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Aorist Participles in the Rveda

John J. LoweUniversity of Oxford

Centre for Linguistics & PhilologyWalton Street

OxfordOX1 2HG

email: john.lowe@ling-phil.ox.ac.uk

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Aorist Participles in the Rveda

The aorist participles of Sanskrit are problematic in a variety of ways. They are almost entirelyconfined to the R

veda, with only a very few found in later Vedic texts; even in the R

vedathey

are unexpectedly rare in comparison with the productive present and perfect participles (there are

4,430 present, 900 perfect, and only 200 aorist participles in the RV). Morphologically, they oftendo not correspond to attested finite verbal stems, and almost all are formed to root stems (i.e.apparent root aorists); only two are formed to s-aorist stems, for example, while finite s-aorists arerelatively productive. Regarding semantics, most authorities agree that the aorist participles of theRvedashow little evidence of aoristic meaning, i.e. perfective or preterital reference, and are often

indistinguishable from present participles (Delbrck, 1888; Tikkanen, 1987).These problems raise questions for the synchronic and diachronic status of the category in Indo-

Iranian, and for the reconstruction of participial categories in PIE. Only in Ancient Greek is afully productive and regular category of aorist participles found, and the aorist participles of Indo-Iranian, particularly those of R.gvedic Sanskrit, provide practically the only comparative support forreconstructing such a category to PIE.

I firstly review the heterogeneous collection of forms traditionally labelled aorist participles,

showing that many such forms have been mis-classified. Since almost all aorist participles are rootformations, there is considerable potential for ambiguity, leading to several root adjectives, presentparticiples, etc. being erroneously classified as aorist participles. For example, sus

ant- is listed as

an aorist participle by Lubotsky (1997, p. 1426), but it is better treated as the expected presentparticiple to the present stem sv asiti snorts, beside the analogical present participle svas ant-.

A more careful delimitation of the category means that the number of genuine aorist participlesattested in Sanskrit is even smaller than traditionally assumed, but also means that it is possibleto discern certain clear patterns and features in the R.gvedic aorist participles, particularly whenactive and mediopassive forms are considered in separation.

Active aorist participles are rarer than mediopassive aorist participles (15 stems, of which 8 arehapax legomena, vs. 30 stems of which 12 are hapax legomena). Nevertheless, they are functionally

and morphologically the more regular category: almost all correspond both formally and functionallyto attested finite aorist stems, and semantically the clearest examples of aorist participles with agenuinely aoristic sense are all active. Despite their rarity and undoubted ongoing obsolescence,then, they are still relatively well integrated into the aorist verbal system and are used as genuineparticiples.

In contrast, the more common mediopassive aorist participles are morphologically and function-ally far less regular. Few correspond to attested finite aorist stems, and very few, if any, display anyreal aoristic semantics. I argue that a moribund category of mediopassive aorist participles wasextended through at least two distinct processes of analogy, explaining both their relative frequencyand their lack of morphological and functional adherence to the aorist system.

By one such process, mediopassive aorist participles could be created on the basis of mediopassive

perfect participles: for example, the meaning and usage of vrdhana- to vrdh grow, increasecan only be explained in reference to semantic developments affecting the perfect system and themediopassive perfect participle vavr

dhana-.

Another such process was licensed by developments in the stative system. I assume the existenceof a distinct stative formation with 3sg. in -e, following Oettinger (1976, 1993) and Kmmel (1996).The existence of some participles to stative stems is demonstrated by Kmmel (1996). I argue thata further set of forms should be identified as original stative participles, forms whose morphological

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adherence to the stative system was lost when corresponding finite forms were rebuilt as nasalstatives. For example, suvana- pressed represents the original stative participle to expected *suve sunveis pressed. These, and a few other isolated forms, were then liable for reanalysis as derivedfrom root aorist stems, and subsequently licensed the creation of further root-based participles in-ana- that had no genuine adherence to the aorist system and displayed no aoristic semantics.

I conclude that there is evidence for a core of genuine aorist participles, morphologically andsemantically regular, but not synchronically productive, and showing signs of obsolescence (due tofunctional syncretism with other categories). This genuine core is, however, obscured by analog-ical formations and previously mis-categorized forms. The evidence for a core of genuine aoristparticiples supports, if only weakly, a comparable PIE category.

References

Delbrck, Berthold (1888). Altindische Syntax. Halle: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses.

Kmmel, Martin Joachim(1996).Stativ und Passivaorist im Indoiranischen. Historische Sprachforschung:Ergnzungheft 39, Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Lubotsky, Alexander(1997). A R.gvedic Word Concordance(2 vol.), volume 8283 ofAmerican OrientalSeries. New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society.

Oettinger, Norbert(1976). Der indogermanische Stativ. Mnchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 34,pp. 109149.

Oettinger, Norbert (1993). Zur Funktion des indogermanischen Stativs. In Gerhard Meiser (ed.), In-dogermanica et Italica : Festschrift fr Helmut Rix zum 65. Geburtstag, Innsbruck: Institut fr Sprachwis-senschaft der Universitt Innsbruck, pp. 347361.

Tikkanen, Bertil (1987). The Sanskrit Gerund: a Synchronic, Diachronic, and Typological Analysis.Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society.