Syntactic and Semantic Relations in Pāṇini

It is gradually becoming known that Panini's grammar is not confined to the analysis of words (sabddnusdsana) but also provides a theory for the analysis of sentences. Panini's main contribution to syntax is the theory of the kdraka relations. These relations comprise such notions as have in the West been traditionally called 'logical subject-of', 'logical object-of', etc., and correspond to the 'underlying' or 'deep' syntactic relations of transformational grammar. In some sentences these underlying relations coincide with the corresponding surface relations, viz., 'surface subject-of', 'surface object-of', etc. But these constitute a special case. In general, the underlying relations are different from the relations defined in the surface structure. An example may make clear what is meant here. 'Mary' is the surface object in the sentence: