[An-lang] Sandhi clarified

[Thomas J. Conners]

My thanks to those who replied.  I apologize I wasn't more specific in
my initial posting. I hope this will make it much clearer.

By 'sandhi' I am referring to the phenomenon in Old and Modern Javanese
where adjacent vowels across a morpheme boundary are
assimilated/collapsed into one.  The phenomenon is present also in
Sanskrit, in a remarkably similar form, which leads me to believe that
it is clearly a borrowing, though it may really be under influence more
from the adopted/adapted Pallavi script than a true phonological
borrowing.  Like Sanskrit, OJ has both external and internal sandhi,
the former where adjacent vowels across a word boundary will coalesce,
the latter (the only one in Modern Javanese) operates only across
morpheme boundaries within a single word.

Internal Sandhi: Modern Javanese
1. laki 'husband'    laki + an > laken 'to mate, sex' [the /e/ here is
the high, front lax (-ATR) pair to [e]].
2. laku 'walk, step' laku + an > lakon 'story, plot'
3. ilang 'lost'     ka + ilang + an > kelangan 'to lose (accidnt) e=[e]
4. urub 'flame, flash' ka + urub > korub 'to get ignited'

Old Javanese:
1. rengu 'anger, annoyance'  ka + rengu + an > karengwan 'be angry'
2. pati 'death'   ka + pati + an > kapatyan 'to kill'
                  pati + an + REDP > paten-paten 'to the death'

(I don't have any good examples of external sandhi here, but it
operates similarly).

Sanskrit sandhi is based on a system of vowel gradations (zero, full,
extended) and so makes sense there.  Javanese has no such system, and
it seems clear that this is a borrowing.  My question then, is whether
this sort of phenomenon exists in any other AU languages, especially
closely related ones.  If so, was it also borrowed from Skt, or more
likely under influence from Javanese?

Many thanks,
Tom


Thomas J. Conners
Yale University


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