Lesson 6.B 6.B.1 Sentence Structure: English and Sanskrit In English speech or writing, the order of words shows their connection or relation- ship to the whole sentence. For example, in the simple sentence, desire limits the mind, the information as to which is the limiter and which the limited, is given by the position of the words in relation to the verb. This is an important point: in a sentence, a word's physical position (in time or space), reflects its subtle position (the relationship or part that it plays). Now, a word may be placed before or after the verb — but these are the only two possibilities, before or after, and thus can indicate only two relationships, namely subject and object. The subject comes before an active verb, and the object after it. (The order is reversed for a passive verb, e.g. the mind is limited by desire.) In order to show the relationship in a more complete sentence, such as, desire limits the mind by attachment, we make use of a phrase containing a preposition (in our example 'by') to indicate the relationship of the word 'attachment' to the activity of limiting. But notice the operation of the preposition — 'pre-position' — it is an element which is placed before ('pre-') to give 'position' to the word, that is, to indicate its relationship to the activity. Using prepositional phrases we can thus enlarge our sentence, as for example, in the waking state desire limits the mind from the universal to the particular by attachment. Now we can split up this sentence into its core subject-verb-object, and a number of related phrases: I in the waking state I desire limits the mind I from the universal I to the particular I by attachment I .
