Page:Vedic Grammar.djvu/57

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I. Phonology. Palatal ś. Dental s. Cerebral ṣ.
47

with ś to which k corresponds in the satem languages; such are kruś- 'cry'; áśman- 'stone'[1].

55. The dental s.—This sound as a rule represents IE. dental s; e. g. sa 'he', Gothic sa; áśva-s 'horse', Lat. equo-s; ásti, Gk. (Symbol missingGreek characters). In the combinations ts and ps, when they stand for etymological dhs and bhs, the s represents IE. zh; as in gŕtsa- 'adroit' (from gṛdh- 'be eager") and dipsa-, 'wish to injure' (from dabh- 'injure'), where the final aspirate of the root would have been thrown forward on the suffix, as in bud-dhá- from (Symbol missingsymbol characters)budh-, and -rab-dha-, from (Symbol missingsymbol characters)rabh-[2].

The dental s is in Sandhi frequently changed to the palatal ś[3] and still more frequently to the cerebral [4].

56. The cerebral ṣ. — The cerebral sibilant is altogether of a secondary nature, since it always represents either an original palatal or an original dental sibilant.

The cerebral stands for a palatal before cerebral tenues (themselves produced by this ṣ from dental tenues) in the following two ways:

a. for the palatal ś (= Ilr. ś) and j (= Ilr. ź) ; e. g. naṣ-ṭá-, from nas- 'be lost'; mṛṣ-ṭa, 3.sing.mid., from mṛj- 'wipe'; pṛṣ-ṭá- 'asked', práṣ-ṭum 'to ask', from praś- 'ask' in praś-ná- 'question' (present stem. pṛcchá-[5] with inchoative suffix -chá). In some instances it is shown by the evidence of cognate words to represent ś; thus aṣṭáu 'eight' beside aśītí- 'eighty'; pṛṣṭí- 'rib', práṣṭi- 'side-horse', beside párśu- 'rib'; áṣṭrā- 'goad', beside aśáni- 'thunderbolt'; possibly also apāṣṭhá-[6] 'barb', beside áśman- 'bolt'.

b. for the combination kṣ, which in origin is ś + s[7]; e. g. cáṣ-ṭe, a-caṣṭa, firom caks-^ 'see'; a-tas-ta, tas-td-, tds-tr-'^, beside taks- 'hew'; nir-as-ta- 'emasculated' beside nir-aks-nu-hi (AV.) 'emasculate'; also aorist forms like d-yas-ta, 3. sing. mid. from yaj- 'sacrifice', beside 3. sing. subj. ydks-at; d-srs-tay 3. sing, mid., beside d-srks-ata, 3. pi. mid. from sfj- 'emit'. As in all these instances ks = s -{■ s or/ (= z) + s^°, loss of s before t must here be assumed, the remaining / or / combining with the following t as usual to j/"- A similar origin of s is indicated by the evidence of cognate languages in sas-t/td- (AV.) 'sixth', where the final j has been dropped (as in Gk. sk-to?), while retained in Lat. sex-tus; also in sas-ti- 'sixty', sodhd 'sixfold', sodasd- (AV.) 'sixteenth'. It has possibly the same origin in asthivdnt- 'knee"[8].

57. The cerebral ṣ stands for dental s after vowels other than a or ā, and after the consonants k, r, .

'I. Medially this change regularly[9] takes place, both when the s is radical — e. g. tí-ṣṭhati, from sthā- 'stand'; su-ṣup-ur, 3. pi. perf. from svap-

  • r8 Cp. Av. cašman-.
  • r9 On the origin of tváṣṭr- = *tváṣṭr-, see Wackernagel I, 202 c, note.
  • r10 Though kṣ is regularly based on a palatal or a guttural+s in the Vedic language, there are some words of IE. origin in which the s appears to represent not but a dental spirant tenuis (þ) or media (đh). In a few words, kṣip-, kṣu-, kṣubh-, kṣurá-, the sibilant comes first in the cognate languages: see Wackernagel I, 209.
  • r11 Similarly, when kṣ = guttural + s is followed by t, the s disappears and the guttural combines with the t; thus from ghas- 'eat', -gdha- {= ghz-ta-); from jakṣ- 'eat', jagdhá- (= jaghz-ta-), jagdhvā͏́ya (= jaghz-tvā͏́ya); from bhaj- 'share', aor. á-bhak-ta (=abhaj-s-ta), beside á-bhak-ṣ-i.
  1. This seems to point to fluctuation in the IE. pronunciation; cp. Wackernagel I, 201 b.
  2. See Wackernagel I, 210.
  3. Cp. above 54 a, and below 78, 2.
  4. See below 56.
  5. Cp. 40.
  6. Cp. Wackernagel I, 202 b; and below p. 48, note Ύ.
  7. Cp. op. cit. I, 116 b.
  8. Cp. Bartholomae, Studien zur indo-germanischen Sprachgeschichte 2, 103.
  9. The change does not take place in, some forms of the perfect of sic- 'pour' : sisice (III. 32I5), sisicur (II. 244), beside ''siṣicatur.