The basic reason for the special behaviour of dual endings might rather be that some of them originally had a disyllabic structure *-ahiH, *-iHiH so that it was not reduced to a simple
diphthong or vowel in Sandhi, and by analogy this was extended to other duals.
Malzahn assumes this also for the neuter in *-o-jh₁#V > *-aiH#V > *-ayy#V but here I would doubt that the laryngeal had such an impact since it clearly did not in cases of *ayHV > Skt.
ayV in internal position. But feminine forms in *-aH-iH and *-iH-iH are a different case. I discussed this in a review (Kratylos 49, 2004, pp. 53-55).
Best wishes,
Martin
Von: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces@list.indology.info>
Im Auftrag von Hock, Hans Henrich via INDOLOGY
Gesendet: Samstag, 24. Februar 2024 19:48
An: Dieter Gunkel <dcgunkel@gmail.com>
Cc: indology@list.indology.info
Betreff: Re: [INDOLOGY] Sandhi and grammar
Thanks, Dieter, for this helpful reference.
If I read Malzahn’s arguments regarding the dual endings correctly, she suggests that their exceptional behavior can be attributed to the frequency of pre-pausal forms in numerals and vocatives, and that in the latter
case prosodic factors may have played a role.
I’m not convinced, however, that this will explain the lack of sandhi; if anything, a short final vowel might be expected to undergo contraction even more readily than a long final vowel. Moreover, there are many forms
in short final vowel (e.g. the vocative in -a of a-stems) that do not exhibit exceptional sandhi behavior. So the situation still looks murky to me.
Best wishes,
Hans Henrich