[INDOLOGY] Sanskrit linguistics

Wed Sep 1 04:05:55 UTC 2021

Many thanks for this, Hans.  Good to see the latest discussion.

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 Tue, Aug 31, 2021 at 6:20 PM Hock, Hans Henrich <hhhock at illinois.edu>
wrote:

> Good to hear from you, Madhav,
>
> A check of Mayrhofer’s 1992 and 2001 etymological dictionaries shows that
> most of the forms with the “wrong” sibilant are of uncertain or
> controversial origin; some may be borrowings from other languages or from
> Prakrit (with hypersanskritization); and only *bhāṣ* ‘speak’ may be
> inherited (if the explanation that * s **à ṣ* to avoid homonymy with
> *bhās* ‘shine’. Forms like *paryaṣasvajata* obviously result from analogy
> (based on forms like *pari-ṣvajati*). (See details below.)
>
> As for Fortunatov’s Law, I have discussed this in an earlier paper, as
> well as the assumption thata there was a variety of Vedic that retained the
> distinction between **r* and **l*; Mayrhofer further concludes that there
> is no evidence for such a variety in all of early Indo-Iranian. (See
> details and references below.)
>
> I also have a discussion of the issue of saṇakāra vs. aṇakāra, where I
> argue that external-sandhi retroflexion gets degeneralized in the history
> of Vedic and that it the sandhi (as in RV *rājati ṣṭúp*) must go back to
> pre-Rig Vedic. (Again, a reference is found below.)
>
> Mayrhofer’s and my papers contain extensive references to and discussion
> of earlier literature. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any more recent
> detailed discussions of these issues.
>
> All the best,
>
> Hans Henrich
>
> Mayrhofer (to the extent that he has anything in his 1992 and 2001
> dictionaries)
>
> áṣatara: evidently corrupted
>
> kavaṣa: Uncertain
>
> cā́ṣa: No convincing etymology
>
> jálāṣa: Uncertain meaning; no etymology provided
>
> caṣā́la: Perhaps dissimilated from **carṣā̆l*a (see *carṣ/karṣ*)
>
> váṣaṭ: No etymology given; I have speculated that ritual distortion has
> affected the form)
>
> bhāṣ-: Controversial. Some derive this from **bhels-* (cf. Lith. *bal̃sas
> *‘voice’) ± Fortunatov’s Law; others think of homonym differentiation
> from *bhās-* ‘shine’
>
> mā́ṣa: Problematic; compare perhaps MPers./NPers. *maš* ‘legume’, Shughni
> *max̌* ‘pea, bean’, hence Proto-(Indo-)Iranian **marṣ̌a *?
>
> jhaṣá: Uncertain; probably loanword
>
> ṛbī́sa: Uncertain
>
> kīstá: Loanword (unlikely) or hypersanskritization of **kīrtha > *MIAr.
> *kittha*, with *tth* reinterpreted as corresponding to Skt. *st*.
>
> kúsindha: Uncertain etymology
>
> kaṣ: a colloqial form of *karṣ- *[i.e. a borrowing from Prakrit?]
>
> kusuma: uncertain
>
> kisalaya: see * kiśalaya*
>
> bisa: Uncertain; note Pkt. variant *bhisa*.
>
>
>
> Additional comments
>
> None of these forms has a clear, uncontroversial etymology. Even though
> Mayrhofer tends to rule out borrowing in most cases, such a possibility
> should not be dismissed (except, probably, for *bhāṣ*); consider
> especially the word for ‘bean’.
>
> mā́ṣa: Could this be one of those Central-Asian substrate words that
> Lubotsky has talked about? Lubotsky himself classifies it and its Iranian
> counterparts as a “wanderwort”. (The Indo-Iranian substratum. *Early
> Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeological
> Considerations. Papers presented at an international symposium held at the
> Tvärminne Research Station of the University of Helsinki 8-10 January 1999*.
> (Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne 242.) Chr. Carpelan, A. Parpola, P.
> Koskikallio (eds.). Helsinki 2001, 301-317.)
>
>  parya*ṣ*asvajat: Analogical extension of *ṣ* from forms like
> *pari-ṣvajati*
>
>  Beyond* aṣṭā(u)*, see also *naś-* ‘reach’ : *aṣṭá*, *naś* ‘perish’ :
> *naṣṭá*, *vaś* ‘wish’ : *váṣṭi*, *sah *‘be powerful’ : *sāḍhá*, *spaś*
> ‘look’ : *-spaṣṭa*
>
>
>
> Some further literature:
>
> Kobayashi, Masato. 2004. *Historical phonology of Old Indo-Aryan
> consonant*s. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Research Institute for
> Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. – §98-99; the latter on the
> controversial Fortunatov’s Law, but not referring to relevant discussion by
> Hock
>
> Hock, Hans Henrich. 1991. Dialects, diglossia, and diachronic phonology in
> early Indo-Aryan. *Studies in the historical phonology of Asian languages*,
> ed. by W. G. Boltz & M. C. Shapiro, 119-159. Amsterdam/Philadelphia:
> Benjamins. – On Fortunatov’s Law see especially §4.9.
>
> Hock, Hans Henrich. 1993. A critical examination of some early Sanskrit
> passages alleged to indicate dialectal diversity. *Comparative-historical
> linguistics: Indo-European and Finno-Ugric: Papers in honor of Oswald
> Szemerényi III*, ed. by B. Brogyanyi & R. Lipp, 217-232.
> Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. – §5 on saṇakāra vs. aṇakāra
>
> Mayrhofer, Manfred. Zur Vertretung der indogermanischen Liquiden in den
> indo-iranischen Sprachen. *Indologica Taurinensia* 149-161.  – Like Hock
> for Sanskrit (and referring to him), finds that there is no evidence for
> retention of contrast between *r* and *l* in Indo-Iranian as a whole.
>
>
>
> On 29 Aug2021, at 19:49, Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu> wrote:
>
> 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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