Madhav, Hans,
Many thanks for the references and detail. As Madhav stated earlier, the issue of retroflex ṣ is “complicated” and it was instructive to see the factors at work behind its various incarnations, going back to PII. Jim > On Aug 29, 2021, at 5:49 PM, Madhav Deshpande <[email protected]> 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 > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> 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 > > paryaṣasvajat (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 <[email protected] >> <mailto:[email protected]>> 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 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> INDOLOGY mailing list >> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> >> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology__;!!DZ3fjg!pkLQA4HtQOusbNyeaxRGvL3ZJLP3OBpn0ZKjsaLFQaEFKjusvnVZNc-NFX4aZ_0mmg$ >> >> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology__;!!DZ3fjg!pkLQA4HtQOusbNyeaxRGvL3ZJLP3OBpn0ZKjsaLFQaEFKjusvnVZNc-NFX4aZ_0mmg$> >> > > > _______________________________________________ > INDOLOGY mailing list > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology > <https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology>
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