GÖTZ KEYDANA

Early Vedic
Morphology – Part 1: General Remarks, Word Formation, Compounds
Roadmap
 Vedic as a fusional language
 Word classes
 Morphological devices:
 Pre-, suffixing, reduplication, conversion, internal

derivation, ablaut
 Composition: semantic types, formal issues

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 2

The fusional character of Vedic Sanskrit
 Stem finals and endings often merge: NOM.PL. of ā-stems: -āḥ, counts
as 2 syllables in metre, i.e. -aHaḥ
• Endings encode more than one φ-feature: -enā INS.SG.M/N
(thematic)
• Different endings encode the same (set of) feature(s) depending on
the stem: -bʱiḥ (C-stems), -aiḥ / -ebʱiḥ (thematic stems) ins.pl
• Homonymy: -as (C-stems) GEN/ABL.SG, NOM/VOC/ACC.PL; (thematic
stems) NOM.SG.M
• Features may be encoded by more than one morpheme: ca-kār-a
PERF.3SG ‘has made’
• Vedic Sanskrit is dependent-marking (see 4.1).
Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 3
Word classes
 Nouns, adjectives, pronouns: see 3.2
 Verbs: see 3.3
 Adverbs
 Underived, e.g. ápi ‘upon’, práti ‘against’

 Derived, e.g. anyá-taḥ ‘from another place’, anyá-tra ‘elsewhere’,

adverbial case forms, e.g. náktam acc. ‘by night’, vástoḥ gen. ‘in the
morning’
 Adpositions: Most underived adverbs can be used as postpositions
 Complementizers: e.g. yád, ca (on the syntax of embedding see 4.3)
 Conjunctions: utá, ca
 Negations: ná, mā́ (in prohibitions)
 Discourse particles, e.g. ha, vái, cid (on 2P see 2.3 and 4.3)
Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 4
Morphological devices: Suffixes
 The basic structure: Root + Suffix + Ending
 Suffix-less formations (root-formations)
 Root nouns, e.g. pád ‘foot’, n.sg pā́t, acc.sg pā́d-am, dat.sg padé etc.

 2
nd-class verbs, e.g. ay ‘to go’ PRS.3SG é-ti, PRS.3PL y-ánti

 Ø-endings
 e.g. NOM.SG pitā́ (: pitár- ‘father’), S-AOR.2/3SG ábʱār (:bʱar ‘bring’)

 In nominal derivations, suffixes may be stacked: rā́j- ‘king’, rā́j-an-

‘king’ : rāj-an-yà- ‘warrior’ : rā́j-an-ya-kam ‘band of warriors’ (class.)

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Morphological devices: Prefixes, Infix
 Prefixes are rare:
 ánu-vrata- ‘obedient’, mad + ánu ‘applaud’, anumádanti PRS.3PL
RV 1.173.7, stacked: labʱ + ánu +ā́ ‘take hold’ anv-ā́-lebʱire PRF.3PL
RV 10.130.7 (see below on preverbs)
 Word negation: a-mŕ̥ta- ‘immortal’, an-udrá- ‘without water’,
similarly su-, dus-, sa-
 Reduplication always on the left edge of the word, see below
 Augment: á-bʱār AOR.2/3SG (:bʱar ‘bring’), áiccʰat IPF.3SG (:iṣ
‘desire’, note irregular sandhi!), always immediately before the
root, e.g. adʱy-á-stʰāḥ AOR.2SG ‘mount’
 The n-infix: yu-ná-k-ti ‘yokes’, yu-ñ-j-ánti ‘they yoke’ (:yuj)
Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 6
Taddhita-suffixes, pada-endings
 Secondary suffixes and a subset of nominal endings behave
phonologically like words in compounds (external sandhi)
 C-initial taddhita-suffixes:
 duvo-yú- / duvas-yú- ‘worshipful’

 Pada-endings:
 INS.PL dúvo-bʱis, DAT.PL dúvo-bʱyas, INS.DAT.DU dúvo-bʱyām, LOC.PL

dúvas-su (note the geminate!)

