Greek heisa and Sanskrit satsat

Frisk, GEW s.v. hézomai , states: 'Der Aorist heîsa, hês(s)ai aus idg. *e-sed-s-ṃ (mit sekundärer Aspiration), *sed-sai stimmt zum aind. Konj. ní ... ṣátsat “er möge sich niederlassen” (RV 10,53,1).' This view is also found, for example, in Brugmann, Grdr. 2.2.1172 (§812), and in Brugmann-Thumb, Griech. Gramm. 362. To be sure, Gk. heîsa is not generally considered a PIE inheritance. Meillet, Mélanges de Saussure 86, says of Brugmann's list of PIE sigmatic aorists: '... la plupart des exemples sont dépourvues de toute valeur probante pour établir l'existence indo-européenne de telle ou telle forme.' Specht, KZ 62.50–1 (1934–5), considers heîsa a Greek innovation, and Schwyzer 1.755–6 lists it among such aorists as éstēsa 'set', ébēsa ‘brought’, which are clearly secondary when compared to the intransitive root aorists éstēn, ébēn; cf. Meillet, loc.cit, 94, None of these authors, however, directly considers Skt. sátsat in his discussion of heîsa. Since, moreover, the comparison of these two forms as the basis for a PIE sigmatic aorist of *sed is accepted in what is now the standard etymological dictionary of Greek, it seems worthwhile to summarize briefly and more explicitly than has previously been done the evidence against this equation. I do this as a preliminary to demonstrating that sátsat is clearly an independent creation of Indic

Linguistics · Sanskrit · Ancient Near East History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy