Linguistic Studies and Essays

Vol. 61 No. 2 (2023)
Articles

On āmreḍitas in Sanskrit: Evidence from Vedic Prose

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  • Beatrice Grieco
Beatrice Grieco
Università per Stranieri di Siena
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4454/ssl.v61i2.337

Published 2024-01-24

Keywords

  • Vedic Sanskrit, āmreḍitas, intensive category, verbal reduplication.
Copyright Notice

Abstract

This paper aims to provide some preliminary findings on the so-called āmreḍita compounds by considering evidence from Vedic Prose, here represented by the Brāhmaṇas. So far studies have focused on āmreḍitas in the ṚV, while a systematic collection in the later Vedic Prose language has not been undertaken yet. Vedic Prose exhibits the emergence of new forms, previously (nearly) absent but taught in the Aṣṭādhyāyī: I will focus on verbal āmreḍitas, in particular on those formed with imperatives and gerunds. According to the Indian grammarians, verbal āmreḍitas encode the same values of the intensive category, i.e., kriyāsamabhihāra “repetitious or intense action” and nitya (= abhīkṣṇya) “reiteration”. The equivalence in meaning between repeated verbal forms and intensive verbs – already pointed out by Pāṇini and his commentators (cf. Kāśikā ad A 3.4.2; Kāśikā ad A 8.1.4) – explains the reason why verbal āmreḍitas are present in Vedic Prose. Indeed, I will demonstrate that the first cases of verbal āmreḍitas are found in Vedic Prose when the intensive category was recessive.

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