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41-609: The theory of sphoṭa is associated with Bhartṛhari ( c. 5th century), an early figure in Indic linguistic theory, mentioned in the 670s by Chinese traveller Yijing . Bhartṛhari is the author of the Vākyapadīya ("[treatise] on words and sentences "). The work is divided into three books, the Brahma-kāṇḍa , (or Āgama-samuccaya "aggregation of traditions"), the Vākya-kāṇḍa , and

82-410: A distinction between sphoṭa , which is whole and indivisible, and nāda , the sound, which is sequenced and therefore divisible. The sphoṭa is the causal root, the intention, behind an utterance, in which sense is similar to the notion of lemma in most psycholinguistic theories of speech production. However, sphoṭa arises also in the listener, which is different from the lemma position. Uttering

123-483: A grammarian named Sphoṭāyana as one of his predecessors. This has induced Pāṇini's medieval commentators (such as Haradatta ) to ascribe the first development of the sphoṭavāda to Sphoṭāyana . The account of the Chinese traveller Yijing places a firm terminus ante quem of AD 670 on Bhartṛhari. Scholarly opinion had formerly tended to place him in the 6th or 7th century; current consensus places him in

164-480: A grammarian named Vasurāta. Bhartrhari credits some of his theories to Vasurāta in his work the Vakyapadiya . The Chinese traveller Yi-Jing (635-713 CE) mentions Bhartrhari in his travel notes. He claims that Bhartrhari was a Buddhist and wrote the works Vakyapadiya , Peina , and a commentary on Patanjali 's Mahabhashya . Researchers have found some of the details given by Yi-Jing to be erroneous, specifically

205-439: A process known as lexicalisation . In many psycholinguistic models this is considered to be at least a two-stage process. The first stage deals with semantics and syntax ; the result of the first stage is an abstract notion of a word that represents a meaning and contains information about how the word can be used in a sentence. It does not, however, contain information about how the word is pronounced. The second stage deals with

246-494: A reflection of Bhartrhari's renunciation) . The date of composition is unknown but it is believed to have been written over the course of Bhartrhari's life. Bhartrhari uses various poetic devices including metaphors, similes, and paradoxes to convey complex ideas. Bhartrhari's works have been studied in various Indian philosophical traditions, including Vedanta and Mimamsa . Islamic and Western scholars have also shown interest through various translations and commentaries. In

287-453: Is an Indian linguistic treatise on the philosophy of language, grammar, and semantics. It is divided into 3 main sections (or kāṇḍa): Brahma-kāṇḍa (Book of Brahman), Vākya-kāṇḍa (Book of Sentences), and Pada-kāṇḍa (Book of Words), and contains about 635 verses. The Brahma-kāṇḍa treats the metaphysical aspects of language. The Vākya-kāṇḍa deals with sentence structure and the relationship between its components. The Pada-kāṇḍa focuses on

328-568: Is believed to have been born in the 5th century in Ujjain , Malwa, India. He decided to live a monastic life and find a higher meaning but was unable to detach from worldly life. He lived as a yogi in Ujjain until his death. He is best known for his works, the Vākyapadīya (a treatise on sentences and words), Mahābhāṣyatikā (a commentary on Patanjali's Mahabhashya ), Vākyapadīyavṛtti (a commentary on Vākyapadīya kāṇḍas 1 and 2), Śabdadhātusamīkṣā , and

369-447: Is best known for his work in the philosophy of language. He wrote four books on grammar (vyākaraṇa): Vākyapadīya , Mahābhāṣyatikā (an early sub-commentary on Patanjali's Vyākaraṇa-Mahābhāṣya ), Vākyapadīyavṛtti (commentary on Vākyapadīya kāṇḍas 1 and 2), and Śabdadhātusamīkṣā. As a poet, he also wrote the Śatakatraya , or Śataka , a three-part collection of 300 verses. The Vākyapadīya , also known as Trikāṇḍī (three books),

