Interrogative & Relative Pronouns
This lesson finishes the pronoun system with two stems that decline almost exactly like the demonstrative ta- from Lesson 9, just with a different consonant in front: ka- for questions, ya- for relative clauses. As a reward, you'll decode the actual seven-question matrix that opens our own Sīlaniddesa translation — it turns out to be built almost entirely from the forms in this lesson.
The Interrogative ka-: "Who? What? Which?"
Swap the t- of Lesson 9's demonstrative for k- and, gender for gender, case for case, you have the question-word paradigm. The neuter singular nominative/accusative, kiṃ, is the single most common interrogative form you will meet — it is Pāli's plain "what?"
| Case | Masc. sg. | Neut. sg. | Masc. pl. | Neut. pl. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ko | kiṃ | ke | kāni |
| Accusative | kaṃ | kiṃ | ke | kāni |
| Instrumental | kena | kehi | ||
| Dative / Gen. | kassaalso kissa | kesaṃ | ||
| Ablative / Loc. | kasmā, kasmiṃalso kamhā, kamhi | kehi, kesu | ||
The feminine follows the same shape as Lesson 9's sā: kā (nom. sg.), kaṃ (acc. sg.), kāya (instr./abl. sg.), kassā (dat./gen. sg.), plural kā/kāyo, kāhi, kāsaṃ, kāsu — every ending identical to sā's, with k- in place of s-/t-.
Worked Example: Decoding Sīlaniddesa's Seven Questions
The very first thing our Visuddhimagga translation shows you is a line built almost entirely from this lesson's paradigm — the seven questions that structure the entire chapter on virtue:
Four of this passage's seven questions are the same word, kiṃ, simply agreeing each time with a different neuter noun. This is exactly the point of teaching grammar before vocabulary breadth: once you know that kiṃ is "neuter interrogative, agrees with a neuter noun," you can read four-sevenths of this famous line on sight, in any text, regardless of which specific neuter noun happens to follow it.
The Relative ya-, and the yo...so Pattern
The relative pronoun — "who, which, that" in an English relative clause — declines exactly like ta- again, with y- in place of t-: masculine yo, yaṃ, yena, yassa..., neuter yaṃ, yāni..., feminine yā, yassā.... What differs from English is not the endings but the sentence shape it's built into.
English embeds a relative clause inside its main clause: "whoever sees the Dhamma sees me." Pāli, like Latin and Sanskrit, more typically states the two halves side by side as a matched pair — a ya- clause first, answered by a ta- clause: literally "who sees the Dhamma, that one sees me." This is called a correlative construction, and it is one of the most famous sentences in the whole Canon:
Read the Pāli line aloud, then read the literal "who...that one..." gloss, then the natural English "whoever...". Holding all three in mind at once — surface Pāli, literal structure, natural translation — is the actual skill of translation, and it's exactly what this course's readings ahead will keep asking of you.
Practice: Case, Gender, Number
- kiṃ — as a standalone question, "___?"
- ke te bhikkhū? — "___ are those monks?" (identify ke)
- yena maggena — "by ___ path" (identify yena's case)
- yā itthi — "___ woman" (identify yā's gender and case)
Check your answers
1. "What?" — kiṃ, neuter nom./acc. singular.
2. "Who" — ke, masculine nominative plural, agreeing with bhikkhū: "Who are those monks?"
3. Instrumental singular — "by which path," agreeing with the a-stem noun maggena.
4. Feminine nominative singular — "which/what woman," agreeing with itthi.
Part II So Far, and What's Next
You now have all of Pāli's pronouns and the two largest, most regular noun classes, plus two smaller ones. Lesson 11 turns to verbs, starting with the present tense — the tense behind passati ("sees") in this lesson's correlative example, and the one you'll use to build your very first complete original Pāli sentences.