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 7

Suffix alternations (Caland-suffixes)
 The adjective-forming affix -ra alternates with -i in compounds:
 Examples:

 krūrá- ‘bloody’, á-kravi-hasta- ‘not having bloody hands’

 dabʱrá- ‘small, minor’, dabʱīti- ́ ← dabʱí-iti- ‘foe’

 saci-víd- ‘clingy’, ā́-skra- ‘sticking together’ (:sac)

 The alternation is no longer productive

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 8

Reduplication in Verb Stem Formation
 Present stems
 Perfect stems
 Reduplicated Aorist
 Desiderative
 Intensive

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 9

Reduplication in Present Stems
 Least sonorous onset consonant of the root copied: jí-gʱrā-ti, tí-ṣṭʰa-ti
 Dorsals are copied as corresponding palatals: jí-gʱar-ti, jí-hī-te (:hā)
 I and a in the reduplicant, distribution not predictable
 a-vocalism: dá-dʱā-ti, vá-varti (← vá-vart-ti)

 i-vocalism: tí-ṣṭ a-ti, bí-bʱar-ti (alongside bʱárati)

h

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 10

Perfect Reduplication
 Least sonorous onset consonant of the root copied
 pa-pā́t-a, da-dʱā́rṣ-a
 pa-prā́tʰ-a, but ta-stā́mbʱ-a
 du-drā́v-a, śu-śóca, ījé (← i-ijé :yac)
 Saṃprasāraṇa: u-vā́s-a
 Dorsal copied as palatal: jā-gā́r-a
 a-ā́śa (= ā́śa), but ān-añj-a
 sa-sā́d-a / sedúr (← sa-sd-úr), ya-yā́m-a / yemúr, pa-pā́d-a / pedúr

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 11

Reduplicated Aorist

 Shape of the reduplicant: Ci/ī- (C = least sonorous C of root onset)

 Examples:

 á-jī-jan-a-t (= .á.jī.ja.nat.), á-vī-vr̥dʱ-at (= .á.vī.vr̥.dʱat.)

 a-si-ṣyad-a-t (= .a.siṣ.ya.dat.), a-ci-krad-a-t (= .a.cik.ra.dat.)

 Common pattern: Reduplicant + root syllable form a trochee

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 12

Desiderative

 Shape of the reduplicant: Ci-, with roots in u Cu-

 Examples

 jíjñā-sa-, dí-dr̥k-ṣa-, rú-ruk-ṣa-

 With root-vowel lengthening: cí-kī-ṣa-, śú-śrū-ṣa-

 With lengthening of the reduplicant: bī́-bʱat-sa-, tū́-tur-ṣa-

 Tendency towards weight contour

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 13

Intensive
 Roots in final i/u: guṇa in stressed reduplicant
 né-nej-mi / né-nij-ati, po-prutʰ-

 Roots in final R: guṇa in stressed reduplicant

 dár-dr̥-, jaṅ-gʱan- (evidence for R-diphthongs?)

 Roots in final O: ā in stressed reduplicant or stressed guṇa + ī/i

 bā-badʱ-, pā-pat-, śā-śras-

 gánī-gam- / gáni-gm-

 Common pattern: Heavy syllable preceding the root

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 14

Reduplication in Noun Stem Formation
 Isolates: cakrá- ‘wheel’ (:car), tūtumá- ‘strong’ (cf. túmra-)
 Rout nouns: cikít- ‘knowledgeable’ (:cit), didyú- / didyú-t- ‘arrow’
(:dyav?)
 Nominal intensives: gʱanāgʱaná- ‘belligerent’ (:han), calācalá-
‘shaky’ (:car), dadʱr̥ṣá- ‘bold’ (:dʱarṣ̥)
 Deverbal adjectives: cákri- ‘active’ (:kar)
 Onomatopoesis: ululí- ‘jubilant’ (AV), dadadá- (of thunder, ŚB)

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Conversion / Internal derivation
 Deverbal root nouns:
 víś- ‘dwelling’ (:veś), vā́c- ‘speech’ (:vac)

 With preverb: pari-pád- ‘trap’ (:pad), úpa-stu-t ‘invocation’ (:stav),

 Compound: śrad-dʱā́- ‘trust’ (:dʱā)

 Internal derivation: accent shift to the right:

 ápas- ‘work’ vs. apás- ‘working’

 bráhman- ‘formula’ vs. brahmán- ‘priest’

