Re: History of the aorist

Dear Florian,

Pāli's aorist is a development of Sanskrit/Vedic aorist, so for a full understanding, you must study those. Whitney's Sanskrit grammar gives a full treatment of this (§824-920) but it is much more comprehensive than you need. A short summary on five pages can be found in Stenzler. See references below.

Basically there are seven forms of aorist and they all have in common the augment (a-, which is lost sometimes in Pāli) and the secondary endings (those used in the optative). They always use the root, to which the personal endings are added, sometimes with an -s- or -is, or -siṣ- interposed between the root and the endings

Class one is the simple aorist for some common roots like dā (dadhāti), to give:  adaṃ (Skt. adām, Pāli adaṃ), "I gave."
Class two is called the thematic aorist, as an -a- is added to the root agamaṃ (Skt. agamaṃ, Pāli agamaṃ) "I went"
Class three is the reduplicated aorist which there are only traces of in Pāli (e.g. adudruvam from root dru, "I ran" in Skt.) Pāli has the form adhavissaṃ, but that is an s-aorist (see below)
Class four - six are called the s- or sigmatic aorists, as an s i or -is- is added to the root. In Class 4 an -s- (or  sometimes an -ṣ- in Skt.)  is added to the root:  Pāli assosiṃ, Skt. aśrausaṃ, from root śru, "I heard."
Class five adds -is- (or sometimes an -iṣ- in Skt.) to the root, Pāli agamisaṃ (Skt agamiṣam), "I went." (as you can see some verbs take more than one form of aorist.
Class six adds -siṣ- to roots ending in -ā or dipthongs, e.g. ayāsiṣam in Skt. "I went." (from root yā). Pāli ayāsiṃ
Class seven  is formed with roots ending in -s- and -h- and adds an sa- to the root which becomes -kṣa- in Skt. adikṣam "I pointed out" from root diś.  I don't think this form has survived in Pāli although the verb (disati) of course has.

Hope that helps as a very brief introduction

Bryan


Stenzler,
A. F. 1997. Primer of the Sanskrit
Language.  2nd revised
edition translated into English  by
Renate Söhnen-Thieme.
London: School of Oriental and African Studies.
Whitney, W. D. 2000. Sanskrit Grammar. Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass Publishers. Originally published 1924.




________________________________
  From: Florian Weps <fmw@...>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 6:25:51 AM
Subject: [palistudy] History of the aorist


 
Dear group

As I wrote in my introductory post, I'm a beginner, and don't have any
knowledge of Sanskrit.

In Narada's course, the aorist is just presented "as-is", with a few
remarks that sometimes the base, and sometimes the stem is used to
construct it, and that sometimes, an s is inserted, and sometimes, an a
is prefixed.

In Duroiselle's grammar the treatment is more detailed, hinting at a
complex historical process leading to the Pali aorist.

Collins' grammar is very terse on the subject of the history of the aorist.

I'd be grateful for any suggestions on what's worth knowing about the
aorist's development, and where to find out more about it.

Kind regards,
Florian



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