Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/406

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

1040. Some stems which are desiderative in form have lost the peculiarity of desiderative meaning, and assumed the value of independent roots: examples are cikits, cure, jugups, despise, titikṣ, endure, bībhats, abhor, mīmāṅs ponder, çuçrūṣ obey. Doubtless some of the apparent roots in the language with sibilant final are akin with the desideratives in origin: e.g. çikṣ, desiderative of çak.

a. On account of the near relation of desiderative and future (cf. 948 b), the former is occasionally found where the latter was rather to be expected: thus, rājānam prayiyāsantam (ÇB.) a king about to depart; prāṇa uccikramiṣan (ChU.) the breath on the point of expiring; mumūrṣur ivā ’bhavat (H.) he was fain to die.

IV. Causative.

1041. a. In the later language is allowed to be made from most roots a complete causative conjugation. The basis of this is a causative stem, formed by appending the causative-sign अय áya to the, usually strengthened, root.

b. But by no means all conjugation-stems formed by the sign अय áya are of causative value; and the grammarians regard a part of them as constituting a conjugation-class, the tenth or cur-class, according to which roots may be inflected as according to the other classes, and either alone or along with others (775).

c. In RV., the proportion without causative value is fully one third. The formation is a more obviously denominative one than any of the other conjugation-classes, an intermediate between them and the proper denominatives. A causative meaning has established itself in connection with the formation, and become predominant, though not exclusive. A number of roots of late appearance and probably derivative character are included in the class, and some palpable denominatives, which lack only the usual denominative accent (below, 1056).

d. The causative formation is of much more frequent use, and more decidedly expanded into a full conjugation, than either the intensive or the desiderative. It is made from more than three hundred roots in the early language (in RV., from about one hundred and fifty); but in the oldest, its forms outside the present-system are (apart from the attached reduplicated aorist: 1046) exceedingly few.

1042. The treatment of the root before the causative-sign अय aya is as follows: