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26 Root Nouns and Sibilant-Stems

Avestan exhibits a class of root nouns to whose endings an inflection is added directly. Root nouns appear in all three genders, with masculine and neuter declensions that vary only slightly. The feminine stem adds the final vowel ī and declines accordingly.

Neuter nouns in h are also found, deriving from Proto-Indo-Iranian s-stems, which some phonological contexts preserve (e.g., manah nominative singular 'mind', but manas ca 'and mind'). Such nouns are commonly, though not necessarily, root nouns, and thus decline similarly, but nasalizing the stem's final syllable in strong cases. Adjectival forms appear, as do perfect active participles in vah and comparatives in yah. These decline in all three genders according to the root noun paradigm, excepting the nominative singular which lengthens the vowel in the final syllable (e.g., sumanāh 'having a good mind').

26.1 Root Nouns, Masculine and Feminine

Singular:		druj- 'deceit'
Nom.		druxš
Acc.		drujəm
Instr.		*drujā
Dat.		*drujāi
Gen.		drujah, drujō
Loc.		*druji
Plural:
Nom.		*drujah, *drujō
Acc.		*drujah, *drujō
Instr.		*drugbiš
Dat/Abl.		*drugbyah
Gen.		*drująm
Loc.		*druju

26.2 h-Stem Nouns, Neuter

Singular:		manah- 'mind'
Nom.		manah, manå
Acc.		manan̨həm
Instr.		manan̨hā
Dat.		manan̨hai
Abl.		manan̨haṯ
Gen.		manan̨hah, manan̨hō
Loc.		manahi
Dual:
Nom/Acc/Voc.		manan̨ha, manan̨hā
Gen.		manan̨hå
Plural:
Nom/Voc.		manan̨hah, manan̨hō
Acc.		manan̨hah, manan̨hō
Instr.		manahə̄biš
Dat/Abl.		manahə̄bbyah, manahə̄byō
Gen.		manahąm
Loc.		manahu, manahva

27 The Future Passive Particple and the Infinitive

27.1 Avestan builds a future passive participle, or gerundive, by adding the suffix -tva or -ya directly to the root and declining accordingly. The form may be translated as 'to be done' (e.g., varya- 'the thing to be chosen' or 'the right choice'), or more fluidly (e.g., aujya- 'praiseworthy').

27.2 An infinitive is a verbal noun expressing tenseless action as an abstract concept. For example, in the English sentence "I want to read Avestan texts," the infinitive 'to read' -- a generalized action that takes place at no particular time -- is the object of the verb. Avestan forms its infinitive by adding one of a number of consonantal or syllabic endings to a present or aorist stem, and occasionally to a desiderative (see Section 28); this new stem is then declined as a dative singular masculine. Since the dative form is consistent, it may be easier to think of infinitive endings as a set of suffixes added to a verbal stem: -dyai, -ai, -tai, -hai, -sai, manai, and vai.

Some examples:

dar		'hold, support'		drdyai		present stem
pā		'protect'		pai		present stem
gam		'go'		gatai		present stem
vac		'speak, say'		vaucahai		thematic aorist stem
dəbąz		'support'		dibzadyai		desiderative stem

A rare nominative singular infinitive form in -h is also found; e.g., ava 'help', avah 'to help'.

28 The Future Tense and Derivative Conjugations

28.1 Future Tense as Action

The future tense conveys action that will occur some time after the speaker verbalizes it. As with the present tense, it may be translated using either a general sense, as in "Very soon Zarathustra will sing," or with a continuous sense, "At noon, Zarathustra will be singing."

Though rare in Old Avestan, which typically uses a subjunctive form to express future time, the future tense becomes somewhat more frequent in the younger language. Stems of the future system are built very simply by adding either -hya- or -sya- to a verbal root, which is usually found in its middle grade. The stems take primary endings.

