Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/56

 making heavy syllable. The last syllable of a (primary division of a verse) is reckoned as either heavy or light.

The distinction in terms between the difference of long and short in vowel-sound and that of heavy and light in syllable-construction is valuable, and should be observed.

The phenomena of accent are, by the Hindu grammarians of all ages alike, described and treated as depending on a variation of tone or pitch; of any difference of stress involved, they make no account.

The primary tones or accent-pitches are two: a higher ( raised), or acute; and a lower ( not raised), or grave. A third (called a term of doubtful meaning) is always of secondary origin, being (when not enclitic: see below, 85) the result of actual combination of an acute vowel and a following grave vowel into one syllable. It is also uniformly defined as compound in pitch, a union of higher and lower tone within the limits of a single syllable. It is thus identical in physical character with the Greek and Latin circumflex, and fully entitled to be called by the same name.

Strictly, therefore, there is but one distinction of tone in the Sanskrit accentual system, as described by the native grammarians and marked in the written texts: the accented syllable is raised in tone above the unaccented; while then further, in certain cases of the fusion of an accented and an unaccented element into one syllable, that syllable retains the compounded tone of both elements.

The or circumflex is only rarely found on a pure long vowel or diphthong, but almost always on a syllable in which a vowel, short or long, is preceded by a  or  representing an originally acute  or vowel.

In transliteration, in this work, the or acute will be marked with the ordinary sign of the acute, and the  or circumflex (as being a downward slide of the voice forward) with what is usually called the grave accent: thus,, acute,  or , circumflex.