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 I. ALLGEMEINES UND SPRACHE. 4. VEDIC GRAMMAR. where, however, the vowel must be pronounced (___). The vowels here (unlike the dual 7) seem always to be treated as prosodically short¹. c. The final i of other cases also occasionally remains unchanged; thus the nominatives prthiví, prthujráyī, samrájnī and the instrumental sušámī sometimes retain their ī, and the inst. uti frequently does so ³- 72. Final e and o.-1. a. Before a. The diphthongs e and o remain unchanged before an initial a. This a is often not written in the Samhitās ³, being dropped in about three-fourths of its occurrences in the RV. and in about two-thirds in the AV.4; but the evidence of metre shows that, in 99 instances out of 100 in the RV., and in about 80 in the AV. and the metrical parts of the YV., it is, whether written or not, to be read, and at the same time shortens the preceding diphthong to è or 05. In víśve deváso aptúraḥ (1. 38) the a is both written and pronounced; in sūnávé | gne (1. 19) it must be restored: sūnáve | ágne. The exceptional treatment of e in stőtava ambyàm (VIII. 725), for stótave ambyàm, indicates that the Sandhi of e and o before a was originally the same as before other vowels 7. But their unchanged form, as before consonants, gained the day, because the short close à, when coming immediately after them in their character of monophthongs, would have a natural tendency to disappear and thus leave a consonant to follow. b. Before other vowels. The diphthongs e ando before any vowels but à would naturally become ay and av, as being originally ai and au, and as having the form of ay and av within a word. But ay regularly drops the y; e. g. agna ihá (1. 22¹); av on the other hand generally retains the v, dropping it before 8; e. g. váyav á yāhi (1. 2¹); but váya ukthébhir (1. 2²). 2. Unchangeable e. a. The e of the dual nom. acc. f. n. of a-stems, e. g. ubhe 'both', is regularly uncontracted (pragrhya), because it consists of at the dual 79. 66 b. Under the influence of this nominal dual e, the verbal dual e¹0 of the 2. 3. present and perfect middle, e. g. váhethe 'ye two bring', bruvāte 'they two speak', āśāthe 'ye two have obtained', come to be uncontractable, though the e is nearly always prosodically shortened; e. g. yuñjāthe apáḥ (1. 1514); but parimamnáthe asmán (VII. 93°). c. The e of the locative tvé 'in thee', is uncontractable. Under its influence the other pronominal forms asmé 'us', and yuşmé 'you', are also always treated as pragrhya by the Samhitã as well as the Padapãţha; it is, I Cp. OLDENBERG 456, note; WACKER- NAGEL I, 270 b. 2 Cp. op. cit. I, 270 b, note. Such forms, in which the absence of contraction is only occasional, are not indicated by iti in the Pp. 3 This form of Sandhi is in the Prāti- śākhyas called abhinihita ‘elided'; RPr. 11. 13 etc.; VPr. I. 114, 125; APr. III. 54; TPr. II. 8. = 7 Internally the original Sandhi of the compound go-agra- must have been gáv-agra-; cp. WACKERNAGEL 1, p. 325, note. e. g. = 8 There are a few survivals of ay; tây ắ (MS. I. I. tá á (TS.); cp. TPr. x. 23; OLDENBERG 447 ff. In the MS., the K., and Mantras occurring in the Mänavasūtras, unaccented a for e before an accented initial vowel is lengthened; e. g. á dadhā iti. 4 See WHITNEY 135 C. 5 Cp. OLDENBERG 435 f., 453 ff., ZDMG. 44, 331 ff.; WACKERNAGEL 1, p. 324. 6 The few instances (70 out of 4500) of the elision of a in the RV. are the fore-note, top. runners of the invariable practice of post- Vedic Sandhi. 9 See above 71, 2. A dual e once appears contracted in dhinyemé (VII. 72³), un contracted as dhişnye imé. The-eva which occurs several times (1. 1864 etc) and looks like a contraction of the dual e with iva, in reality probably stands for the dual e+va, the byform of iva; cp. WACKERNAGEL I, p. 317, 10 There was originally no difference be- tween this dual e and any other e in middle forms, such as that of the dual -vahe, the singular -te, and the plural -ante.
 * which, however, should probably be read