[INDOLOGY] Sanskrit linguistics

[Madhav Deshpande]

Hello Hans,

     I have lost track of some of the relevant old publications, but I
remember that some of the occurrences of ṣ in Sanskrit were accounted for
by Fortunatov's law regarding the IE l+dental changing to retroflex in
Sanskrit, and some others may be what Thomas Burrow called spontaneous
retroflexes. Are some of your examples [other than *ruki *and *oḱtō >
aštā *‘eight’,
covered by these theories?
     The other indication to suggest the instability of ṇ/ṣ is the
discussion in the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka about whether the RV Saṃhitā was
aṣakāra/aṇakāra or saṣakāra/saṇakāra. The Āraṇyaka says that the Māṇḍūkeya
version of the RV was saṣakāra/saṇakāra, and that Śākalya followed
Māṇḍūkeya in this respect. But the discussion itself indicates that there
may have been other reciters whose Saṃhitā was aṣakāra/aṇakāra.

Madhav

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 1:55 PM Hock, Hans Henrich via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Dear Colleague,
>
> Even as early as the Rig Veda there is evidence, both for * ṣ* occurring
> after a-vowels and for *s* occurring after * i-* and *u-*vowels. See the
> evidence further below.
>
> What made the distribution of *s* and *ṣ* unpredictable is the fact that
> Proto-Indo-Iranian *š*, the source of Skt. *ṣ* is of two sources. One if
> the development of earlier *s* to *š* after “RUKI” (i.e. *r-*sounds, *u-*sounds, velars,
> and *i-*sounds; in the case of the vocalic sounds, both syllabic and
> nonsyllabic); the other was the development of PIE **ḱ* to *š* before
> obstruent. Examples are * nis- > niš* ‘down’ and *oḱtō > aštā *‘eight’.
>
> As the second example shows, the second of these changes introduced *š* after
> *a-*vowels and thus made the RUKI outcome of *s* opaque and hence
> contrastive (consider e.g. Skt. *asta-* ‘thrown’ beside *aṣṭā(u) *‘8’,
> with *s* and *ṣ* contrasting after * a-*vowel.
>
> This contrastiveness, in turn, made it possible for analogical processes
> to extend *ṣ* into contexts after *a-*vowels (as in * pary-a-ṣasvajat*)
> as well as for borrowings and the like with *ṣ* after *a-*vowels and *s* after
> “RUKI” to be adopted without further adjustment.
>
> All the best,
>
> Hans Henrich Hock
> Linguistics and Sanskrit (emeritus)
> University of Illinois
>
> Contrastiveness of retroflex sibilant in Sanskrit
>
> Unpredictable occurrences after *a-*vowels in the RV
>
> áṣāḍha ‘invicible’
>
> áṣatarā ‘more beneficial’ (1.183.4)
>
> kaváṣa (PN) (534.12)
>
> cā́ṣa ‘Häher’ (923.13)
>
> jálāṣa ‘healing’ (1.43.4 in compound)
>
> caṣā́la ‘Knauf der Opfersäule’ (1.162.6)
>
> váṣaṭ (ritual call) (passim)
>
> Note also
>
> parya*ṣ*asvajat (pluperf.) ‘embraced’
>
> Contrastive and unpredictable examples after *a-*vowels in later Vedic
>
> mā́ṣa ‘bean’
>
> mā́sa ‘moon, month’
>
> bhāṣ- ‘speak’
>
> bhās- ‘shine’
>
> jhaṣá ‘large fish’
>
> Some Post-Vedic examples after *a-*vowels
>
> kaṣ- ‘rub, scratch’
>
> kas- ‘go, move’ (DhP)
>
> laṣ- ‘desire’ (MBh etc.)
>
> Dental sibilant (*s*) after *i-* and *u-*vowels in Vedic
>
> ṛbī́sa ‘cleft, gap’ (RV)
>
> kīstá ‘singer’ (RV)
>
> kúsindha ‘trunk’ (AV)
>
> Some examples of ental sibilant (*s*) after * i-* and *u-*vowels in
> Post-Vedic
>
> kisalaya ‘sprout, shoot’
>
> kusuma ‘flower’
>
> bisa ‘shoot, sucker’
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 23 Aug2021, at 14:11, Jim Ryan via INDOLOGY <
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> A question: I go back to a memory (possibly incorrect) of hearing from a
> linguistics teacher at UW (long ago) that the retro-flex "ṣ" in Sanskrit
> was "barely phonemic." A  former student who had studied, through his Ph.D.
> exams, historical linguistics at UCLA focusing on Indo-European (maybe also
> Indo-Aryan) insisted that this sound was *not *phonemic. From time to
> time I'd encounter the issue in articles/books and found that the consensus
> seemed to favor this understanding. I used to challenge my student from
> time to time to test this, somehow, I suppose, wanting to vindicate my long
> ago teacher's position (or at least what I thought I recalled it to be).
> I've thought recently of two examples: the verbal root *bhāṣ *- “to
> speak.” and *ṣaṣ *(six). In neither case is there a "non-*a *vowel"
> preceding the sibilant, which would ordinarily condition retroflexion. In
> the case of "six,"  the *ṣ *is initial also.  How do we explain these
> instances in accord with the non-phonemic nature of ṣ?
>
>
> Jim Ryan
> Asian Philosophies and Cultures (Emeritus)
> California Institute of Integral Studies
> 1453 Mission St.
> San Francisco, CA 94103
>
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