Panini’s ancient riddle is finally solved… after 2500 years

A grammatical puzzle that has puzzled scholars since the 5th century BC. B.C. has finally been resolved.

dr Rishi Rajpopat, an Indian PhD student at Cambridge University, has deciphered a rule developed by the “father of linguistics” Pāṇini.

The rule is a fundamental part of an elaborate grammatical system created by Pāṇini, called the “speech engine,” to teach India’s sacred language, Sanskrit.

The efforts of Dr. Rajpopat, detailed in his doctoral thesis published today, now mean that Pāṇini’s language engine can be taught to computers for the first time.

Pāṇini’s elaborate grammatical system – 4,000 rules, detailed in his greatest work, the Aṣṭādhyāyī, believed to have been written around 500 BC. was written – is said to function like a machine

Pāṇini was a philologist, grammarian, and scholar of ancient India who lived sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries B.C.

His “language machine” is widely regarded as one of history’s great intellectual achievements.

It was described in detail in his revered work, the Aṣṭādhyāyī, probably written around 500 BC. was written.

“It’s a document and all it has are 4,000 very short rules,” said Dr. Rajpopat to MailOnline.

“Each rule is about three to four words on average. What these 4,000 rules do is help us derive every word from Sanskrit.

“These 4,000 rules essentially work together like a machine.”

dr Rajpopat refers to it as a conceptual machine rather than a physical machine.

The purpose of the language engine is “derivation” – the formation of a word by changing the shape of the base or by adding affixes (e.g. “hope” to “hopeful” or “combination” to “combination”).

To give an example in English, a user would take the base word “define” and the suffix “ation” and specify the resulting word to use – “definition”.

Thing is, when you combine a base word and an affix, there are sound differences that need to be accounted for, otherwise it would result in a nonsensical word like “define-ation” (pronounced def-ine-ey-shun).

dr Rishi Rajpopat (pictured) made the breakthrough by deciphering a rule taught by the “Father of Linguistics” Pāṇini

The 4,000 rules that make up Pāṇini’s system effectively help users create grammatically correct word forms.

Each rule has a serial number based on its order in the document – for example 7.3.103.

In the event that a user finds that two of these rules are applicable – a situation known as “rules conflict” – Pāṇini created a “Metarule” to help users decide which of the two rules to apply target.

dr Rajpopat calls Pāṇini’s meta-rule “1.4.2 vipratiṣedhe paraṁ kāryam”.

To date, for around 2,500 years, the meaning of this “metarule” has been frequently misinterpreted, leading to grammatically incorrect results.

“Unfortunately, the first scholar to comment on Pāṇini’s grammar, Katyayana, misunderstood this meta-rule,” said Dr. Rajpopat.

“He knew two possible interpretations of this rule and unfortunately chose the wrong one.

“Thereafter, all scholars who have written on Pāṇini’s grammar for the last 2,500 years have essentially continued with this incorrect interpretation.”

Pāṇini was a philologist, grammarian, and revered scholar of ancient India who lived sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries B.C. Pāṇini is believed to have lived in a region of present-day northwestern Pakistan and southeastern Afghanistan

The traditional but incorrect interpretation of rule 1.4.2 is that when there is a conflict between two rules, the rule with a higher order should be chosen or “wins” (e.g. 7.3.103 instead of 7.1.9).

“Of course, that gives us all sorts of ungrammatical forms if we’re supposed to stick to that interpretation,” said Dr. Rajpopat.

“I have reinterpreted this rule in such a way that in such an interaction between two rules in the same step, the rule applicable to the right-hand part of the word wins.

“That helped us figure out the algorithm that powers this machine, so if you now follow the correct interpretation of this rule, you will automatically get the correct answer.”

Contrary to scholars before him, Dr. Rajpopat one of the roughly 4,000 rules that make up the so-called “language machine”, right. Shown is his interpretation of the rule referred to when there is a ‘rules conflict’.

Over the past 2,500 years, scholars have painstakingly devised hundreds of other meta-rules to try to fix the system and make it work – even though the system wasn’t broken.

“They had to come up with all sorts of extra instructions to help the grammar reach the grammatically correct form,” said Dr. Rajpopat to MailOnline.

‘Pāṇini had an extraordinary mind and he built a machine unparalleled in human history. He didn’t expect us to add new ideas to his rules.

“The more we play around with Pāṇini’s grammar, the more it eludes us.”

The work of dr. Rajpopat means we have a “very elegant, simple, teachable” algorithm that runs Pāṇini’s grammar that could potentially be taught to computers.

Professor Vincenzo Vergiani, supervisor of Dr. Rajpopat at Cambridge, said: “This discovery will revolutionize the study of Sanskrit at a time when interest in the language is increasing.”

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