Madhu Kapoor

How Do We Understand a Sentence?: Indian Philosophical Perspectives Madhu Kapoor

The book is a part of the doctoral thesis on "word and Word-Meaning; A work based on Gad?dhara's ?aktiv?da". Gad?dhara was a Navya-Naiy?yika of the 17th century. The book reveals the basic structure behind our verbal cognition (??bdabodha). Diagrammically the relationship between the speaker and the hearer, though very close, may be misinterpreted in many ways. The Naiy?yikas clearly shows that if the linguistic structure is rightly transfer to the hearer there is no chance of distortion of meaning. The sentence meaning becomes totally transparent. Ancient Indian scholars have enhanced the power of speech as well as the power of silence. Both in a sense conveys the meaning to the hearer. Spoken words break the silence and again merge into silence. The mid-way position between the silence and the silence is structured through language that brings life among human beings. It is the play of language that enters into the stage of words vis-a-vis world through Green-room and retires to the Green-Room.