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Summary

There is a crucial difference between how Sanskrit and English use verbs. In a sentence that describes more than one action, English typically uses a chain of finite verbs:

She leaves the house, goes into the forest and sits down.

After she left the house and went into the forest, she sat down.

Sanskrit, on the other hand, frequently has no more than one finite verb in a sentence. Other verbs appear in non-finite form, either as absolutives (also sometimes called gerunds) or as participles. Literally translated, Sanskrit would say:

Having left(absolutive/participle) the house and having gone(absolutive/participle) into the forest,

she sat(finite verb) down.

This section will introduce you to the most frequent of these non-finite forms, the absolutive and the ta-participle.

FORMATION AND MEANING OF THE ABSOLUTIVE AND THE TA-PARTICIPLE

Both of these are formed by adding a suffix to the zero-grade root of a verb. The suffix added in the case of the absolutive of simple verbs is -tvā, that of the ta-participle is -ta-.

The absolutive of a verb ‘x’ means ‘having x-ed’. For example:

√द्रु ‘to run’ –› द्रुत्वा ‘having run’

√कृ ‘to do’ –› कृत्वा ‘having done’

√गम् ‘to go’ –› गत्वा ‘having gone’ (on the zero grade of √गम् –› Chapter 7)

(Absolutives of compound verbs, i.e. verbs that have a preverb (to be introduced in Chapter 10), add -tya if they end in a short vowel, and -ya otherwise. For example, अप-√द्रु ‘to run away’ (अप- = ‘away’) –› अपद्रुत्य ‘having run away’; प्रति-√लिख् ‘to write back’ (प्रति- = ‘back’) –› प्रतिलिख्य ‘having written back’.)

The ta-participle of a verb ‘x’ has a past passive meaning ‘having been x-ed’. For example:

√भृ ‘to carry’ –› भृत- ‘having been carried’

√कृ ‘to do’ –› कृत- ‘having been done’

If a verb cannot sensibly form a passive, the ta-participle has active meaning:

√भू ‘to become/be’ –› भूत- ‘having become’

√गम् ‘to go’ –› गत- ‘having gone’

Summary

Sanskrit inherited a system of accentuation from its mother language, Proto-Indo-European, in which the placement of the accent followed certain word-based rules; no general statement concerning accent placement could be made. Yet this accent, which furthermore was not a stress, but a pitch accent (meaning that the accented syllable was higher in tone/pitch than the other syllables) was lost, and the systems described below were generally adapted in its place.

In all English words that are stressed (i.e. that have a syllable which is pronounced more strongly), the stress is clearly audible; yet by looking at the word, you will not be able to predict which of its syllables is stressed: for example, you simply have to know that the word record is stressed on the first syllable (record) when it is a noun, but on the second syllable (record) when it is a verb. In Sanskrit, word stress is predictable, but weaker, and depends on the ‘weight’ (or ‘length’) of the syllables in a word.

LIGHT AND HEAVY SYLLABLES

A syllable always contains a vowel, and usually also consonants before and/or after it. If there is just one consonant between vowels, it counts as standing at the beginning of a syllable: the word भरति bharati ‘he carries’, for example, is thus split up into the syllables bha, ra and ti. When a word contains two or more consonants adjacent to one another (as in the name शकुन्तला Śakuntalā), all but the last consonant are counted as part of the second syllable (Śa-kun-ta-lā). (The same applies to English: think about how you might pronounce and split up words such as woman, fundamental, captain, function etc.)

We distinguish two kinds of syllable: ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ (also referred to as ‘long and ‘short’). A syllable counts as ‘heavy’ when it contains a long or complex vowel (ā ī ū ṝ e ai o au), when its vowel is followed by more than one consonant (and thus it ends in a consonant itself), or when it contains a vowel followed by anusvāra or visarga.

Summary

THE SUFFIXES -A-, -ANA-, -TRA-, -TVA- AND -TĀ-

The process of noun formation (or ‘derivation’) involves forming nouns from the basis of other words or word forms; cf. English entertainer and entertainment from the verb entertain. In Sanskrit, noun formation usually involves adding a suffix to either a verbal root (which can stand in any of the three vowel grades, yet guṇa is the most common) or another noun (whose first vowel may be put into its vṛddhi grade). Knowledge of these processes will help you recognise many more Sanskrit words than you memorise, and thus improve your reading skills. This chapter focuses on nouns and adjectives formed by means of adding the most frequent a- and ā-stem suffixes.

A very simple way of forming nouns and adjectives from a verbal root is to take that root in guṇa (sometimes also vṛddhi ā) and add -a- to it. This gives us words such as लेख- (m.) ‘a writing, letter’ from √लिख् ‘to write’, वेद- (m.) ‘knowledge’ from √विद् ‘to see, know’ (Chapter 18). स्नेह- means ‘love’; बोध- (m.) means ‘waking, consciousness’, while, used as an adjective, it means ‘knowing, understanding’; हर्ष- used as a masculine noun means ‘excitement’ and, as an adjective, ‘exciting’; हर- and हार- both mean ‘bearing, wearing, carrying’ etc. Nouns derived in this way are frequently masculine, but may also be neuter.