410-470: Is enunciated among others by Jayanta (9th century), who argues against the Mīmāṃsā position by saying that the sound units as uttered are different; e.g. for the sound [g], we infer its 'g-hood' based on its similarity to other such sounds, and not because of any underlying eternal. Also, the vācaka-vācya linkage is viewed as arbitrary and conventional, and not eternal. However, he agrees with Kumarila in terms of

451-504: Is further elaborated in the Vākyapadīya. This text is studied by Sanskrit grammarians and philosophers. The Śatakatraya ("Three Centuries": śataka, "century"; traya, "three") consists of three collections of 100 verses each. The collections are Niti Śataka (Ethics, which details principles of righteous living) , Śringara Śataka (Love, which details the complexities of love and relationships), and Vairagya Śataka (Detachment,

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492-462: Is made to another ancient grammarian, Audumbarāyaṇa , about whose work nothing is known, but who has been suggested as the original source of the concept. The grammarian Vyāḍi, author of the lost text Saṃgraha , may have developed some ideas in sphoṭa theory; in particular some distinctions relevant to dhvani are referred to by Bhartṛhari. There is no use of sphoṭa as a technical term prior to Patañjali, but Pāṇini (6.1.123) refers to

533-615: Is selected. Lexical selection experiments have provided evidence that lemma retrieval is affected by the frequency of the word . This indicates that word frequency is not only significant for retrieving the lexical elements, but also in accessing semantic and syntactic elements for encoding lemmas into a phrase. Experiments that have studied the Tip-of-the tongue (TOT) phenomenon have provided evidence that less strong connections of phonological elements (lexemes) and lexical and syntactic representation (lemmas) lead to an inability to retrieve

574-519: Is the carrier of this thought, as a primordial vibration. Sometimes the nāda-sphoṭa distinction is posited in terms of the signifier -signified mapping, but this is a misconception. In traditional Sanskrit linguistic discourse (e.g. in Katyāyana), vācaka refers to the signifier, and 'vācya' the signified. The 'vācaka-vācya' relation is eternal for Katyāyana and the Mīmāṃsakas , but is conventional among

615-407: Is used to explain how the process of generating speech occurs. In particular, lemmas are seen as the mental representations of words that are organised and retrieved from memory before they are eventually spoken. A lemma represents a specific meaning but does not have any specific sounds that are attached to it. When a person produces a word, they are essentially turning their thoughts into sounds,

656-472: The Mīmāṃsā and Nyāya schools rejected it, primarily on the grounds of compositionality . Adherents of the 'sphota' doctrine were holistic or non-compositional ( a-khanḍa-pakṣa ), suggesting that many larger units of language are understood as a whole, whereas the Mīmāṃsakas in particular proposed compositionality ( khanḍa-pakṣa ). According to the former, word meanings, if any, are arrived at after analyzing

697-520: The Pada-kāṇḍa (or Prakīrṇaka "miscellaneous"). He theorized the act of speech as being made up of three stages: Bhartṛhari is of the śabda-advaita " speech monistic " school which identifies language and cognition. According to George Cardona , "Vākyapadīya is considered to be the major Indian work of its time on grammar, semantics and philosophy." While the sphoṭa theory proper ( sphoṭavāda ) originates with Bhartṛhari ,

738-406: The Vākyapadīya ("Treatise on Sentences and Words"). This text is a comprehensive study of grammar and its metaphysical foundations. Bhartrhari's philosophy is marked by the concept of "Shabda-Brahman", which holds that the ultimate reality is expressed through words. He posited that language and cognition are linked and that by understanding grammar one can attain spiritual liberation. Bhartrhari

779-604: The genitive in Sanskrit and lectured on Sanskrit and Indo-European languages at the Paris and at the University of Geneva for nearly three decades. It is thought that he might have been influenced by some ideas of Bhartṛhari, particularly the sphoṭa debate. In particular, his description of the sign , as composed of the signifier and the signified, where these entities are not separable—the whole mapping from sound to denotation constitutes

820-403: The grammatical gender of a noun is retrieved from the word's phonological form (the lexeme) rather than from the lemma. This can be explained by models that do not assume a distinct level between the semantic and the phonological stages (and so lack a lemma representation). During the process of language activation, lemma retrieval is the first step in lexical access. In this step, meaning and

