Syntax of Dative

[Jan E.M. Houben]

Dear Madhav,
Whether shift or variation, assuming you have seen Delbrück Altindische
Syntax, Speyer Sanskrit Syntax and Speyer Vedic Syntax, I think that the
following two publications might be useful (even though they focus on the
Vedic dative they refer to cases beyond Vedic as well):
E.W. Hopkins The Vedic Dative Reconsidered in Transactions and Proc. of the
Am. Phil. Ass. vol. 37 (1937):  87-120;
J. Gonda The Unity of the Vedic Dative (with ref. to discussions by
Debrunner, Whitney, Renou etc.) repr. in Selected Studies vol. on
Indo-European Linguistics, 141ff.
Also useful may be Oberlies' Grammar of Epic Sanskrit p. 331f and
Brockington The Sanskrit Epics p. 87f.
The main shift may have been not so much in the use of the dative but in the
interpretation of dhiimahi as form of dhii (cf. Whitney's misplaced judgment
in his Roots ... p. 83 which nevertheless captures the shift involved: "The
form dhiimahi belongs here [under dhii/diidhii] only as thus used later,
with a false apprehension of its proper meaning.")
Jan

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 7:35 PM, Deshpande, Madhav <mmdesh at umich.edu> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues
>
> I am looking for some scholarly discussion on the use of datives with verbs
> like vidmahe and dhīmahi found in the late Gāyatrīs as found in texts like
> the Taittirīiya Araṇyaka, e.g.  तत्पुरुषाय विद्महे महादेवाय धीमहि / तन्नो
> रुद्रः प्रचोदयात् //  The use of dative in these late Gāyatrīs contrasts
> with the accusative in the old Gāyatrī : तत् सवितुर्वरेण्यं भर्गो देवस्य
> धीमहि.  I am looking for any scholarly discussion of this shift (?).  Didn't
> see anything in Speyer/Speijer.  Best,
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
>



-- 
Prof. Dr. Jan E.M. Houben,
Directeur d Etudes « Sources et Histoire de la Tradition Sanskrite »
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, SHP,
A la Sorbonne,45-47, rue des Ecoles,
75005 Paris -- France.
JEMHouben at gmail.com
www.jyotistoma.nl