come before ones with higher number of syllables (heavy). What if two words are of equal syllable numbers? Then refer this paper to decide1. You will then get why we say “Hari-hara” and not “Hara-Hari”! This principle of light-before-heavy was discovered by none other than Panini himself. To quote eminent language psychologist Steven Pinker from his book “The Sense of Style”: ( I highly recommend all books by Steven Pinker - my most favourite author in linguistics)
“Human comprehension demands topic before comment and given before new…The Scottish prayer asks the Lord to deliver us from “ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night”—not from “things that go bump in the night and long-leggedy beasties and ghoulies and ghosties.” The order fits with our cognitive processes: it’s taxing to work on a big heavy phrase (things that go bump in the night) while you are holding in memory an incomplete bigger phrase it’s part of (in this case, the four-part coordination embracing things, beasties, ghoulies, and ghosties). A big heavy phrase is easier to handle if it comes at the end, when your work assembling the overarching phrase is done and nothing else is on your mind. (It’s another version of the advice to prefer right-branching trees over left-branching and centre-embedded ones.) Light-before-heavy is one of the oldest principles in linguistics, having been discovered in the fourth century BCE by the Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini It often guides the intuitions of writers when they have to choose an order for items in a list, as in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; The Wild, The Innocent, and The E Street Shuffle; and Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Topic, then comment. Given, then new”.
In fact, in linguistics, this is called Panini’s law.
Panini mentions this in Astadhyayi 2.2.34 - अल्पाच्तरम् . S.K.Vasu’s commentary reads “In a द्वन्द्व compound, that word-form which has fewer vowels, is to be placed first. Thus प्लक्ष +न्यग्रीध = प्लक्षन्यग्रोधौ ; and धबखदिरपलाशाः”!
I sincerely hope that you have enjoyed this series of articles and got a spark. What I have provided is just a small drop in the ocean of Paninian grammar and I urge you to explore this vast treasure trove of knowledge.
Footnotes
- World Order by William Cooper and Haj Ross
Authored by Rama Seshan Chandra Sekaran. Published by Brhat.