An Ontology for Comprehensive Tutoring of Euphonic Conjunctions of Sanskrit Grammar

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive ontology for teaching Sanskrit euphonic conjunctions (sandhis), facilitating structured learning and testing, addressing limitations of traditional and modern methods.

Contribution

It presents a new ontology-based framework for sandhi tutoring that enables staged learning and evaluation of Sanskrit grammar rules.

Findings

Ontology-based sandhi tutor tested with diverse users

Enhanced understanding of complex sandhi rules

Effective assessment of student progress

Abstract

Euphonic conjunctions (sandhis) form a very important aspect of Sanskrit morphology and phonology. The traditional and modern methods of studying about euphonic conjunctions in Sanskrit follow different methodologies. The former involves a rigorous study of the Paninian system embodied in Panini's Ashtadhyayi, while the latter usually involves the study of a few important sandhi rules with the use of examples. The former is not suitable for beginners, and the latter, not sufficient to gain a comprehensive understanding of the operation of sandhi rules. This is so since there are not only numerous sandhi rules and exceptions, but also complex precedence rules involved. The need for a new ontology for sandhi-tutoring was hence felt. This work presents a comprehensive ontology designed to enable a student-user to learn in stages all about euphonic conjunctions and the relevant aphorisms of Sanskrit grammar and to test and evaluate the progress of the student-user. The ontology forms the basis of a multimedia sandhi tutor that was given to different categories of users including Sanskrit scholars for extensive and rigorous testing.