Vedic l
Peter M. Scharf
scharf at BROWN.EDU
Thu Aug 21 20:32:18 UTC 2008
Dear Colleagues,
I'm describing the phonetic features of Sanskrit sounds for the
appendix of LInguistic Issues in Encoding Sanskrit my colleague
Malcolm Hyman and I are putting the finishing touches on. One I'm a
bit uncertain about it the so-called Vedic l, sometimes called
Marathi l, which occurs intervocalically in Rgvedic dialect for
retroflex d. I'm unsure whether this is an approximant (like l) or a
flap like .d (that is the Devanagari d with a dot below as in Modern
Hindi la.dakaa). Gujarati also has intervocalic flap developing
from .d. These flaps are not l's bur r's. The question is, "Is (or
was) the Vedic l a retroflex flap or a retroflex lateral approximant?
Although Allen mentions flap-articulation, his references are not
probative.
Allen (1953: 73) "they [our authorities] take note, however, of the
especially brief and light flap-articulation of intervocalic voiced
retroflex stops. Note 2
[Note 2:SESirIya-SikzA 22. duspfzwaS ceti vijYeyo qa-QayoH svara-
maDyayoH (in the RP (see 1.110 above) duHspfzwa = Izatspfzwa and is
used to describe the articulation of the semivowels). Cf. also VP
4.146 qa-QO La-LAv ekezAm; RP 1.52. For a kymographic study of this
feature in Gujarati see t. N. Dave BSOAS 6.673ff.
I checked the reference:
Dave, T. N. 1931. "Notes on Gujarati Phonology." Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 673-678.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/607202
Dave says only that
Gujarati M.I. .d > G. tapped r.
It seems to me Allen's references weigh against his conclusion that
Vedic l is a flap, but are not absolutely conclusive. It may not be
that all the ancients identified duHspfzwa with Izatspfzwa and the
former could indicate tap or flap versus approximant. Alternatively,
even if the two terms are identical, they need not distinguish tap
and flap from approximant.
One bit of evidence that might settle the question concerns whether
there are cases in Indic of the retroflex lateral approximant
occurring particularly in the intervocalic environment. Is the Tamil
retroflex l exclusively or particularly intervocalic?
Your help would be appreciated.
Peter
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Peter M. Scharf (401) 863-2720 office
Department of Classics (401) 863-2123 dept.
Brown University
PO Box 1856 (401) 863-7484 fax
Providence, RI 02912 Scharf at brown.edu
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Classics/people/facultypage.php?
id=10044
http://sanskritlibrary.org/
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