Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/334

 847. The -aorist makes in the RV. a small figure beside the root-aorist, being represented by less than half the latter's number of roots. It becomes, however, more common later (it is the only form of aorist which is made from more verbs in AV. than in RV.); and in Veda and Brāhmaṇa together about eighty roots exhibit the formation more or less fully. Of these a large number (fully half) are of the type of the roots which make their present-system according to the -class, having a vowel capable of -strengthening before a final consonant (754): thus, with, 1 , 2 ; — with ; — with. A small number end in vowels: thus, (which have the -strengthening throughout),  (?  once in AV.), and several in, apparent transfers from the root-class by the weakening of their  to : thus, , and  and ; and , regarded by the grammarians as aorist to √ throw, is doubtless a like formation from √. A few have a penultimate nasal in the present and elsewhere, which in this aorist is lost: thus,. Of less classifiable character are. The roots form the tense-stems, of which the first is palpably and the other two are probably the result of reduplication; but the language has lost the sense of their being such, and makes other reduplicated aorists from the same roots (see below, 854).

a. Many of these aorists are simply transfers of the root-aorist to an -inflection. Conspicuous examples are etc. and  etc. (in the earliest period only  and ).

848. The inflection of this aorist is in general so regular that it will be sufficient to give only examples of its Vedic forms. We may take as model, from √ find, of which the various persons and modes are more frequent and in fuller variety than those of any other verb. Only the forms actually quotable are instanced; those of which the examples found are from other verbs than are bracketed. Thus:

a. The middle forms are rare in the earlier language, as in the later: we have etc.,  etc.,  (?) and,  and  (and  GB. and  KB. are doubtless to be amended to -).