Panini's Grammar and Its Computerization: A Construction Grammar Approach

This article reviews the impact of modern theoretical views on our understanding of the nature and purpose of the grammar of Pāṇini (ca. 350 BCE), and argues that new possibilities for progress open up for our understanding of this ancient grammar by confronting it not with the presuppositions of generative grammar as has been done – with undeniable but limited theoretical profit -in the last few decades, but with recently developed theories of construction grammar and cognitive linguistics. This, in turn, provides new perspectives on old problems in the study of Pāṇinian grammar, and especially on the challenge of its computerization. The present article focuses on general technical aspects of Pāṇini's grammar and is the counterpart of a recent study on the earliest available elaborate theory of Pāṇini's grammar, the one formulated by the grammarianphilosopher Bharthari (5th cent. CE).