861-399: The nāda induces the same mental state or sphoṭa in the listener - it comes as a whole, in a flash of recognition or intuition ( pratibhā , 'shining forth'). This is particularly true for vakya-sphoṭa , where the entire sentence is thought of (by the speaker), and grasped (by the listener) as a whole. Bimal K. Matilal (1990) has tried to unify these views - he feels that for Bhartṛhari

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902-416: The phonology of the word; it attaches information about the sounds that will have to be uttered. The result of the first stage is the lemma in this model; the result of the second stage is referred to as the lexeme . This two-staged model is the most widely supported theory of speech production in psycholinguistics, although it has been challenged. For example, there is some evidence to indicate that

943-448: The sphota is the universal or linguistic type — sentence-type or word-type, as opposed to their tokens (sounds). Bhartṛhari develops this doctrine in a metaphysical setting, where he views sphoṭa as the language capability of man, revealing his consciousness. Indeed, the ultimate reality is also expressible in language, the śabda-brahman , or "Eternal Verbum". Early Indologists such as A. B. Keith felt that Bhartṛhari's sphoṭa

984-403: The 'sphoṭas' at the word and sentence level are after all composed of the smaller units, and cannot be different from their combination. However, in the end it is cognized as a whole, and this leads to the misperception of the sphoṭa as a single indivisible unit. Each sound unit in the utterance is an eternal, and the actual sounds differ owing to differences in manifestation. The Nyāya view

1025-508: The 300-verse collection Śatakatraya . Bhartrhari's philosophy is marked by the concept of "Shabda-Brahman", that the ultimate reality is expressed through words. He posited that language and cognition are linked and that by understanding grammar one can attain spiritual liberation. Bhartrhari's works have been studied in various Indian philosophical traditions, including Vedanta and Mimamsa . Islamic and Western scholars have also shown interest through various translations and commentaries. In

1066-506: The 5th century. By some traditional accounts, he is the same as the poet Bhartṛhari who wrote the Śatakatraya . In the Vākyapadīya , the term sphoṭa takes on a finer nuance, but there is some dissension among scholars as to what Bhartṛhari intended to say. Sphoṭa retains its invariant attribute, but sometimes its indivisibility is emphasized and at other times it is said to operate at several levels. In verse I.93, Bhartṛhari states that

1107-564: The Nyāya. However, in Bhartṛhari, this duality is given up in favour of a more holistic view - for him, there is no independent meaning or signified; the meaning is inherent in the word or the sphoṭa itself. Sphoṭa theory remained widely influential in Indian philosophy of language and was the focus of much debate over several centuries. It was adopted by most scholars of Vyākaraṇa (grammar), but both

1148-422: The compositionality of an utterance. Throughout the second millennium, a number of treatises discussed the sphoṭa doctrine. Particularly notable is Nageśabhaṭṭa's Sphotavāda (18th century). Nageśa clearly defines sphoṭa as a carrier of meaning, and identifies eight levels, some of which are divisible. In modern times, scholars of Bhartṛhari have included Ferdinand de Saussure , who did his doctoral work on

1189-412: The field of Indian poetics, Bhartrhari's Śatakatraya continues to be revered and studied and has been translated into many languages, affording access to a global audience. Bhartrhari is believed to have been born in Ujjain , Malwa , India and lived in the 5th century. Details of his personal life are not known, but it is assumed, and accepted by scholars, that he lived between 485 and 540 CE. He

1230-423: The field of Indian poetics, Bhartrhari's Śatakatraya continues to be revered and studied. The Śatakatraya has been translated into many languages, affording access to a global audience. Lemma (psycholinguistics) In psychology , a lemma ( pl. : lemmas or lemmata ) is an abstract conceptual form of a word that has been mentally selected prior to the early stages of speech production. This concept

1271-416: The meaning of words, phonetics, morphology, and semantics. Bhartrhari's philosophy is centred around the concept of " sphoṭa ". He believed that sphoṭa carries the meaning of the word(s) and is revealed to the listener upon hearing the word(s). Unlike Patanjali, Bhatrihari applies the term sphoṭa to each element of the utterance, varṇa ( varṇasphoṭa; the letter or syllable), pada ( padasphoṭa;

