Sandhi Split Dispute: तथापि in a 2-Mark Question
A Class 10 Sanskrit teacher is moderating 38 answer scripts for a unit test patterned on the MSBSHSE paper. Question 2(a) carries 2 marks: 'सन्धिं विच्छेदं कुरुत तथा सन्धेः नाम लिखत - तथापि.' The official key gives 'तथा + अपि' and 'सवर्णदीर्घ सन्धिः'. Seven students wrote 'तथ + आपि' and the same sandhi name. The teacher's colleague argues that because a + ā and ā + a both yield ā, the students' split is phonologically identical and should receive full credit. The teacher notes that 'tatha' is not an independent Sanskrit word in this context, while 'tathā' is an indeclinable meaning 'thus' or 'nevertheless'. The school's moderation policy says alternative answers may be accepted only if they are semantically valid and do not create a non-word. The teacher must decide before the scripts go to the head examiner, and the decision will affect seven students' totals in a class where the pass mark is 35 out of 80.
1. Should the seven students receive the mark for the split? Explain the grammatical and semantic reasoning.
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Decision: Award 1 mark for the sandhi name but 0 for the split. Reasoning: Sandhi-viccheda must recover two meaningful padas, not merely reverse the sound. तथा + अपि yields तथा (an indeclinable meaning 'thus/nevertheless') and अपि (the particle 'also/even'). तथ + आपि yields तथ, which is not an accepted word, and आपि, which is not the intended particle. The surface form तथापि is identical because both a + ā and ā + a undergo savarṇa-dīrgha; phonology alone cannot choose between them. The exam tests both the mechanical operation and lexical recognition. The school's moderation rule bars non-word splits, so the seven students lose the split mark. Their totals drop by 1 each, which matters near the pass boundary, so the teacher should record the reason in the moderation sheet.
2. A student writes 'तथा + अपि' but names the sandhi as 'गुण सन्धि'. How should the teacher mark this, and what feedback is appropriate?
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The split earns 1 mark; the name earns 0. The sandhi is savarṇa-dīrgha because a/ā is followed by its savarṇa a/ā and the result is dīrgha ā. Guṇa would apply to a/ā + i/u/ṛ, e.g., नर + इन्द्र = नरेन्द्र. Feedback should show the vowel table and ask the student to test the first vowel's savarṇa. Total 1/2.
3. If the question had been worth 1 mark for the split only, how would the decision change?
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If the question were 1 mark for the split only, the seven students would receive 0, because the only assessed operation is the split. The teacher should still note that the sandhi name is correct but not assessed. This shows that mark allocation controls the judgement; the same answer can be partially correct under one scheme and wrong under another. The teacher should not change the scheme after seeing scripts.