P28 · The Done Tag and the Personal Signature
Teacher notes / sources (students may skip)
Corresponds to: Perry Lesson XXVIII (= Goldman《Devavāṇīpraveśikā》L10 §10.7–10.12 + L11 §11.4) = SKT บทที่ 28 (past participle -ta/-ita continued + active past participle -tavant). Sources: Perry XXVIII (spine) + Goldman L10–11 (sound-change tables and ktavatu phrasing) + SKT §28.1–28.10 (Thai terminology and word examples). Caveat (citation policy, same precedent as P16/P17): SKT vol. 16–30 originals are never quoted directly; this lesson's story was independently designed by the four-corner team, verbs recycled from earlier lessons wherever possible (gam/vad/pūj/śru), forms all verified against Perry/Goldman §, Thai anchors all grepped item by item against the CSV. Core idea: -ta is a "done tag" — stick it on a root, and the action is "finished." Attached to a transitive root, it defaults to passive (has been ...ed, the agent is marked with tṛtīya, recycled from P10's passive voice); attached to an intransitive root, it's simply past (he went = gata). The new device -tavant is a "personal signature": add a further "possessive" tail -vant to the -ta tag, and it flips from "the thing was done" into "he did the thing" (active). This lesson's featured highlight: ภูต ← bhūta, a false friend — Thai ภูต has narrowed to mean "ghost," yet the Sanskrit bhūta is simply √bhū's done tag, "that which has come into being / an existing being" (i.e. all sentient beings, all that exists). The real word for "ghost" is a different word entirely, เปรต ← preta. The whole lesson builds to this pair.
"You've been using the 'done tag' every day without recognizing it:
พุทธ (Thai: "Buddha") ← buddha (Buddha) — this is literally a grammatical form! √budh 'to awaken' + done tag -ta = 'the one who has already awakened.' The Buddha's very name is a done tag.
บูชิต (Thai: "worshipped/venerated") ← pūjita (worshipped/venerated) — the pūjita in the temple phrase 'พระถูกบูชา,' where the tail -it- is today's 'insert an i when it's hard to pronounce.'
สถิต (Thai: "resides, is situated") ← sthita (standing, situated) — the sathit in 'พระเจ้าสถิตบนสวรรค์' (God resides in heaven), the done tag of √sthā 'to stand' (oddly, ā shrinks to i).
And one big piece of business to settle: ภูต ← bhūta. In your head it means 'ghost.' Today the teacher is going to reclaim this word."
No new sound-change rule claimed this lesson (rule pool wrap-up, mostly review): the done tag lands, in Thai, on the same old pair of rules D1 (final -a drops, หัต←hata) and D5 (final ◌ะ surfaces as tail, หตะ←hata) — both already amortized back in L00/P23; this lesson only reviews the contrast, establishes no new entry, does not edit the amortization table.
(All verbs are old friends wearing a done tag: gataḥ←gacchati (P01, √gam drops its nasal), pūjitaḥ←pūjayati (P07/P11, padded with i), śrutaḥ←√śru, avadat←vadati (P01/P11, imperfect recycled), iti (P06). buddha is a vocabulary item (Buddha). The uktavān in ๔ is this lesson's new device (active past "he said"), forming a deliberate contrast with the passive pūjita in ๒ and the passive śruta in ๓ — one passive, one active. Cognate-recognition points ≥2 per sentence: ๑ มนเทียร/คติ; ๒ พุทธ/บูชิต; ๓ ศัพท์/ศรุตะ/ภีตะ; ๔ ภูต; ๕ ภูต/เปรต/สรรพ/ชีวิต. Sandhi listen-only: ๓ akasmāt+śabda fuses to akasmāc chabda, śiṣyaḥ+bhīta→śiṣyo bhīta; ๕ guruḥ+a→gurur a, bhūtam+na→bhūtaṃ na.)
"Machine one, the 'done tag': take any root, stick on -ta, and you get a 'finished' tag.
① A transitive root (hit, see, worship) tagged this way is passive: 'one who has been hit, one who has been worshipped' — the agent wears tṛtīya (recycled from P10's 'passive voice' instrument-hat).
② An intransitive root (go, sit, fear) tagged this way is simply past: gata = went, bhīta = became afraid."
"Some roots don't come out smoothly this way — so insert an i right before the tag, giving -ita: pūjay→pūjita (worshipped), cintay→cintita (thought about). Any causative, Class X verb, or denominative always gets the i-padding (first strip -aya- back down, then attach -ita)."
