Dear Mark,

I don't mean this to be a flippant question, but is it meaningful to ask which form is "original"? In English, is the indefinite article "originally" a but then becomes an in front of vowels, or is it "originally" an but then becomes a in front of consonants?

Best,

Nathan

*Having written this, it occurs to me that perhaps one could make a comparative linguistic argument than an is original because (I assume) it derives from German ein. But I don't know enough about the relevant comparative linguistics to say whether this is true, much less how it might translate to your question about Sanskrit -t and -d.

Dear list members,

 

There seems to be inconsistency in modern Sanskrit grammars as to whether the stems of pronouns and declined forms end in -d or -t.

 

MacDonnell’s Sanskrit Grammar for Students has the stems as mad, asmad, tvad, yuṣmad, ta(d), ya(d), listing the abl. forms of the personal pronouns as mad, tvad, asmad, yuṣmad. Of tad he gives the nom. acc. sg. n. as tad but lists the abl. sg. as tasmāt.

 

Kale’s Higher Sanskrit Grammar similarly gives the stems forms in -d, has tad for nom. acc. sg. n., but abl. tasmāt.

 

Devavāṇīpreveśika gives all stem and declined forms in -t.

 

Whitney’s Sanskrit Grammar does not seem to list the stems of the personal pronouns but gives the abl. singulars in -t as he does with the dem. sg. tasmāt, asmāt.

 

Presumably the -t forms are influenced by the rule concerning permitted finals (k, ṭ, t, p, ṅ, n, m and ḥ), but I take this to refer to sandhi in the context of sentence formation.

 

Can we say whether -d or -t forms are original?

 

Regards

Mark

 

Dr Mark Allon

Chair, Dept. of Indian Subcontinental Studies

The University of Sydney

Australia

 

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