Extract
Remarks on the Vedic intensive.
This book, which represents a revised version of Christiane Schaefer's 1989 doctoral dissertation, addresses various problems of the intensive, a fascinating, but rather neglected category of the Vedic verb. It consists of two parts of more or less equal length: the general part (I. "Vorbemerkungen," pp. 11-14; II. "Morphologie," pp. 15-71; III. "Semantik," pp. 72-100) and the discussion of the forms arranged in accordance with the verbal root (IV. "Monographischer Teil," pp. 101-208). The book is concluded by indices and a bibliography.
The emphasis of the book lies on the semantics of the intensive. Not only in chapter III, which is dedicated to this subject, but also in the discussion of the separate intensive formations, S. primarily deals with meaning. She conclusively shows that the Vedic intensive has no demonstrable intensive or affective meaning at all and that in the majority of instances it displays an iterative or repetitive function. This result is very important and is one of the major achievements of the book. Whereas the semantics of the intensive is treated fully and adequately in S.'s book, the morphological analysis can be refined in several aspects. In the following, I shall take up a few morphological and etymological points where I disagree with S.'s position or where, in my opinion, we can reach a little farther. MORPHOLOGY The Subjunctive S. convincingly shows that the intensive subjunctive had zero grade in the root in Indo-Iranian (cf. also GAv. voiuuidaiti/e Y 30.8). The only serious exception to this rule in Vedic(1) is the subjunctive...See the full content of this document
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