----- Original Message -----
From: "rett" <rett@...>
To: <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] another odd form
Hi Rett,
Thanks for bringing to my attention certain obscurities and infelicities
of presentation in my post. I shall try to answer your questions to the best
of my ability. A few lines above the reading paratthaddho at Ja VI 181 we
find the reading jalanta-r-iva. This is morpholoically and syntactically odd
because as the commentator correctly understands it is only possible to
construe this reading if it is taken as a present participle in the
accusative qualifying sela.m. The /.m/ was elided because of the
environment: labial /m/ followed by the frontvowel /i/ requires from an
economic point of view greater articulatory effort than the group a-r-i,
consequently /.m/ was elided and a transitional onglide was inserted, cf.
for instance yatha-r-iva < yathaa eva: /a/ was shortened and the onglide /r/
entailed fronting of /e/ because the articulation of /r/ and /i/ is easier.
Economy is everything. Such transitional glides - all of them are
continuants - have generally been described as "sandhi consonants," a not
very iluminating description. This brings me to your questions
>Originally the /u/ of /upa/ was dropped for
>prosodical reasons,
if /upa/ ends up going to /para/ what is gained prosodically? Same
syllable count and quantity, right?
Yes, but the reading avoids the sequence /.m/ + /u/, the articulation of
which requires rounding of the lips followed immediately after by labial
/p/.
Do you mean that there was an intermediate form /patthaddho/ (with
one less total syllables, fulfilling som now unattested prosodic
requirement) that existed for a while and then was expanded with the
glides?
No. I can see that I did not express myself clearly on this point.
pa-attthaddho was the point of departure, cf. similar examples collected in
the CPD s.v. a. The /r/ was part of the process like the one described
above.
>and speakers inserted compensatory glides.
What is a compensatory glide and why is there a perceived need for
it? To restore the original syllable count (or rhythm)? What does it
compensate?
It compensates for difficulties of articulation.
> /r/ is a
>highly frequent glide in Ja, occuring in intervocalic position. According
to
>my calculations is represnts one third of all glides in Ja V /m/
>representing two thirds of the occurrencies. Since Pali disallows the
>cluster /rtth/ a vocalic on-glide /a/ was inserted.
Aren't glides normally used to prevent vowel hiatus (or as you said,
in intervocalic positions)?
This is how they are generally described, but this description evades the
phonetics of the glides. It is obvious, for instance, that /d/ is an onglide
in the case of puna-d-eva or bahu-d-eva and meant to ease the transition
from /u/ to /e/. The are not just inserted to avoid hiatus.
If so, if the order of events is
insertion of /r/ glide, and THEN the /a/ on-glide to avoid rtth,
doesn't that leave no reason for the r glide to arise in the first
place?
Yes. Forget the last line, it makes no phonetic sense, cf. the above.
Or do you mean that the /r/ glide is just a result of the speech
organs transitioning from the /pa-/ towards the /-ttha/ so it could
arise and then force the on-glide /a/ ?
As I should have stated in my post in order to avoid confusion the point
of departure is pa-atthaddho. As I mentioned above, I consider it highly
likely that /u/ was elided for articulatory reasons. the insertion of /a/
before ttha was presumably due to metrical constraints, in casu loss of a
syllable. However, /a/ is still an onglide as can be seen from other
metrical texts. They even occur in prose, cf. the fantastic examples
adassayamaano D III 44 and anassaama D III 52 where the /a/'s have no
morphological justification whatever.
It's probably time to read the
phonetics section in geiger which I skipped (apart from the law of
morae that I had to know for exams).
Well. That is sufficient. You may skip the rest.
Best regards,
Ole
PS By the way, the so-called law of the morae ws already formulated in
nuce by Buddhapiya as far as I remember.
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