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 16

Ablaut: The basic pattern
Full grade zero grade Lengthened grade
(guṇa) (vr̥ddhi)
CaC pad pd pād
CaR kar kr-V / kr̥-C kār
CaN gam Gm-V / ga-C gām
Cay ja.yV / je.C ji jā.yV / jai.C
Cav śra.vV / śro.C śru śrā.vV/śrau
yaC yac ic yāc
vac vac uc vāc
Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 17
Ablaut as a morphophonological device
 Paradigmatic root ablaut
 é-ti ‘goes’, y-ánti ‘they go’ (:ay); hán-ti ‘strikes’, gʱn-ánti ‘they strike’

(:han)
 Paradigmatic suffix ablaut
 ma-tí-ḥ ‘thought’ NOM.SG, ma-táy-aḥ NOM.PL, dā́-tu-m ‘offering’

ACC.SG, dā́-tav-e DAT.SG

 Ablaut in derivation
 pād-áya-ti ‘causes to fall’ (:pad)

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 18

Vr̥ddhi
 Vr̥ddhi, literally ‘growth’, is a productive means of forming secondary
derivatives
 kā́ṇva- ‘descendant of Kaṇva’ : káṇva- proper noun

 With affix: vāpuṣá- ‘wonderful’ : vápuṣ- ‘wonder’, páuruṣeya-

‘surrounded by men’ : púruṣa- ‘man’

 Multiple vr̥ddhi: vaiṣṇava-vāruṇá- (ŚB) ‘directed towards Viṣṇu and

Varuṇa’

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Preverbation
 Vedic makes frequent use of verbal particles / underived adverbs like
ánu ‘after’, abʱí ‘against’, úpa ‘up to’, práti ‘towards’ etc.
 Univerbation of verbal particle and verb is restricted to embedded
sentences. Thus r̥ṣ́ iḥ… práti bʱūṣati ‘the seer… attends’ RV 5.75.1 vs.
yó… prá bʱūṣati ‘who… attends’ RV 6.52.8
 Verbal particles / preverbs can be stacked (see above).
 Verbal particles are typically adjacent to the verb, but they may be
separated by one or more intervening words (tmesis).
 The semantics is not necessarily compositional: gam + abʱí ‘come
hither’ or ‘understand’

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 20

Incorporation
 Is extremely rare in Vedic Sanskrit
 Occurs only with infinite verb forms
 With participles: hiṅ-kr̥ṇvatī́ ‘making the sound hin’ (:kar), astaṃ-

yánt- ‘going home’ (:ay, AV)

 With the gerund: karṇa-gŕ̥hya ‘seizing by the ear’ (:grah)

 post-RV cvi-construction, e.g. krūrī-kurvánti ‘they wound’ (:krūrá-

‘bloody’)

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Nominal Compounds
 1st part is bare stem, e.g. deva-yájya- ‘sacifice to the gods’
 Exceptions:

 Lexicalized iuxtapositions, e.g. jā́s páti- besides jā́spati- ‘lord of

the clan’, apsu-ṣád- ‘living in the water’

 No recursion attested in Early Vedic
 A compound is one syntactic object
 Exceptions: rāyás-kāmo viśvapsnyasya ‘desiring wealth like the

distillate of all mother’s milk’ RV 7.42.6, loka-jítam svargám

‘winning the heavenly world’ AV 4.34.8

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 22

Semantic types

 Endocentric
 Iteratives: amreḍita

 Copulatives: dvandva

 Determinative: tatpuruṣa

 Determinative: karmadhāraya

 Exocentric: bahuvrīhi

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 23

Iteratives (amreḍita)

 Iterative or distributive reading: agním-agnim ‘Agni over and over

again’, dáme-dame ‘in every house’
 One inflected form (noun, adjective) repeated two times
 Only the first instantiation accented (rare exceptions, see above)

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 24

Copulatives (dvandva)
 Denote pairs of entities: indra-vāyū́ ‘Indra and Vāyu’ (note the dual!)
 In most instances both parts in the dual: mitrā́-varuṇā ‘Mitra and

Varuṇa’, dyā́vā-pr̥tʰivī́ ‘heaven and earth’

 Only the 2
nd part inflected for case: gen. mitrā́-varuṇayoḥ etc.