▸ Sound changes taught here cover only the three highest-frequency classes (Goldman's teaching method: don't dump the full seven-class sound-change table all at once):
Regular (root unchanged, add ta directly): √śru→śruta, √ji→jita.
Nasal drop (-m/-n at the end drops): √gam→gata, √han→hata.
Voiced-aspirate bounce-back (dh/bh+ta→ddha/bdha): √budh→buddha, √labh→labdha.
The other four classes (three types of h-final roots, ś/ṣ retroflexion, ā→ī/i, the -na ending) are reference-only appendix material, swept together in the wrap-up crystallization lesson.
"Machine two, the 'personal signature': take the -ta tag and add one more tail, -vant (meaning 'possessing'), and it flips into the active past:
ukta (that which was said) + vant → uktavān, 'he possesses that already-said thing' = 'he said (it)' (active).
gata+vant→gatavān 'he went'; dṛṣṭa+vant→dṛṣṭavān 'he saw.'
You already met this -vant back in P24 — it's the same set of hats as bhagavant ('venerable one'; uktavān is declined exactly the same way (nom. -vān / oblique -vat / feminine -vatī): one hat, two jobs."
True cognate vs. false friend (this lesson's centerpiece contrast):
"bhaga-vant (the blessed one, the venerable one) — Thai ภควา/ภควัต, a true cognate, matching in meaning across Sanskrit and Thai, used as the Buddhist honorific 'the Blessed One.'
bhū-ta (that which has come into being, an existing being) — Thai ภูต, which has drifted to mean 'ghost.' Same √bhū family, same kind of fossil, two different fates: one kept its honorific sense, one narrowed down to 'ghost.' This is a living specimen of 'same cognate, meanings evolve on their own paths.'"
- "Done tag -ta: transitive root = passive 'has been ...ed' (agent wears tṛtīya), intransitive root = past '...ed' (gata = went)."
- "Insert i when it's hard to say → -ita: always padded for causatives / Class X / denominatives (pūjita, cintita, jīvita)."
- "Personal signature -tavant: the -ta tag + a 'possessive' tail -vant = active past 'he did it' (uktavān/gatavān); declined the same way as P24's bhagavant."
- "False-friend day: ภูต bhūta ≠ ghost! In Sanskrit, bhūta = the done tag of √bhū, 'that which has come into being / an existing being (all sentient beings, all that exists).' The real word for 'ghost' is a different word, เปรต preta (the departed)."
Story's five sentences, both versions; contrast pairs: 🔇passive↔active🔇 pairs — ukta (that which was said) ↔ uktavān (he said it) / gata (went — state) ↔ gatavān (he went — active) / 🔇dṛṣṭa↔dṛṣṭavān🔇; slow reads of the i-padding: pūjita/cintita/jīvita (that -it- beat); slow reads of voiced-aspirate bounce-back: budh→buddha, labh→labdha (the aspiration hops back); false-friend minimal pair: bhūta (an existing being) ↔ preta (departed ghost) — both are called "ghost" in Thai, but in Sanskrit only the latter is; One sandhi item: akasmāc chabdaḥ (t+ś fuses into c ch, listen only).
(Teacher's reference notes: Perry XXVIII/SKT 28 sound-change table words, for decode-and-recycle use, not entering the story for now — mukta (√muc)/yukta (√yuj)/labdha (√labh)/baddha (√badh, bound)/dṛṣṭa (√dṛś, seen)/iṣṭa (√yaj or √iṣ)/datta (√dā, given)/ukta (√vac); irregular -ānta group kānta/kṣānta/śānta/dānta (√kam/kṣam/śam/dam); ā→i group sthita/hita/gīta (√sthā/dhā/gā). Cognate anchors drawn only from database entries marked high/reviewed; the rest, having no Thai reflex, are not assigned hooks.)
The seven-class -ta sound-change table is not front-loaded: this lesson's story demonstrates only the regular, nasal-drop, and i-padding classes (highest coverage, per Goldman's teaching note), the remaining four classes (three h-final types līḍha/rūḍha/soḍha, ś/ṣ retroflexion dṛṣṭa, ā→i type sthita/hita, -na ending chinna/pūrṇa) are reference appendix material, left for the wrap-up crystallization lesson to formally place. The full -tavant declension table merges into P24's -mant/-vant paradigm (bhagavant) for joint crystallization — "one hat, shared by the venerable one and 'he did it.'"