Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/330

. No middle forms are classifiable with confidence here.

c. The series, and (compare : 830 a), and the isolated , are of doubtful belongings; with a different accent, they would seem to be of the next class; here, a -strengthening would be more regular (but note the absence of  in the aorist indicative and the perfect of √).

837. Optative. The optative active of this aorist constitutes, with a interposed between mode-sign and personal endings (567), the precative active of the Hindu grammarians, and is allowed by them to be made from every verb, they recognizing no connection between it and the aorist. But in the 2d sing. the interposed is not distinguishable from the personal ending; and, after the earliest period (see 838), the ending crowds out the sibilant in the 3d sing., which thus comes to end in  instead of  (compare 555 a).

a. In the older language, however, pure optative forms, without the, are made from this tense. From roots in occur (with change of  to  before the : 250 d)  and, and ; in -vowels, ; in , ; in consonants,  and  and , , ,  and , , and.

b. The optative middle of the root-aorist is not recognized by the Hindu grammarians as making a part of the precative formation. The RV. has, however, two precative forms of it, namely and. Much more common in the older language are pure optative forms: namely, and  (this optative is especially common), ; and probably, from -roots,  and  (which might also be augmentless indicative, since  and  also occur). All these forms except the three in 3d sing. might be precative according to the general understanding of that mode, as being of persons which even by the native authorities are not claimed ever to exhibit the inserted sibilant.

838. Precative active forms of this aorist are made from the earliest period of the language. In RV., they do not occur from any root which has not also other aorist forms of the same class to show. The RV. forms are: 1st sing., ; 2d sing., ; 3d sing. (in -, for -; RV. has no 3d sing, in, which is later the universal ending), ; 1st pl., (beside : 837 a). AV. has six 1st persons sing, in -, one 2d in -, one 3d in - (and one in -, in a RV. passage), three 1st pl. in - (beside one in, in a RV. passage), and the 2d (doubtless a false reading: TB. has - in the corresponding passage). From this time on, the pure optative forms nearly