 Plural-dvandvas denote pairs of groups: aho-rātrā́ṇi ‘days and nights’,

ajāvayaḥ ‘goats and sheep’ (: ajá-, ávi-). Only RV 10 and later.
 Collective dvandvas from AV on: kr̥ta-akr̥tám ‘what has been done
and not done’

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 25

Determinatives (tatpuruṣa)
 First member fills thematic role of the second member
 rāja-putrá- ‘son of a king’, viś-páti- ‘lord of the clan’ etc.

 2nd member often verbal noun

 vā́ja-sāti ‘winning of booty’, bʱadra-vādín- ‘uttering an auspicious

cry’, devá-tta- ‘given by the gods’ (:dā) etc.

 From iuxtapositions: áśvam-iṣṭi- ‘seeking of a horse’, bráhmaṇas-pati-
‘lord of the formula’

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 26

Root compounds

 Special case of tatpuruṣa with verbal head

 Very productive in Early Vedic
 2nd part is a verbal root
 vr̥tra-hán- ‘slayer of Vṛtra’ (:han), r̥ta-jñā́- ‘knowing the right order’

(:jñā) etc.

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 27

A note on the semantics of root compounds
 Stage-level predicate
sá vr̥trahā́ sanáyo viśvavedāḥ | párṣad víśvā́ti duritā́ gr̥ṇántam
‘He, the slayer of Vr̥tra from old, having every possession, will take the
singer across all difficulties.’ RV 3.20.4
 Event-related:
sá jātébʱir vr̥trahā́ séd u havyáir | úd usríyā asr̥jad índro arkáiḥ
‘He with those who were born (scil. the Maruts) slayed Vr̥tra, and he,
Indra, sent the ruddy (cows) surging upwards with oblations and
chants.’ RV 3.31.11

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 28

Determinatives (karmadhāraya)

 1st part is attribute to 2nd part

 Quite rare in Early Vedic
 mahā-grāmá- ‘great host’, āśu-pátvan- ‘flying swiftly’, puró-hita-

‘placed in front’ etc.

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 29

Exocentric compounds (bahuvrīhi)
 The semantic head is not part of the compound: ugrá-bāhu- ‘who has
a strong arm’, cf. engl. Armstrong
 Internal tatpuruṣa structure:

 rāyás-kāma- ‘having a desire for wealth’, vájra-bāhu- ‘having a

bolt on his arm’

 Internal karmadhāraya structure:

 duṣ-pád- ‘having bad feet’, hatá-mātar- ‘whose mother was slain’,

rā́ja-putra- ‘whose sons are kings’

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 30

Governing compounds
 The first part governs the second part
 1st part is preposition
 anu-kāmá- ‘according to wish’, paro-mātrá- ‘excessive’

 1st part is verb

 r̥dʱád-vāra- ‘increasing goods’, tarád-dveṣas- ‘overcoming foes’

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 31

Formal features of compounds: The joint
 Suffix-change (Caland, see above)
 Lengthening in the joint
 viśvā́-nara- ‘of all men’ (< *Hnara-), śatā́-magʱa- ‘rich in hundreds’

 In middle and late Vedic rare cases of a inserted in the joint

 dur-a-dabʱná- ‘feinting doors’ (AV), aśvín-a-kr̥ta- ‘made by the

Aśvins’ (VS)
 Rare cases of stem-reduction
 apna-rā́j- ‘commanding wealth’ (:ápnas-), pr̥ṣodará- ‘with a mottled

belly’ (: pŕ̥ṣat-, udára-)

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 32

Formal features of compounds: Accent
 Culminative accent, e.g. tanū-kr̥tʰá- ‘making of bodies’
 Exceptions: śácī-páti- ‘lord of power’, tánū-nápād- n.pr., some

amreḍitas, e.g. gr̥hé-gr̥hé ‘in each house’

 Accent on the same syllable as in the simplex
 Exceptions: rare accent shift in the 2nd part in bahuvrīhis:

́ ‘with
ardʱendrá- ‘belonging in part to Indra’ (:índra-, ŚB), puruvīra-
many men’ (:vīrá-)
 Rules of thumb:
 Accent on 1
st part in bahuvrīhis, verbal governing compounds,

amreḍitas
 Accent on 2
nd part in determinative compounds

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 33

 बहवो ध वादाः
Thank you for your attention!

Early Vedic – Morphology, Part 1 34