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Derivational modality? The rise (and fall) of the lengthened grade as a subjunctive
marker in Vedic
Eystein Dahl, University of Bergen
This paper explores the use of the lengthened grade in the so-called strong endings in the
Vedic middle subjunctive paradigm. The inherited 1 st dual and plural middle subjunctive
forms of the type sacāvahe, yajāmahe were replaced by innovative forms like sacāvahai,
yajāmahai which probably arose by analogical influence from 1 st singular middle subjunctive
forms such as sacai, yajai. The paradigm resulting from this process raises a number of
intriguing questions with regard to how the innovative subjunctive forms were generated
synchronically. Specifically, there is an obvious apophonical relationship between forms like
yaje, yajase, yajate etc. on the one hand and yajai, yajāsai, yajātai etc. on the other, the latter
forms ultimately seeming to represent a kind of double vṛddhi-derivation which affects the
penultimate as well as the last syllable. This use of apophony in the verbal paradigm is
remarkable, as processes of this kind, particularly the alternation between full grade and
lengthened grade, mostly serves to affect the derivational base, cf. e.g. so-called Narten
presents like stauti/stavat or sigmatic aorists like ajais/jeṣat. Given the systematic
correspondences between the subjunctive and the indicative in the middle paradigm, it is
significant that the active paradigm of the subjunctive has a far less obvious or systematic
relation to the indicative. From this perspective, the apparent rise in Vedic of a secondary type
of derivational modality employing the lengthened grade as a subjunctive marker seems to
have resulted in a split in the subjunctive paradigm, whereby the active subparadigm was
generated by means of one more or less coherent set of rules while the middle subparadigm
was generated by one simple derivational rule. These two factors, the paradigm split and the
synchronically exceptional derivation pattern of the middle subjunctive forms, may ultimately
have caused the subjunctive to disappear.
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