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How did the Sanskrit gen./abl. singular of pitr-/pitā́ ("father") came to be pitur (and the genitive of the entire noun class as well, of course)? The evolution of all other forms (even pitā́, which seems to be a regular result of pitā́r < pitár-s) seems to be fairly transparent but this one has always eluded me...

AFAIK, the source should be ph₂tr-és so I would expect it to yield something like pitr-ás.

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The classic explanation is that *ṛš becomes ur in Old Indian. The ending of the gen. sing. of Indo-Iranian -r stems is sometimes *-as and sometimes *-s. pitur is like hotur (Avestan zaotarš, with full-grade stem).

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  • Interesting - isn't *ph₂tr- hysterokinetic declension with accent typically on the ending? So I find it surprising that this would get reduced to *ph₂tŕ-s/pitŕš...
    – Eleshar
    Jan 2, 2017 at 12:17
  • Is it more surprising than acc. pl. pitṝn?
    – fdb
    Jan 2, 2017 at 12:36
  • Actually yes. The whole r-stem plural paradigm seems to mirror semi-vowel declensions (i-/u-stems - which does not seem that strange since in sanskrit, [i]&[u] are not difficult to reinterpret as syllabic /j/&/w/ - atypical as it may be), so while it is irregular with regards to the original PIE reconstruct, it sounds like a direct analogy to agnī́n/śátrūn. I see no such analogy for the gen./abl. singular.
    – Eleshar
    Jan 2, 2017 at 13:36
  • Maybe I am derailing it a little bit - -ṛš > -ur by itself does not seem like implausible at all, so do we have some further evidence that genitive of r-stems in Indian evolve from C-r-ás to C-ŕš? I take your Avestan example as and indication that in closely related Aryan languages this is the case.
    – Eleshar
    Jan 2, 2017 at 14:27
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    Please correct it then!
    – Colin Fine
    Feb 2, 2017 at 0:02

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