Page:Vedic Grammar.djvu/425

 VIII. INDECLINABLES. ADVERBIAL PREPOSITIONS. A. Adverbial Prepositions. 593. Of the twenty-two included in this class', eight are never used adnominally, viz. ápaª ‘away'; úd 'up', 'out'; ní ‘down', ‘into'; nís ‘out'; párā 'away'; prá 'forth'; vi 'asunder' (often 'dis-', 'away'); sám ³ 'together'4. Three others, for the most part employed adnominally, are restricted in their adverbial use to combination with particular verbs, viz. áccha ‘towards', tirás 'across', purás 'before'. The remaining eleven, being employed both adverbially and adnominally, are: áti 'beyond'; ádhi 'upon'; ánu 'after'; antár ‘within'; ápi ‘on'; abhí against'; áva 'down'; á 'near'; úpa 'up to'; pári ‘around; práti 'towards'. 415 a. When combined with verbs 5 these prepositions are not compounded in the principal sentence6. Generally speaking, they immediately precede the verb; but they are also often separated from it, e. g. á tvā višantu (1. 57) 'may they enter thee'. Occasionally the preposition follows the verb, e. g. indro gá avṛṇod ápa (vIII. 63³) Indra disclosed the cows'. Two prepositions are not infrequently combined with the verb 7; no certain instances of three being thus used can be quoted from the RV., though a few such instances occur in the AV. On the other hand, a preposition sometimes appears quite alone; the verb 'to 'be', or some other verb commonly connected with it, can then be supplied without difficulty; e. g. á tú na indra (1. 10¹¹) ‘hither, pray, (come) to us, Indra'. Or the preposition appears without the verb in one part of the sentence, but with it in another; e. g. pári mám, pári me prajām, pári naḥ pāhi yád dhánam (AV. II. 74) 'protect me, protect my pro- jeny, protect what wealth (is) ours'. As the verb normally stands at the end of the sentence, the preposition would naturally come after the object. Hence as a rule it follows the noun governed by the verb (though it is also often found preceding the noun). Primarily used to define the local direction ex- pressed by the verb which governs a case, prepositions gradually became connected with particular cases. In the RV. it is still often uncertain whether the adverbial or the adnominal sense is intended. Thus däśvámsam úpa gacchatam (1. 473) may mean either 'do ye two go-to the pious man' or 'do ye two go to-the pious man'. When used adnominally the preposition only 1 On the relative frequency of these pre-| that practically all verbs except denomina- positions in the RV. and AV. see WHITNEY, tives were capable of combining with pre- Sanskrit Grammar 1077 a. positions. On the other hand, some verbs occur only in combination with prepositions (DELBRÜCK, loc, cit.). 6 áccha, tirás, purás seem never to be compounded with the verb even in depen- dent clauses; see DELBRÜCK p. 469 (mid.). 7 When there are two, párā always im- mediately precedes the verb; á and áva nearly always; úd, ní, prá usually. On the other hand, abhí is all but invariably the first of the two; ádhi and ánu are nearly always so, úpa and práti usnally; cp. DEL- BRÜCK 234. 8 Cp. DELBRÜCK 235. Three prepositions combined with a verb are common in B.; the last is then almost invariably á or áva. 9 On the elliptical imperative use of pre- positions cp. PISCHEL, VS. 1. 13, 19f.; BRUG- MANN, IF. 18, 128; DELBRÜCK, Vergleichende Syntax 3, 122 f. 2 On the relation of ápa, ápi, úpa, ní, pári to corresponding Greek prepositions see J. SCHMIDT, KZ, 26, 21 ff. 3 sám seems in a few passages to have attained an independent prepositional use with the instrumental: sám usádbhiḥ (1. 6³), sám pátnībhiḥ (11, 168), sám kvabhiḥ (VIII. 97¹2), sám jyotiṣā jyótiḥ (VS.11.9), sám ấyuṣā (TS. 1, 1, 10²); but in all these examples the case perhaps depends on the compound sense of the verb. BR, do not recognize the prepositional use, cp. DELBRÜCK p. 459; on the other hand, see GRASSMANN s. v. sám and WHITNEY 1127. sám is used with the inst. in Kh. I, 47. 4 The adverbs āvis and prădúr 'in view' are used with Vas, Vbhu- and Vkr- only. 5 Though a certain number of verbs are never actually met with in the RV. and AV. in combination with prepositions (cp. DELBRÜCK p. 433), there can be litte doubt