--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer@...>
wrote:
> Tee-hee, as I have said a number of time already, Sanskrit *is*
> monovocalic in exactly the sense of the most extremist view of PIE.
I am trying to pick this thread up in the middle. so please bear
wtih me.
What are the rules for semi-vowel clusters? In particular, how do
we tell i: apart from yy or yi or iy? And, incidentally which
stage of Sanskrit? RV? late Brahmanan prose/Panini, Classical
(as found in Kavyas etc)? It makes a difference (for how Siever's
law operates, which is surely relevant to this question).
Desideratives can produce sequences like yiy: yiyapsati,
wants to f*ck, actually occurs I believe.
Incidentally, note that actual pronunciations (and Vedic manuscripts)
may have yy where printed editions (following >one< branch of
tradition) have y. We must be careful not to reify Whitney's
Grammar into an actual langauge.
Nath Rao