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1312-469: The mind as language is uttered. Patañjali's sphoṭa is the invariant quality of speech. The acoustic element ( dhvani ) can be long or short, loud or soft, but the sphoṭa remains unaffected by individual speaker differences. Thus, a single phoneme ( varṇa ) such as /k/, /p/ or /a/ is an abstraction, distinct from variants produced in actual enunciation. Eternal qualities in language are already postulated by Yāska , in his Nirukta (1.1), where reference

1353-463: The sentences in which they occur. This debate had many of the features animating present day debates in language over semantic holism , for example. The Mīmāṃsakas felt that the sound-units or the letters alone make up the word. The sound-units are uttered in sequence, but each leaves behind an impression, and the meaning is grasped only when the last unit is uttered. The position was most ably stated by Kumarila Bhatta (7th century) who argued that

1394-446: The sign—seems to have some colourings of sphoṭa in it. Many other prominent European scholars around 1900, including linguists such as Leonard Bloomfield and Roman Jakobson , were influenced by Bhartṛhari. Bhart%E1%B9%9Bhari Bhartṛhari ( Devanagari : भर्तृहरि ; Bhartrihari ; fl . c. 5th century CE), was an Indian philosopher and poet known for his contributions to the fields of linguistics, grammar, and philosophy. He

1435-421: The syntactic elements of a lexical item are realized as the lemma. Lemma retrieval, as explained through a spreading-activation theory, is part of a network of separate elements consisting of the abstract concept, the lemma and the lexeme. Lemma retrieval is aided by the activation level of the concept that has yet to be verbalized. When activation takes place on the lemma level, the highest activated lemma element

1476-418: The term has a longer history of use in the technical vocabulary of Sanskrit grammarians, and Bhartṛhari may have been building on the ideas of his predecessors, whose works are partly lost. Sanskrit sphoṭa is etymologically derived from the root sphuṭ 'to burst'. It is used in its technical linguistic sense by Patañjali (2nd century BCE), in reference to the "bursting forth" of meaning or idea on

1517-536: The time period that he was alive and that he was a Buddhist. Bhartrhari's philosophical position is widely held to be an offshoot of the Vyākaraṇa or grammarian school, closely allied to the realism of the Nyayas and distinctly opposed to Buddhist positions such as those of Dignaga , who was closer to phenomenalism . Bhartrhari is known for his work in the philosophy of language, particularly his theories articulated in

1558-410: The very process of thinking involves vibrations, so that thought has some sound-like properties. Thought operates by śabdana or 'speaking', - so that the mechanisms of thought are the same as that of language. Indeed, Bhartṛhari seems to be saying that thought is not possible without language. This leads to a somewhat whorfian position on the relationship between language and thought. The sphoṭa then

1599-443: The word), and vākya ( vākyasphoṭa; the sentence). The Mahābhāṣyatikā , also known as Tripadi or Mahabhashyadipika , is a commentary on Patanjali's Mahabhashya , which itself is a commentary on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī . Bhartrhari analyses grammatical rules and explores the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of language. Within this text, Bhartrhari also discusses the connection between words and their meanings, which

1640-470: Was a mystical notion, owing to the metaphysical underpinning of Bhartṛhari's text, Vākyapādiya , where it is discussed. Also, the notion of "flash or insight" or " revelation " central to the concept also lent itself to this viewpoint. However, the modern view is that it is perhaps a more psychological distinction. Bhartṛhari expands on the notion of sphoṭa in Patañjali, and discusses three levels: He makes

1681-418: Was associated with the court of Valabhi (modern Vala, Gujarat ) but decided to follow the path of Indian sages and renounced a sensual life to find higher meaning. He attempted to live a monastic life but was unable to successfully detach from worldly pleasures. After some time, he lived a life as a yogi in Ujjain till his death. Siṃhasūrigaṇi, a 6th-century Jain writer, states that Bhartrhari studied under

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