Hi Blake,

Welcome to the group and good luck with your Pali studies.

>
>I'm just looking at the verbs in chapter two of Ven.
>Naarada's textbook and am wondering why two of them,
>disa (deseti) and pesa (peseti) don't act like the
>other verbs ending in -a that we've seen thus far. I'd
>have thought disa would be rendered disati (in the 3rd
>person singular) and pesa, pesati, but I can see I'm
>wrong. What I don't understand it WHY I'm wrong.

I suspect there's no way you could understand it from Narada's book,
which is not an ideal choice for beginners. It doesn't contain much
explanation. If you want to learn efficiently and with less
frustration, I'd really recommend that you get Warder's _Introduction
to Pali_ and/or Gair/Karunatillake's _New Course in Reading Pali_.
They work nicely together.

About those forms you asked about, there is a form disati like you
expected, but this can also be conjugated in what is called the
'causative' form. There is strengthening of the main vowel
(dis->des-) and the '-a' ending is replaced by -aya, which typically
reduces -aya > -e).

There is also a separate conjugation (called curaadi) where verbs use
these endings, though without causative force.

All of this is explained in detail, with great clarity in Warder.

best regards,

/Rett