"syllabicity"

[petegray]

   Pat said:

> I know that this is a bit late in the game to be asking this question but
> where did we get this Sanskrit form in the first place? I cannot find it in
> Whitney's _Die Wurzeln, Verbalformen und Prima{"}ren Sta{"}mme der
> Sanskrit-Sprache_.

No, you won't find it in Whitney (notice he says the "primary stems").
Whitney lists all the various forms actually found (or cited in the
grammarians) from a particular root, such as which of the 10 possible
present formations a root shows, which of the 12 possible infinitives, which
of the 7 possible aorist formations, and so on.   (Incidentally, similar
variety is concealed in Latin , since the classical language standardised
one form for each verb at the expense of the others - pango, for example,
shows pepigi, pe:gi and panxi, but only the first became "standard".)

What Whitney does not show, is derivative stems, compounds, and so on.   A
root may form several other derived "stems" which function as new verbs.   A
few of these become treated as root verbs, and are listed independently in
Whitney, but most are not in Whitney, and need to be found in a good
dictionary.

The particular form I cited is an intensive, where the entire root, or
almost all the root, is repeated.   The first occurrence normally has -e-
grade (guna) although some other strengthened forms (e.g. infixed -r-
or -n-) are also possible.  The second occurrence has zero grade.

For example, ru "to roar" forms roru:yate < reu-ru-;   di:p "to shine"
forms dedi:pyate < dei-di-; and so on.   Kram "to stride" forms camkramyate
"to step to and fro".  Note the "c" showing that the first vowel derived
from IE -e-.

Some of these insert an -i- between the two occurrences of the root, e.g.
(sam)jari:harti "destroys repeatedly"  (Note again the "j" showing an IE -e-
vowel).  A second example is  the form which provoked this discussion.
The presence or absence of this -i- (or -i:-) has no justification within
Skt and appears random - until we recognise that it is present in roots with
an initial laryngeal.

Peter