etymol. final r, s / optionality of ext. sandhi?

[DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA]

At 06:49 PM 11/25/97 +0100, you wrote:
>What follows is elementary. If you can't stand this kind of
>stuff delete this post now.
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I have two questions which found no answer (or no explicit
>answer) in either Renou's grammar or the two textbooks I've
>searched (Coulson's TYS and Ashok Aklujkar's SEL). Maybe you
>can help.
>
>1. Renou gives, in flexional forms, always final r or s, never
>visarga. In particular he keeps the distinction between final V+s
>and V+r (V not a or aa). For example he gives for the aorist par.
>of kR 2sg "akaarSiis", 3pl "akaarSur" while for the same forms SEL
>would give "akaarSiiH" and "akaarSuH". Is there _any_ reason what-
>soever (not only in such forms but in any hidden corner of the
>language) to keep this distinction (between final Vr and Vs, V not
>a/aa) or is this just a little etymological pedantry?
>


The relevent sutras of pANini are

        sasajuSOh ruh 8.2.66

(`s' and `sajuS' at the end of the word become `r')

        kharavasAnayOh visarjanIyah 8.3.15

(`r' at the end of the word or followed by `khar' becomes visarga)

`khar' stands for letters kha,pha,cha,Tha, tha,ca,Ta,ta,ka pa,za,Sa,sa. I
have given them in the same order in which they occur in the pratyAhAra sajJa.
I think linguists call them voiceless consonents.( Hope I am right.)

sarma.