SV: Iti & ti

There is obviously a difference of treatment of iti initially and in final
position of a clause, in which case it would seem to behave like an enclitic
particle with the attested diferences of prosodical treatment e.g. elision
of initial /i/; and nasality and dentality are mutually exclusive in Pali so
it seems, hence phrases like abhinandun ti. The treatment of iti is peculiar
in other respects especially before eva. One would expect t'eva (I hope
Eisel will accept this "horrible" transcription for the sake of clarity).
However, one finds almost invariably tv'eva, which is considered wrong.
Admittedly, it is not found in all ms.s. On the other hand, why would
innumerable scribes and copyists introduce this writing? It is already known
to Sinhalese Pali grammarians of ca. 10th c. AD, so we cannot blame the
Burmese for it. The reason, if any, must be phonetic.

OP


I'm sorry to say that I don't see anything subtle about the problem:
If you wanted to put in long hours of research, you could scan the Gatha
literature for an example of _nti_ that breaks the metre, i.e.,
demonstrating that an earlier revision of the poem once had (the
Prakritic) _itti_, but was supplanted.

Although I see your point that the Prakritic reduplication (retaining the
vowel) would also be possible in Pali, this is the sort of thing that seems
to have been eliminated from the canon (if ever it was once
there) in subsequent rounds of standardization (and Sanskritization) of the
text.

Following standard (Pali) rules of euphony, the "i" is omitted, and,
resultantly, anuswara matches the consonant class of the "t" --the only
place I would expect to find anything else is Senart's horrible
transcription of Kacc., where all the euphony/crasis is undone for the sake
of clarity.

E.M.



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