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OLD INDO-ARYAN VOWEL SYNTHESIS
33
change may be a case of prakritism, since in MIA aya and ava became e and o. The cases where RV restores the unwritten a in pronunciation, the preceding e & o are to be read as short vowels. This presupposes that at one time instead of e-a and o-a, the forms were perhaps read as ay-a and av-a respectively. This is clearly shown in stotava ambhyàm (RV VIII. 72.5) for stotava(y) ambhyam. Otherwise the readings show ě-a as in sūnavě agne (RV I 1.9) or -a as in viśve devāsõ apturaḥ (1.3.8).
40. Sanskrit has once again developed the sandhi of rtr >F. This is given in grammars with illustrations such as pitr trņa> pitīņa etc. But since IIr > ir, ür in Skt such examples are merely artificial illustrations modelled after å tå>ā, +>i, +å>ū.
41. Macdonell etc. cite one peculiar innovation in Skt, i.e. contraction of vowels after the loss of a m. e. g. rāştramtiha>rāștreha. But such change is almost impossible in Skt and it is never attested in the later phase of the language. These cases have been explained by me elsewhere (New Lights on IE Comparative Grammar p. 2:7). There I have shown that the sandhi form rāştreha is to be analysed as rāștra+iha, where the form rāștra indicates a neuter sg form with nil ending instead of the later and more usual -m ending. Another similar form is dui grahaitat durgraha+etat for durgraham +etat.
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