Inscriptions and Dravidian sound changes "y" > "c" and "y" >

[Palaniappa]

In a message dated 98-05-24 18:20:05 EDT, kalyan97 at YAHOO.COM writes:

<< DEDR places Tamil lexemes first, irrespective of whether they
 represent the proto-D forms or not. It is however emphasised that this
 does not mean that Tamil
 phonemes represent the proto-D. >>

See DEDR p. xxxv. "The order of the groups is essentially that of the PDr
phonemes in the reconstructed PDr roots or stems involved, with the order of
the Tamil alphabet applied to these phonemes. This is possible since the
inventory of Tamil phonemes probably corresponds very closely to that of the
PDr phonemes - though it does not follow that all, or even most, Tamil forms
will serve as PDr reconstructions."

This has beennoted by Dr. Krishnamurti in his review of DED in Language, vol.
39, Number 3, (1963), p. 559. He says, "In other words, the arrangement of
groups in an alphabetical order of implied reconstructions (without actually
citing them) necessarily committed to the very responsibility that they had
sought to avoid."

Consider the word Ta. cey "to do". Its PDr reconstruction is not *ce- but
*ke-. So DED placed Ta. cey and related words after those groups which can be
reconstructed to be *ke- instead of those that are *ce-. But the overall order
of groups follows the Tamil alphabet.

Regards
S. Palaniappan