The Key That Must Be Fair: Karaka, Voice and Sandhi Labels
You are finalising the key for the 10-mark grammar section of a Class XII terminal paper in Code 110; results must be published at 9 a.m. and one parent has already complained about item 2. Forty-two scripts are marked. Three items are disputed.
Item 1 (1 mark). Name the sandhi in bidyā + ālaya → bidyālaya. The key says savarṇa dīrgha. Fourteen students write only dīrgha; three write guṇa.
Item 2 (1 mark). Identify the kāraka of mā ku in se mā ku pustaka delā. Eleven students write karma, nineteen write sampradāna, twelve leave it blank.
Item 3 (1 mark). Change to the passive: guru śishyaku praśaṃsā karile. Eight students write śishya praśaṃsita haila, dropping the agent; twenty-four write guru dvārā śishya praśaṃsita haila; the rest use other grammatical passives. The complaint concerns item 2.
1. Resolve item 1: what do you credit, and what do you re-teach?
Read the worked answer
The operation is ā + ā → ā, a long vowel replacing two similar vowels: that is savarṇa dīrgha. Students who wrote only dīrgha have named the same operation and merely omitted the qualifier savarṇa, which specifies that the two vowels are of the same class. In a 1-mark labelling item, credit them: the substance is right and the omission is a naming convention, not an error of analysis. Writing the key as 'savarṇa dīrgha (accept dīrgha)' is the honest formulation.
The three guṇa answers are a different matter and take 0. Guṇa is the a + i → e type of replacement, not a + ā → ā. Re-teach with a three-row table on the board so the classes of sandhi are seen as different operations rather than different names for one thing:
- same-class vowels → dīrgha (a + a → ā, i + ī → ī)
- a/a + i/u/ṛ → guṇa (a + i → e)
- a/a + e/o → vṛddhi (a + e → ai)
Announce the accept-list on the key so all markers apply it, and attach the same list to next year's paper at the setting stage, not the marking stage.
2. Resolve item 2 and answer the parent's complaint. What is the decision rule when a kāraka label is arguable?
Read the worked answer
Work from the verb's argument structure. De- ('to give') takes three participants: the giver (se), the thing given (pustaka), and the person to whom it is given (mā ku). Odia marks the recipient with -ku and leaves the thing given unmarked. The recipient is the one for whom the action is done; that is sampradāna, and pustaka is the karma. The nineteen who wrote sampradāna take the mark.
The eleven who wrote karma have confused the person affected with the thing directly affected. Award 0 but write the discriminator on the script rather than a bare cross: 'ask which participant the verb de- requires and what each is marked with'.
For the parent, the explanation should be procedural, not defensive: the key follows the definition given in the prescribed grammar chapter, the same definition was used for all 42 scripts, and a student may see the script and the key. Do not concede the item to end the complaint - that would be unfair to the nineteen. If the chapter genuinely uses a different label for the recipient, then the item was defective and must be voided for everyone; check the chapter before the meeting, since the exam tests the textbook's system, not Sanskrit grammar in the abstract.
3. Resolve item 3: is an agent-less passive acceptable, and how do you treat the 'other grammatical passives'?
Read the worked answer
The item tests structural mapping, not style. A voice transformation must preserve the proposition: guru praises, śishya is praised. Śishya praśaṃsita haila is a grammatical sentence but it deletes the agent and therefore loses information carried by the active. Award 0 for the eight, with the note 'who praised him?' - this is a correctable omission, not a wrong construction.
The twenty-four who wrote guru dvārā śishya praśaṃsita haila take the mark: agent retained, passive participle agreeing, dvārā marking the agent.
The remaining students must be read individually rather than lumped. Odia allows more than one passive frame, and a script such as śishyaku guru-kartṛka praśaṃsā karaṇā haila is also a legitimate passive that keeps the agent. Credit any construction that (a) is grammatical, (b) is passive in form, and (c) retains the agent. What is being penalised is information loss, not deviation from one model sentence.
Record all three rulings in a short marking note attached to the bundle, so that the standard is visible if any script is rechecked.