-ana- is another suffix added to verbal roots in guṇa. It forms adjectives and nouns similarly to English -ing: from √मुच् ‘to release, free’, we get the adjective मोचन- ‘releasing, freeing’, which is also used in the neuter as a noun meaning ‘(the act of) releasing, release’. From √वच् ‘to speak’ we find the frequently used noun वचन- ‘(act of) speaking; word, speech’ and an adjective that simply means ‘talking, speaking’. √शुभ् ‘to decorate, adorn; adorn oneself ‘ gives us the adjective शोभन- ‘pleasing, pleasant, beautiful’. Yet it also forms concrete nouns: the noun लोचन-, derived from √लोच् ‘to see’, means ‘eye’.

Summary

A verb, broadly speaking, is a word that expresses an action (such as English she runs, I am singing, they laughed).

This section will give an overview of (1) what kinds of information Sanskrit verb forms can express and (2) how they express them. This involves introducing some new concepts and terminology. It will be helpful to read this section more than once: when you have read everything through and looked at the examples at the bottom, the first paragraphs may make more sense than when you first read them.

THE CATEGORIES OF THE SANSKRIT VERB

We say that the Sanskrit verb is ‘marked for’ – that is, uses different forms to express – the following grammatical categories: person and number; tense, mood and voice.

In the category of person, Sanskrit and English alike differentiate between first, second and third. The first person refers to the speaker (‘I’); the second to the person spoken to (‘you’); and the third person to someone or something spoken about (‘he/she/it’). Again like English, Sanskrit has a singular and a plural number: the singular refers to just one thing or person (‘I’, ‘she’, ‘the chocolate cake’ etc.), while the plural refers to several (‘we’, ‘they’, ‘the cats’ etc.). Yet unlike English, Sanskrit also has a dual number, used to refer to exactly two of something; this should be translated into English either exactly as e.g. ‘we two, the two of us’, ‘the two of them’, ‘the two brothers’, or simply as a plural ‘we’, ‘they’, ‘the brothers’.

Tense is the term for time as it is expressed in verbs. Once again like English, Sanskrit verbs can refer to the present (such as ‘I run’), and are then said to stand in the present tense; they can refer to the future (‘I will run’); or they can refer to the past (‘I ran’).

Summary

THE FUTURE TENSE

The future tense has the same function as its English equivalent: it talks about things that will be. It does not use the present stem (as present and imperfect did), but is formed by means of:

– a verbal root in guṇa (–› Chapter 7 on vowel gradation)
– the future marker -sya- or -iṣya-
– primary endings (i.e. the same endings as those used in the present tense).

Compare the future of √गम् ‘to go’:

The -i- in -iṣya- (with -ṣ- due to ruki; –› Chapter 6) is comparable to the -i- that appears in front of other suffixes that begin with a consonant (such as -ta, -tvā or -tum; –› Chapter 8). As in those other forms, one cannot predict which of the two suffixes (-sya- or -iṣya-) a verb takes. One may even find two futures of the same verb, such as गंस्यति and गमिष्यति ‘he will go’ from √गम् ‘to go’.

While the future stem just described is unrelated to the present tense stem, the future of Class X verbs and causatives is formed by adding -iṣya- to the present stem minus the thematic vowel: कथयति ‘he tells’ –› कथयिष्यति ‘he will tell’; पातयति ‘he causes to fall, throws’ –› पातयिष्यति ‘he will cause to fall, throw’.

Where -sya- is used (rather than -iṣya-), internal sandhi results:

– Before -s-, stops lose any voicing and/or aspiration, and palatals become velars; after a velar, s turns into ṣ according to ruki (e.g.‘to join’: 3rd SG FUT ACT *yoj-sya-ti > *yok-sya-ti > योक्ष्यति ‘he will join’).
– ś turns into k (also turning the following s into ṣ according to ruki): √विश् ‘to enter’ –› 3rd Sg Fut वेक्ष्यति ‘he will enter’; √दृश् ‘to see’ –› 3rd SG FUT द्रक्ष्यति ‘he will see’.
– h also turns into k: √स्निह् ‘to love’ –› स्नेक्ष्यति ‘he will love’.
– Rarely, s turns into t: √वस् vas ‘to dwell’ –› 3rd SG FUT वत्स्यति ‘he will dwell’.

In some verbs whose root-final consonant loses its aspiration (including h > k) through such sandhi, the closest preceding consonant becomes aspirated.

Summary

Ṛ-STEMS

ṛ-stems are vowel-stems; but while most of the endings they employ have already been introduced in relation to other stems, the combination in which they use them is unique. Especially the singular needs to be memorised carefully. ṛ-stems display straightforward internal sandhi: the stem-final sound surfaces as vocalic -ṛ- between consonants and as consonantal -r- everywhere else. In final position, it changes into -ḥ in accordance with external sandhi. Like vant-/mant- and ant-stems (–› Chapter 25), ṛ-stems have stem gradation: their weak stems end in -ṛ, their strong stems (as before, used IN NOMVOCACC DU and PL and NOMVOC PL) in either guṇa -ar or vṛddhi -ār. Their LOC SG (!) stands in guṇa.

