Vṛddhi

Origins

Vṛddhi itself has its origins in proto-vṛddhi, a process in the early stage of the Proto-Indo-European language originally for forming possessive derivatives of ablauting noun stems, with the meaning "of, belonging to, descended from". To form a vṛddhi-derivative, one takes the zero-grade of the ablauting stem (i.e. removes the vowel), inserts the vowel *e in a position which does not necessarily match that of the original vowel, and appends an accented thematic vowel (or accents any existing final thematic vowel). For example:

| PIE "sky" (cf. Latin , Sanskrit "day"; Hittite "god") → zero grade *diw- → proto-vṛddhi derivative "god, sky god", lit. "skyling" (cf. Sanskrit , Latin , etc.)

However, in a later stage of the language this appears to have extended to non-ablauting noun stems that already contained *e, which would contract with the inserted vowel to form a lengthened *ē:

| PIE "father-in-law" (cf. Latin , Sanskrit ) → proto-vṛddhi derivative "brother-in-law", lit. "male descendent of one's father in law" (cf. Sanskrit , Old High German "brother-in-law")

The above example also displays the stressing of the thematic vowel when it already exists. It is this later version of proto-vṛddhi which is displayed in Sanskrit's lengthened vṛddhi grade.

Vṛddhi in Sanskrit

The general phenomenon of vowel gradation, including vṛddhi formation, has been extensively studied and documented as part of Sanskrit's vigorous grammatical tradition, most importantly in the Aṣṭādhyāyī of the grammarian Pāṇini.

For example:

• "carried" (zero grade)
• "burden" (first grade, full grade, or guṇa)
• "to be carried" (second grade, lengthened grade, or vṛddhi)

The full pattern of vowel gradation can be observed as follows:

Vṛddhi in Indo-European

In modern Indo-European linguistics it is used in Pāṇini's sense and applied to the Indo-European languages in general. The feature is considered to have been inherited from the Proto-Indo-European language.

• bʰr̥- (zero grade of the reconstructed verb meaning "to carry")
• (full grade)
• *bʰēr- (vṛddhi, lengthened grade)

Notes

References

Sources

References

1. {{Harvcoltxt. Ringe. 2017
2. "*werdʰ- to grow".
3. Clackson, §3.3.
4. {{Harvcoltxt. Fortson. 2004
5. Burrow, §2.1.
6. {{Harvcoltxt. Meier-Brügger. Fritz. Mayrhofer. 2003
7. Bucknell, tb. 5.
8. {{Harvcoltxt. Rix. 2001