Future Paradigms: vac- 'speak, say'

		Active		Middle
1 sg.		vaxš̨āmi, vaxš̨ā (Gathic only)		unattested
3 sg.		unattested		vaxš̨ete
3 pl.		unattested		vaxš̨ən̨te

28.2 Future Active and Middle Participles

Future active and middle participles are formed by adding -ant- and -amna- or -ana-, respectively, to the future stem. The form is relatively rare, though found based on several roots. E.g., saušyant- '(the one who) will be saving', or 'savior', from sū 'save'.

28.3 Causatives, Desideratives, and Intensives

Several verbal forms that can appear in any tense are derived by augmenting a stem to form a distinctive base. Causatives, desideratives, and intensives are seen.

The causative is formed by adding the suffix -aya- to the stem in its strongest grade: tap 'be hot', present stem tāpaya- 'cause to be hot', 'heat'; var 'believe', aorist stem vauraya- 'cause to believe', 'convince'.

The desiderative is formed by reduplicating the root and adding the suffix -sa: ji 'conquer', jijiša- 'desires to conquer'. With a few exceptions, the form is confined to the present stem, appearing in various roots in the indicative, imperative, and subjunctive moods, as well as the participle.

The intensive is formed differently for thematic and athematic roots. Both are reduplicated. Thematic roots and their reduplication take their strongest grade; athematic roots appear in the weak grade, with the reduplicated syllable in the middle: thematic dis 'show', daidais- and athematic kar 'do, make', karkər. As the name suggests, the form is translated to convey an intensified or urgent sense.

29 Avestan Texts, Grammars, and Dictionaries

A compact survey of handbooks on the texts and other works on the Iranian languages is "The Iranian Languages," by Nicholas Sims-Williams, in The Indo-European Languages, ed. by Anna Giacalone Ramat and Paolo Ramat (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), pp. 125-153. It includes numerous references. Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, ed. by Rüdiger Schmitt (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1989) provides a fuller survey of the field, including essays by Manfred Mayrhofer on the pre-history of the Iranian languages (pp. 4-24, in German), by Jean Kellens on Avestan (pp. 32-55, in French), and by Schmitt on Old Persian (pp. 56-85, in German), among many others. And the Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, vols. I and II, ed. by Wilhelm Geiger and Ernst Kuhn (Strassburg: Trübner, 1895-1904) is still worth consulting.

Among works on the texts, The Gathas of Zarathustra by Stanley Insler (Leiden: Brill, 1975) provides translations as well as commentary. The Gathas of Zarathushtra and Other Old Avestan Texts, by Helmut Humbach (2 vols., Heidelberg: Winter), is more inclusive. See also The Avestan Hymn to Mithra, by Ilya Gershevitch (Cambridge University Press, 1967); and Avesta: The Sacred Books of the Parsis by Karl F. Geldner (3 vols., Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1886-1896), with the text in the original script, is still considered the standard edition. The standard grammar, if limited to phonology and morphology, is An Avestan grammar in comparison with Old Indian. Part I, Phonology, Inflection, Word-formation, with an introduction to the Avesta by A. V. Williams Jackson (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1892). Jackson also published A Short Grammar of Old Persian (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1936). More recent works are A Grammar of Gatha-Avestan, by Robert S. P. Beekes (Leiden: Brill, 1988) and Avestische Laut- und Flexionslehre, by Karl Hoffmann and Bernhard Forssman (Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck, 1996).

The standard dictionary is Altiranisches Wörterbuch, by Christian Bartholomae (Strassburg: Trübner, 1904).

30 The Avestan Legacy

The Old Persian materials, which will be taken up in the next lesson, are of primary interest for their historical and linguistic information. By contrast, the Avestan texts, which provide the works of Zoroaster, have given rise to a massive set of publications; they are also the basis of the present-day Parsee religion. A work devoted to the figure himself is A. V. Williams Jackson's Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran (New York, 1899). A broader work is The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism, by R. C. Zachner (1961).

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