Computational Structure of the Astadhyayi and Conflict Resolution Techniques

摘要

Panini's Astadhyayi consists of sutras that capture fundamentals of Sanskrit language and define its structure in terms of phonology, morphology and syntax. The Astadhyayi can be thought of as an automaton to generate words and sentences. In object oriented programming terms, prescribing sutras are objects having its transformation rule as its method. The meta rules or paribhasa sutras and paribhasa vartikas define the flow of the program. During application of sutras, conflicts may arise among two or more competing sutras. In this paper, computational structure of the Astadhyayi, sutra objects observing the environment, tree representation of sutras and mathematical representation of conflict resolution techniques are presented.