John Smith, Re: iyaat (Buddhist pseudo-Sanskrit)

[Forwarded from Dr. Philip Ernest]

[...] I don't think this is  question of the
optative becoming anything.  It's just that some of
the optative forms of the verb i closely enough
resembled those of the imperfect another common verb,
yaa, and thus came to be picked by the poets when they
needed a preterite form.  From my limited point of
view, there isn't an ay string here, but the verb i
taking the optative ending yaat and so on, and the
verb yaa in its imperfect form, ayaat.  But my view
the naive view of a mere reader of Sanskrit with only
the most practical and rudimentary sense of the theory
of grammar, so Pind may probably be talking beyond my
earshot.  That the forms in question are not optative
in meaning seems quite necessary in the context of
their passages.  I am guessing that Pind is a senior
expert in Indian linguistics.

[...]