Abstract

• In most languages of the world, the sequence of words that appears in sentences has to conform to a fixed pattern as a basic grammatical requirement. This happens to be the case especially in noninflectional languages. Therefore, the leading linguists of the world, especially those in Europe and the U.S., regard the sequence of words in sentences as one of the most important principles of grammar in their theories. In a highly inflectional language like Pāḷi, however, the grammar is so precise and systematic that the notion of the correct sequence of words is negligible to a great extent. In Pāḷi, all lexical units that appear in sentences, except the indeclinable, have to be in appropriate grammatical agreements in terms of number, gender and case with their relevant unit or units in the sentence. This inflectional nature of the Pāḷi language challenges the theoretical notion of the fixed sequence of units in sentences. This paper demonstrates that the highly inflectional nature of grammar serves as the power of language in Pāḷi, not only in pieces of prose such as the ‘Suttas’, but also in the lyrics of the verses (‘gāthās’) as well.