Most ṛ-stems actually end in -tṛ (guṇa -tar, vṛddhi -tār). They consist of two semantic groups: one group contains kinship terms, i.e. words denoting family relationships: मातृ- ‘mother’, पितृ- ‘father’, दुहितृ- ‘daughter’, or भ्रातृ- ‘brother’. The -tṛ/-tar in these is directly related to the -ther or -ter in the equivalent English words. The other, much larger group contains agent nouns. By taking a verbal root in guṇa and adding -tṛ, we get nouns such as ने-तृ- ‘leader’ (from √नी ‘to lead’), कर्-तृ- ‘doer, agent’ (from √कृ ‘to make, do’, e.g. in पाप-कर्तृ- ‘evil-doer’), लब्धृ- ‘taker’ (from √लभ् ‘to take’) etc. (The same internal sandhi applies as before -t- elsewhere; –› Chapter 8 and the Reference Grammar in Appendix III for details.) Some roots that end in consonants add not -tṛ, but -itṛ (as e.g. रक्षितृ- ‘protector’ from √रक्ष् ‘to protect’); generally speaking, -itṛ appears in those roots that also employ -itum (rather than -tum) to form their infinitive.

Four of the kinship terms (मातृ- ‘mother’, पितृ- ‘father’, दुहितृ- ‘daughter’ and भ्रातृ- ‘brother’) as well as नृ- ‘man’ behave as we might expect them to: their weak forms employ zero grade -tṛ, their strong forms guṇa -tar. All other kinship terms, as well as all agent nouns, employ not guṇa -tar, but vṛddhi -tār in their strong forms.

Summary

CARDINAL NUMBERS

Unlike in English, Sanskrit numerals (i.e. the words for numbers) have more than one form. The words for one, two, three and four are adjectives with different forms for the different genders. From five to ten, numerals behave like nouns in that they have different forms for the different cases, but are the same regardless of the gender of the word they qualify.

The word for one, एक-, has already been introduced (–› Chapter 22). It appears in all three numbers. In the dual and plural, it needs to be translated as ‘some, a few’. The word for ‘two’ has forms only in the dual; from ‘three’ up there are only plural forms. The citation forms (द्वि-, त्रि- etc.) are the stem forms used in compounds, such as द्विपद्- ‘biped, two-footed’ or त्रिलोचन- ‘three-eyed’.

As you can see, the words for ‘five’, ‘seven’, ‘eight’, ‘nine’ and ‘ten’ decline in the same way, including an endingless nominative shared by all. ‘Six’ employs the same endings, but the paradigm is slightly complicated through the internal sandhi of the stem-final retroflex. ‘Eight’ has two sets of forms: one formally comparable with that of the other numbers, and an older one ending in -au in the NOM SG and having a stem-final long ā (instead of short a) everywhere else. For higher numbers, cf. e.g. Whitney, A Sanskrit Grammar (§§475–89).

ORDINAL NUMBERS

Ordinals are the terms referring to the order of numbers – first, second, third etc. In Sanskrit, they all are a-stem adjectives in masculine and neuter, and ī-stems in the feminine.

प्रथम- ‘first’ षष्ठ- ‘sixth’

द्वितीय- ‘second’ सप्तम- ‘seventh’

तृतीय- ‘third’ अष्टम- ‘eighth’

चतुर्थ-, चतुरीय- ‘fourth’ नवम- ‘ninth’

पञ्चम- ‘fifth’ दशम- ‘tenth’

Summary

Roman poetry

Introduction

Consider the following lines from Pope's Epistle to a Lady (1735):

Pleasures the Sex, as Children Birds, pursue,

Still out of Reach, but never out of View

Put bluntly, it means ‘The (female) sex pursues pleasures as children pursue birds; the pleasures remain out of reach, but never out of view.’ The utterance is different from prose in a number of important ways:

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APPENDICES

Chapter 8 - Absolutives, ta-Participles and Infinitives; Introduction to Internal Sandhi

Summary

Chapter 2A - Word Stress: Heavy and Light Syllables

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Chapter 17 - Noun Formation

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Chapter 3 - Road Map: Verbs

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Chapter 21 - The Future Tense; Middle and Passive Voice

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Chapter 29 - ṛ-Stems, n-Stems; the Periphrastic Future

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Chapter 37 - Numerals

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Section 6A - Grammar and exercises for 6A

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Section 2B - Grammar and exercises for 2B

Section 5

Section 6

Section 5E - Grammar and exercises for 5E

Section 1C - Grammar and exercises for 1C

Section 6D - Grammar and exercises for 6D

Section 4E - Grammar and exercises for 4E

Section 2D - Grammar and exercises for 2D

J–K - Adjectives, adverbs and prepositions

A–G Verbs - A Introduction: some key notions and the verb-system

Appendix: The Latin language

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