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Secondary Derivation from Sanskrit i-Stems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Rulon Wells
Rulon Wells*
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Abstract

The problem. Sanskrit noun stems ending in u, when subjected to secondary derivation, typically replace u by av, whereas, typically, stems ending in i simply drop the i before a suffix beginning with a vowel or with y (rather than replacing the i by ay or e respectively). I have not found any attempt to explain this disparate treatment, which, to judge from the implication or the express statement of our standard reference works, prevails equally in the Rig-Veda and in all later stages of Sanskrit. To point out, as the grammars do, that in this regard i-stems behave like stems in a, ā, and ī is not to explain the disparity but to heighten it.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 29 , Issue 3: July-September , September 1953, pp. 237 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © 1953 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Whitney, Brugmann, Wackernagel, Macdonell, etc., which it is unnecessary to identify. From recent literature I cite the following: T. Burrow, Some remarks on the formation of nouns in Sanskrit, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 32.19-33 (1951, publ. 1952); J. Kurylowicz, Le degré long en indo-iranien, BSL 44.42-63 (1948); id., La loi de Brugmann, BSL 45.57-60 (1949) ; id., L'accentuation des langues indo-européennes (1952) ; L. Renou, Grammaire de la langue védique (1952).

All words cited are from RV unless the contrary is stated. When first cited, they are followed (except proper names) by a gloss which, if the word is found in RV, is taken (often incompletely) from Grassmann's Wörterbuch. A colon (as in mānavá : mánu) means ‘is a secondary derivative from’; a hyphen (as in mānav-ά) means as usual that there is thought to be a morph division between stem and suffix at that point.

2 By which I mean all stems ending in i, whether this constitutes the whole formative (as in arc-í (m) 'Strahl') or is merely the last part of the formative (as in ma-tí (f) 'Andacht', (f) ‘Erde‘). Similarly for u-stems.

3 The choice between i and ii̯ and i̯, like the choice between ei and ei̯, etc., is allophonic and therefore nonphonemic at some period of PIE—see Edgerton, The Indo-European semivowels, Lg. 19.83-124 (1943); but it has ceased to be so in all the historical IE languages. It may well have ceased to be nonphonemic even in late PIE. The present paper does not commit itself on this question.

Presumably at some period of PIE the choice between the shorter and the longer treatment (for instance, to invent an example, between and is also nonphonemic—an ablaut variation (Brugmann, Gdr.2 2.1.198). But by late PIE it had become phonemic. Whether it was exploited semantically after becoming phonemic is not clear. For at least one word, the word for ‘widow’, there is reason to posit both treatments, and , without a difference of meaning (Ernout-Meillet s.v. uiduus). Whatever semantic difference may have existed at one time had disappeared by the time of RV.

4 P. Thieme, Der Fremdling im Rigveda, Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 23.2.78-9 (1938): 'Gegen ein von arí abgeleitetes Adjektivum aryá kann man keinerlei Bedenken erheben, arí : aryá = ávi : ávya.' See further A. Debrunner, Zwei altindische Probleme, Nexo Indian antiquary ES 1.71-4 (1939), esp. 72-4 'Zum Ariernamen'.

5 With (n) ‘Kostbarkeit, Schatz’; (m) ‘Schatz’, cf. vara (m, n) ‘Gegenstand des Wunsches’; pārthyá (m) ‘Nachkomme des pṛthi’.

6 See the brilliant articles of Kurylowicz cited in fn. 1, in which the structuralist's insight is applied, with success, to the old problems of vṛddhi and Brugmann's law. Incidentally, although several scattered cases of vrddhi can be inferred for PIE, it can hardly have been a productive process there. Cf. Kurylowicz, BSL 44.43.