This chapter explains the systematics of the phenomenon of vowel gradation of which we caught our first glimpse in Chapter 3. It is meant to help us understand what has been introduced so far and complete our understanding of it by adding a number of details. It makes frequent reference to Chapter 2, particularly the sections on complex vowels and semivowels/glides. You may find it useful to look at those again.
VOWEL GRADATION
In Chapter 4, we saw that Class I verbs are formed in the following way:
Class I: The vowel -a- is added into the root before the root vowel; then -a- is added after the root.
Examples: √भृ bhṛ ‘to carry’, root vowel: -ṛ-; present stem भर- bhara-
budh ‘to awake’, root vowel -u-; present stem बोध- bodha-
The step of adding an -a- before another vowel (in the cases above: before ṛ and u) is part of a larger system that is known as vowel gradation (or also ablaut). It appears across Sanskrit verbs and nouns, and works as follows.
In Sanskrit, the simple vowels have three ‘grades’: basic or zero grade, full grade (or to use Sanskrit terminology, guṇa, literally meaning ‘characteristic’ or ‘quality’) and lengthened grade (or vṛddhi, meaning ‘growth’). The zero grade consists of just the vowel itself; in guṇa, an -a- is added to it; in vṛddhi, a long -ā- is added to it.
One good place for looking at this system is in the context of verbal roots. In the different forms of the verb, all three grades of the vowel in its root (and thus, as we say, all three grades of the root) can be found. For example, the verbal root meaning ‘to carry’ is √भृ bhṛ. The vowel contained in it is ṛ. In guṇa, there is an -a- added, giving us भर् bhar (which we know from the present-tense stem in e.g. the 3rd SG भरति bharati); in vṛddhi, a long -ā- is added, giving भार् -bhār- (which we will find e.g. in the perfect tense –› Chapter 28).
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