sandhi of Skt. -as [was Re: "syllabicity"]

Rich Alderson ALDERSON at netcom.com
Thu May 20 01:31:09 UTC 1999


On 13 May 1999, "Patrick C. Ryan" <proto-language at email.msn.com> wrote in reply
to my posting of 11 May:

>> There is more than one source, for example, of [e:]--see, for example, _dive
>> dive_ "from day to day", where the first _dive_ is the expected sandhi
>> variant of the ablative _divas_ "from (a) day".  Thus, again, your analysis
>> fails to explain the facts.

>In my opinion, this analysis of _dive dive_ is totally erroneous. This is
>clearly a reduplicated dative.

That is the schoolbook analysis of the phrase, but the semantics come out of
the alternative analysis quite easily (in line with the use of the ablative in
time expressions elsewhere) and we then need not torture the poor dative to
mean its own opposite.

>Also, I am curious if you can cite a non-arguable ablative in -as that becomes
>-e: in sandhi?

>Frankly, I find -as in sandhi becoming -e: simply incredible.

Later, on 16 May 1999, Ralf-Stefan Georg <Georg at home.ivm.de> noted further:

>Since the ante-voiced sandhi form of -as is -o Pat is right in finding -e
>simply incredible.

The sandhi rule in question is that -as becomes -e before voiced dentals, and
only there.  It applies in internal as well as external sandhi, cf. _edhi_ <
*as-dhi (_as-_ "be" + imperative).

This is not, as it happens, my analysis, but what I was taught nearly 25 years
ago in my first Sanskrit class...

								Rich Alderson



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