Page:Sanskrit Grammar by Whitney p1.djvu/99



212. Final radical म्, in internal combination, is assimilated to a following mute or spirant — in the latter case, becoming ; in the former, becoming the nasal of the same class with the mute.

a. Before or  (as when final: 143 a), it is changed to : thus, from √ come, , ,  (which appear to be the only quotable cases). According to the grammarians, the same change is made in the inflection of root-stems before and : thus,,  (from :  + √). No derived noun-stem ends in.

b. The ÇB. and KÇS. have and, and ChU. has.

213. Final म् in external combination is a servile sound, being assimilated to any following consonant. Thus:

a. It remains unchanged only before a vowel or a labial mute.

b. But also, by an anomalous exception, before of the root  in  and its derivatives  and.

c. Before a mute of any other class than labial, it becomes the nasal of that class.

d. Before the semivowels, , it becomes, according to the Hindu gramariansgrammarians [sic], a nasal semivowel, the nasal counterpart of each respectively (see 71).

e. Before, a sibilant, or , it becomes (see 71).

f. The manuscripts and the editions in general make no attempt to distinguish the nasal tones produced by the assimilation of before a following semivowel from that before a spirant.

g. But if be immediately followed by another consonant (which can only be a nasal or semivowel), the  is allowed to be assimilated to that following consonant. This is because the has no position of the mouth-organs peculiar to itself, but is uttered in the position of the next sound. The Prātiçākhyas do not take any notice of the case.

h. Cases are met with in the Veda where a final appears to be dropped before a vowel, the final and initial vowels being then combined into one. The -text then generally gives a wrong interpretation. Thus, (RV. viii. 1. 2; -text: --; SV. -).

i. It has been pointed out above (73) that the assimilated is generally represented in texts by the -sign, and that in this work it is transliterated by  (instead of a nasal mute or ).