Sanskrit: मृधी* / मृदृश*

[souminwé]

I've been conducting an experiment of translating Sino-Japanese nouns into Hindi. Japanese has the advantage of taking higher vocabularly from Chinese, which allows Japanese to coin brief and concise compounds. Example 殺意 "satsui; murderous intent", which breaks down to 殺 "satsu; kill" 意 "i; intention" (I think sha yi in Chinese).

Of course, I'm relying on Sanskrit for my translations. My initial translation of the above was हिंस्रधी hiNsradhii, but now I wonder if I can use roots in compounds, in this case the root मृ {mR} (root of मारयति /म्रयति , maaryati/mrayati ; kill/die).
"मृधी" mRdhii would be much more compact (even if not all that understandable...). मृदृश mRdRsh is a little bit more idiomatic, but is more accessible.

This is probably me trying to force Sanskrit to work like Chinese, but I still want to know if compounding roots like this is allowable in Sanskrit grammar.

Thank you to anyone who can give any input!

 

[marrish]

Sanskrit roots are hypothetical grammar constructs which don't lend themselves for the direct usage, I believe, so I'm afraid any word formation is more likely to be possible with nouns and verb stems.

 

[drkpp]

Sanskrit has its own rules in this regard.
There are specified rules to form desideratives nouns [इच्छार्थकनाम]
Commonly used verb for "To murder' is [हन्] 2nd conjugation ParasmaiPada [हंति] To murder / kill
Its desiderative noun is जिघांसा - desire / intent to kill or murder.

 

[Dib]

I found this very old thread. Probably nobody is interested in it anymore. But, I still felt like saying a few things. Showing off!

Firstly, nope, मृधी, मृदृश्, etc. won't work in Sanskrit. As drkpp pointed out, Sanskrit has a specific desiderative derivation. It is not the simplest derivation to handle, but it is usually the most elegant way of doing it:
हन्, to kill > जिघांसा, desire to kill
मृ, to die > मुमूर्षा, desire to die, etc...

Sanskrit roots are hypothetical grammar constructs which don't lend themselves for the direct usage, I believe, so I'm afraid any word formation is more likely to be possible with nouns and verb stems.

Well, yes and no. They don't lend themselves to direct usage in as much that you have to add proper inflections to them before throwing them into a sentence. They can, however, be used as nouns (with some restrictions) with proper nominal inflection in addition to as verbs with verbal inflections. In Vedic, many roots did occur freely as nouns. It became rarer in later Sanskrit, though some persisted like धी (thought/intellect < to think) used by the thread-opener here. But, a nominal compound of the form, noun+root with the root carrying an agentative meaning, was popular in all periods of Sanskrit, though the root sometimes underwent a few changes, e.g. adding a -t or shortening a final vowel. Examples:
svayam (oneself) + bhU (to be) > svayambhU/-u (self-created, an epithet of Brahma)
vRtra (Vritra, name of a demon) + han (to kill) > vRtrahan (slayer of Vritra, an epithet of Indra)
jala (water) + dA (to give) > jaladA/-a (cloud)
indra (Indra) + ji (to conquer) > indrajit (Conquerer of Indra, name of one of the sons of Ravana)
... etc.

The problem with souminwe's suggestion is that he/she had a root as the first element of the compound. I don't think that worked in Sanskrit.

===

The noun+root compound is probably an inherited Indo-European word formation. Latin, Greek, etc. also had it. Persian still preserves it ... all the compounds with -daan, -daar, -parast, -neshin, -afzaa, -andaaz, -gu, -kesh, -bar, etc. are examples for it.

 

[drkpp]

This noun - verb construct is a way forming compound words in Sanskrit called Upapada Tatpurushha Samasa [उपपद तत्पुरुष समास]
Other examples include
पंकज - पंके जायति इति पंकजः literally mud-born [One that is born in mud i.e. lotus]